"Even the U.S. Senate is more progressive than Hollywood," reads the billboard to don a major Los Angeles intersection this month, when the Academy bestows the 2002 Oscars. According to the Celluloid Ceiling, the annual study commissioned by the Guerilla Girls, a collective of feminist artist rabble-rousers, only 4% of Hollywood's 2002 top-grossing 100 films were directed by women (compared to the number of female U.S. senators, currently at a record high of 14%). Even though scores of women continue to enter the film industry as producers, writers, editors, directors, and cinematographers, mainstream recognition of women's cinematic achievements is still far behind where it should be.
Platforms such as the Boston International Festival of Women's Cinema address this gap by celebrating the works of prominent and emerging women filmmakers from around the world. The 2003 festival will take place April 3-6 at the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline and the Brattle Theater in Cambridge. Also announced is a pre-festival "sneak" screening of Lisa Cholodenko's LAUREL CANYON (U.S., 2003), which will take place at the Coolidge on Thursday, March 27.
For eleven years, Marianne Lampke and Connie White have catalyzed the wider recognition of women's cinema through Beacon Cinema Group's nationally recognized, award-winning festival. In addition to helping market commercial films made by women, over the years the festival has brought greater visibility to independent films-in some cases helping filmmakers land a distributor, earn a spot in other festivals, or get a review of their work in major outlets. The festival also serves to benefit the Boston filmmaking community by allowing local filmmakers to interact with leading producers, directors, and screenwriters who are often present to introduce their work.
This year's festival received the distinct honor of being awarded a grant from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. With matching funds from the LEF Foundation, the grant will fund this year's workshop and panel, "Roles for Women in the Movies: Indy and Beyond," which will explore the process of creating complex, multidimensional on-screen roles for women. "People often say that there aren't any interesting roles for women in cinema. But over the years of running the festival, I've seen the emergence of a multitude of complex roles for women. It's just that these films don't necessarily make it to the Academy Awards," said Lampke.
As always, the line-up also includes several powerful documentaries. The epic LOVE AND DIANE (U.S., 2002) by Jennifer Dworkin is the story of three generations affected by the negligence of social service institutions, centering on the reunification of an18-year-old, HIV-positive woman, and her mother, whose previous drug abuse caused her to lose custody of her six children. Yvonne Welbon's SISTERS IN CINEMA (U.S., 2003) is a tribute to Black women directors such as Maya Angelou, Zora Neale Hurston, Julie Dash, Cheryl Dunye, and local filmmaker Demane Davis. Her film is also part of a project to create a complete index of past and contemporary African American women filmmakers.
The festival will also showcase a number of first-features by emerging filmmakers. Awarded Best Debut Feature at the Toronto International Film Festival, MARION BRIDGE (Canada 2002), directed by Wiebke von Carolsfeld, centers on three sisters when they return home to their ailing mother and must confront family secrets that are bubbling to the surface. Also hailing from Canada, Soo Jyu's RUB AND TUG (2002) playfully humanizes the plight of sex workers as a trio of employees at a full-body massage parlor revolt against their boss (Don McKellar).
Works by New England filmmakers include DANCE BY DESIGN (U.S., 2002), Valerie Weiss's debut feature that was produced out of Harvard's Dudley Film Program, and RECONSTRUCTION (U.S., 2001) by Irene Lusztig, an investigation into communist Rumania's political trials for the "Ioanid Gang" bank heist of 1959, in which the filmmaker's grandmother was implicated and condemned to life in prison.
Lampke shared that the breadth and scope of this year's festival speaks largely to the strength of its sponsors. In addition to AMPAS and the LEF Foundation, the festival has received support from major sponsors such as The Sundance Channel and J. Jill The Store. "We are honored to have such an esteemed list of major sponsors, especially ones that really reflect and support the mission of the festival," said Lampke.
The complete line-up will be announced March 7 and posted on the festival website, www.beaconcinema.com/womfest. Festival information can also be picked up in the Brattle and Coolidge lobbies. Advance tickets are available through TicketWeb by calling 1-866-468-7619, online through the festival website, or at the theatre lobbies. The Brattle Theatre is located at 40 Brattle Street in Harvard Square in Cambridge, and The Coolidge Corner Theatre is located at 290 Harvard Street in Brookline.