DENVER FILM SOCIETY ANNOUNCES FILMS, SCHEDULE AND PROGRAM FOR 6TH ANNUAL WOMEN+FILM FESTIVAL
- INDIVIDUAL TICKETS AND FESTIVAL PASSES ON SALE NOW -
February 26, 2016 (Denver, CO) - The Denver Film Society announced today its full Festival program and schedule for the 6th Annual Women+Film Festival. The Festival will take place at the Sie FilmCenter March 15 - 20 and individual tickets and all-access passes are on sale now. The Women+Film Festival shines a spotlight on stories by, for and about women with a high profile, female-centric mix of documentaries, feature presentations and short films.
This year the Festival will honor acclaimed cinematographer Kirsten Johnson by screening her directorial debut, Cameraperson. Johnson is one of the most notable cinematographers working in documentary cinema today, having shot Citizenfour, Happy Valley, Fahrenheit 9/11, The Oath, The Invisible War (Women+Film Festival, 2014) and dozens of other essential documentaries.
"In a year where the conversation has focused on the lack of inclusion of women in key roles in film, we are honored to celebrate the contributions of Kirsten Johnson and so many female filmmakers with our full slate of programming," says Barbara Bridges, founder of the Women+Film program.
The Women+Film Festival opens Tuesday, March 15 with the feature It Had to Be You, a whimsical romantic comedy that is raunchy, yet gentle. The Festival will close on Sunday, March 20 with the cleverly titled documentary, Love Between the Covers, a look at the powerful women behind the Romance publishing industry with director, Laurie Kahn in-person. Both films are Colorado premieres.
Tickets to opening night are $20 for DFS Members and $25 for non-members, and include a post-reception. Closing Night will also include a Q&A with the director following the screening. All-access Festival passes are on sale now. A complete Festival pass to the Women+Film Festival is $90 for DFS members and $100 for non-members. The pass includes all films, as well as access to receptions, panels and special events. Visit DenverFilm.org for more information and to purchase your passes. To further support the Women+Film Festival, join the Women+Film Premiere Circle. The $500 membership includes an all-access pass to the Festival, tickets to Women+Film events throughout the year and the Denver Film Festival. More information about the Women+Film Premiere Circle Membership can be found here.
Direct Link to see the full schedule
http://www.denverfilm.org/filmcenter/detail.aspx?id=28208
Online & Social Media: www.denverfilm.org "Like" Denver Film Society on Facebook (Facebook.com/DenverFilm), "Follow" Denver Film Society on Twitter(@DenverFilm), join the conversation by using #WomenFF
TICKETS
Individual tickets and all-access passes can be purchased at denverfilm.org or in-person at the box office at the Sie FilmCenter (2510 East Colfax Avenue, Denver). All Women+Film Festival screenings and events will take place at the Sie FilmCenter.
NARRATIVE
It Had To Be You - USA - (Director: Sasha Gordon)
Sonia is a quirky, neurotic jingle writer who's always dreamt of a big and exciting life. Surprised by a sudden proposal and subsequent ultimatum from her easy-going boyfriend, Chris, Sonia has to decide whether she'll join the ranks of her married friends or take a leap and pursue her fantasies. A whimsical romantic comedy that's raunchy and yet, gentle,
It Had to Be You explores the choices women face today while satirizing cultural expectations of gender and romance.
My Friend from the Park - Argentina/Uruguay - (Director: Ana Katz)
Liz is struggling to adjust to her new life as a mother. With her husband in a different country for work, Liz has left her job to stay at home and care for their baby, Nicanor. Making things worse is the judgmental nanny she has hired and a cliquey group of overly enthusiastic parents. Feeling lost and alone, Liz begins taking Nicanor to the neighborhood park, where she strikes up a friendship with the blunt, spontaneous Rosa. From a dine-and-dash adventure to sharing fears about motherhood, Liz feels an immediate, liberating bond with Rosa. That freedom soon turns into paranoia, however, as Liz begins to suspect Rosa's true intentions when she is sucked into Rosa's world of stolen cars, un- stable sisters, and shady pasts.
DOCUMENTARIES
The Anthropologist - USA - (Director: Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, Jeremy Newberger)
At the core of The Anthropologist are the parallel stories of two women: Margaret Mead, who popularized cultural anthropology in America; and Susie Crate, an environmental anthropologist currently studying the impact of climate change. Uniquely revealed from their daughters' perspectives, Mead and Crate demonstrate a fascination with how societies are forced to negotiate the disruption of their traditional ways of life, whether through encounters with the outside world or the unprecedented change wrought by melting permafrost, receding glaciers, and rising tides.
The Babushkas of Chernobyl - Ukraine - (Director: Holly Morris, Anne Bogart)
In the radioactive Dead Zone surrounding Chernobyl's Reactor No. 4, a defiant community of women scratches out an existence on some of the most toxic land on Earth. They share this hauntingly beautiful but lethal landscape with an assortment of visitors-- scientists, soldiers, and even 'stalkers' -- young thrill-seekers who sneak in to pursue post-apocalyptic video game- inspired fantasies. Why the women chose to return after the disaster - defying the authorities and endangering their health - is a remarkable tale about the pull of home, the healing power of shaping one's destiny, and the subjective nature of risk.
The Bad Kids - USA - (Director: Keith Fulton, Lou Pepe)
Located in an impoverished Mojave Desert community, Black Rock Continuation High School is one of California's alternative schools for students at risk of dropping out. Every student here has fallen so far behind in credits that they have no hope of earning a diploma at a traditional high school. Black Rock is their last chance. The Bad Kids is an observational documentary that chronicles one extraordinary principal's mission to realize the potential of these students whom the system has deemed lost causes. Employing a verité approach during a year at the school, the film follows Principal Vonda Viland as she coaches three at-risk teens--a new father who can't support his family, a young woman grappling with sexual abuse, and an angry young man from an unstable home--through the traumas and obstacles that rob them of their spirit and threaten their goal of a high school diploma. But The Bad Kids is not just a story of one teacher making a difference. It is a look at a practical model for how public education can address and combat the crippling effects of poverty in the lives of other American schoolchildren. Parallel to her efforts with the three main characters, we also see Viland's philosophies in constant application: through the customs of the school, through her attentions to other teens and their crises, and through her tireless efforts to promote the school's mission both within the district and at the state level. The Bad Kids is not a story of triumph against all odds, because that isn't the reality of these students' lives or expectations. It is a story of taking achievable steps toward pride and security.
Cameraperson - USA - (Director: Kirsten Johnson)
What does it mean to film another person? How does it affect that person - and what does it do to the one who films? Kirsten Johnson is one of the most notable cinematographers working in documentary cinema today, having shot Citizenfour, Happy Valley, Fahrenheit 9/11, The Oath, The Invisible War, and dozens of other essential documentaries. With her visually radical memoir Cameraperson, Johnson presents an extraordinary and deeply poetic film of her own, drawing on the remarkable and varied footage that she has shot and reframing it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between story-telling and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented in so many other directors' films as one reflection of truth into another kind of story - one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.
City of Gold - USA - (Director: Laura Gabbert)
In this richly penetrating documentary odyssey, Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold shows us a Los Angeles where ethnic cooking is a kaleidoscopic portal to the mysteries of an unwieldy city and the soul of America.
Eva Hesse - USA/Germany - (Director: Marcie Begleiter)
As the wild ride of the 1960's came to a close, Eva Hesse, a 34 year-old German-born American artist was cresting the wave of a swiftly rising career. One of the few women recognized as central to the New York art scene, she had over 20 group shows scheduled for 1970 in addition to being chosen for a cover article in ArtForum Magazine. Her work was finally receiving both the critical and commercial attention it deserved. When she died in May, 1970 from a brain tumor, the life of one of that decades' most passionate and brilliant artists was tragically cut short. As Jonathon Keats wrote in Art and Antiques Magazine "Yet the end of her life proved to be only the beginning of her career. The couple of solo gallery shows she hustled in the 11 years following her graduation from the Yale School of Art have since been eclipsed by multiple posthumous retrospectives at major museums from the Guggenheim to the Hirshhorn to the Tate." Her work is now held by many important museum collections including the Whitney, MoMA, the Hirschhorn, the Pompidou in Paris and London's Tate Modern.
Love Between The Covers - USA - (Director: Laurie Kahn)
Love stories are universal. Love stories are powerful. And so are the women who write them. For three years, the filmmakers follow the lives of five published romance authors and one unpublished newbie as they build their businesses, find and lose loved ones, cope with a tsunami of change in publishing, and earn a living doing what they love-while empowering others to do the same. Romance is the behemoth of the publishing industry; it outsells mystery, sci-fi, and fantasy combined. Yet no filmmaker has ever taken an honest look at the amazing global community that romance writers and readers have built. Until now.
Shoulder the Lion - USA - (Director: Erinnisse Rebisz, Patryk Rebisz)
Using stories of three artists who have lost a sense defining their art, this visual essay explores meaning of images, fragility of memories and desire for relevance in today's world. A photographer, who is blind, questions the power of images in today's visually saturated culture. Forced to give up his dream of playing music due to his advancing hearing loss, musician must reinvent his future. A painter who lost half her brain in a boxing match searches for her place in life unsure of what she should be to the world. The film attempts to ask what it takes for someone to keep on going in times of uncertainty, and uses unique film form to produce the answers.
A Small Good Thing - USA - (Director: Pamela Tanner Boll)
For the longest time, we've been living as though the more we have -- the more money, the more goods -- the happier we'll be. Following six people in one community over a year, A Small Good Thing tells the stories of people moving away from a philosophy of 'more is better' toward a more holistic conception of well-being--one based on a close connection to their health, the natural world, and to the greater good.
Speed Sisters - USA - (Director: Amber Fares)
The Speed Sisters are the first all-woman race car driving team in the Middle East. Grabbing headlines and turning heads at improvised tracks across the West Bank, these five women have sped their way into the heart of the gritty, male-dominated Palestinian street car-racing scene. Weaving together their lives on and off the track Speed Sisters takes you on a surprising journey into the drive to go further and faster than anyone thought you could.
Trapped - USA - (Director: Dawn Porter)
Since 2010, 288 laws regulating abortion providers have been passed by state legislatures. In total, 44 states and the District of Columbia have measures subjecting abortion providers to legal restrictions not imposed on other medical professionals. Unable to comply with these far-reaching and medically unnecessary laws, clinics have taken their fight to the courts. As the U.S. Supreme Court decides in 2016 whether individual states may essentially outlaw abortion (Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt), Trapped follows clinic workers and lawyers who are on the front lines of the battle to keep abortion safe and legal for millions of American women.
SHORTS
Field of Vision - USA - (Various Directors)
Field of Vision is a filmmaker-driven visual journalism film unit co-created by Laura Poitras, AJ Schnack and Charlotte Cook that pairs filmmakers with developing and ongoing stories around the globe.
PANELS
Filmmaker Focus Panel
Please Join the Denver Film Society's Filmmaker Focus for an important discussion on gender equity in the entertainment industry. With high profile actresses like Jennifer Lawrence demanding equal pay, the conversation around diversity and the movie business has become louder and more urgent. For example: Of 347 films in the Director's Guild of America's inaugural Feature Film Diversity Report, 82.4 percent were by white male directors. Please join three amazing female filmmakers as they discuss their views on the gender divide in the industry and how women can work together to bridge that gap for the future.
For more information visit: denverfilm.org