A REEL Great Annual Film Fest in Brattleboro
By Emma Hansen
Brattleboro began hosting the Women’s Film Festival in 1992. Now in its 19th year, the festival has evolved into a ten-day event celebrating film and art from women around the world.
This year’s screenings include 25 compelling feature films and documentaries from nine countries, depicting women’s struggles and journeys through both dramas and comedies. Between films, festival-goers can view an exhibit of art and crafts by women at the Hooker-Dunham Theater & Gallery, entitled “Visions,” and bid in its month-long auction. The festival concludes with the Boston-based choral group Cappella Clausura performing sacred music by women composers. The screenings, exhibit, and concert all benefit the Women’s Crisis Center of Windham County (WCC).
The Women’s Film Festival was originally conceived as a benefit for WCC, according to Arlene Distler, who has selected films for and helped promote the festival since 1998. Distler says the idea “formed from the need to create a positive legacy” after a local woman was stabbed to death in public by her boyfriend.
All but four of this year’s films were directed by women. Distler points out that, as directors, “women must do more with less, as it is famously harder for women filmmakers to raise money” than their male counterparts. Women directors also find it more difficult to gain exposure for their films, she adds.
Distler has found, perhaps surprisingly to some, that there are a number of male Iranian directors who have brought women characters to the screen with “great sensitivity and clarity and compassion.” Ironically, she says, despite the West’s negative view of Iranian society, these directors have “taken it upon themselves to boldly show the repression [and] societal ills that befall women in that part of the world.”
It’s not just international films that made the cut. The selection team makes a point to include Vermont filmmakers who focus on female stories. Past festivals have featured films by Nora Jacobson from Norwich and Eleanor Lanahan from Burlington. A few years ago, a film by Vermonters Lisa Merton and Alan Dater called Taking Root won the “Best of the Fest” award.
This year, the Vermont filmmaker to watch is Liz Canner. Her documentary Orgasm, Inc. tells the story of the pharmaceutical industry’s race to create the first FDA-approved Viagra drug for women. Distler notes an increase over the past few years of films about “women’s biology, and particularly women’s sexual biology.” With reproductive legislation in question, both locally and nationally, it makes sense for filmmakers to focus on such an important – and cross-culturally relevant – topic.
With its impressively varied and comprehensive lineup of films, the Festival is the perfect way to beat winter blues.
The Women’s Film Festival runs Friday-Sunday, March 12-21, in three Brattleboro locations: the Latchis Theater, the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, and the Hooker-Dunham Theater & Gallery. The gallery exhibit, “Visions,” opens Friday, March 5. Capella Clausura performs Sunday, March 28. For more info and a full schedule and description of screenings, visit www.womensfilmfestival.org.
Vermont Woman intern Emma Hansen is a student at the University of Vermont.
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