Deadline: 31 August 2013.

Guidelines:

• Women directors from any country may enter. In the case of multiple directors, all should be women.
• Films should deal with feminist issues and/or be feminist in their representation of women.
• Films can be of any length or genre, and from any year.
• Non-English language films should be presented in English-subtitled versions.

How to submit:

Click on one of the buttons below to pay your submission fee via PayPal or with a credit/debit card.

Pay submission fee for Short Film (under 30 minutes) – £5.

Pay submission fee for Mid to Full Length Film (30+ minutes) – £10.

Email submissions@londonfeministfilmfestival.com with a link to your film online or to request the postal address for submitting via DVD. Please include the following information in your email:

• Title of film
• Name, contact details, and short biography of film director(s)
• Genre
• Release year
• Country of production
• Film credits (producer, writer, and main cast)
• Language
• Synopsis of film including why you think it is suitable for the festival
• Length of film in minutes
• Aspect ratio
• Screening certificate (if applicable)
• A minimum of three high resolution images of your films
• Where it has been screened before, if applicable
• PayPal payment confirmation number

Submission confirmations: We will email you with a confirmation of your received submission as soon as possible after receiving it. If you don’t receive confirmation after a week, please get in touch.

Successful applicants will be notified by October 2013.

Thanks and good luck!

Disclaimer: The festival reserves the right to use an excerpt not exceeding three minutes from any submitted films for promotional purposes.

In the Feature Film category five films were eligible: Audre Lorde – The Berlin Years 1984–1992, The Border Crossing, Ladies’ Turn, Lesbiana – A Parallel Revolution, and The Witches of Gambaga. The award for Best Feature Film went to…

BEST FEATURE FILM AWARD

Hélène Harder for LADIES’ TURN

“[Using] the voices of women who are living it makes the film very genuine and opens a window on the reality of the obstacles posed by prejudices”. Erica Albini, juror

“A highly engaging and assured work of observational documentary”. Annette Kuhn, juror

In the Short Film category, 10 films were eligible: As a Warrior, Beautiful Sentence, Give Us a Smile, I Too Have a Name, Kung Fu Grandma, Sari Stories, Seating Code, She Was No Greta Garbo, Taxi Sister, and The Womanhood. The award for Best Short Film went to…

BEST SHORT FILM AWARD

Jeong-One Park for KUNG FU GRANDMA

“At once frightening and empowering. Too often, stories decontextualize Africa’s problems … but this film, however uncomfortable, views the sexual assault of elders – as well as the community’s response – from within. Against the backdrop of saviorist narratives about Africa, the reverence with which Kung Fu Grandma highlights community-driven solutions is assuring”. Spectra, juror

All the films screened at the 2012 London Feminist Film Festival were also up for an award chosen by you – the Feminist Favourite Audience Award. It was really close, and after all votes had been counted we called one of our previous recipients back onto the stage! The Feminist Favourite Audience Award went to…

FEMINIST FAVOURITE AUDIENCE AWARD

Hélène Harder for LADIES’ TURN

It was great to see that there is such a huge demand for films focussing not only on work by women directors but also addressing social issues in a feminist context. Tickets for nearly all sessions sold out and the films we screened were very well received. We were really pleased with the interesting and insightful discussions on the panels and the level of participation from our audiences who really engaged with the festival and the themes of the screenings. It was also good to see that a platform such as the London Feminist Film Festival succeeded in providing space for audiences, activists, and filmmakers to network, share ideas, and be inspired by one another. As one attendee commented, ‘It’s great to be at a festival which feels like a community!’.

At last night’s awards ceremony we announced the winners of our three awards: Best Short Film went to Kung Fu Grandma by Jeong-One Park, while Ladies’ Turn by Hélène Harder picked up both Best Feature Film and the Feminist Favourite Audience Award!

Thanks so much to everyone who made the festival such a success – to the directors for their amazing films, to the panellists, to our matron Bidisha, to the jurors, to everyone who helped out along the way, to the Hackney Picturehouse and their staff, and to all the people who came to see the films!

We look forward to having a little break, but will be in touch again soon with photos and film footage from the festival as well as updates in due course on the next steps for LFFF! It doesn’t end here!

In the article, Spectra also gives a mini-review of Taxi Sister, which she describes as a ‘tour through Dakar’s streets, segregated by gender, class, and tourist visas, offering poignant, insightful, and humorous insights along the way.

In a separate post, related to Spectra’s partnership with the London Feminist Film Festival, she reflects on her work with us and her thoughts on How to increase Media Diversity.

As Yvonne will not be able to join us for the festival, we caught up with her for a short interview to discuss sisterhood, superheroines, and the negative portrayal of menstruation in the media.

Before writing and directing The Womanhood you had various lines of work, including set decorator, script supervisor, and second assistant director. Can you tell us a bit about your first steps in the film industry?

I began working in the film industry as a script supervisor. I got my first script supervising job on a short film during my fresher year at Emerson. It was during that shoot that I discovered my passion for that position. After that shoot I decided to focus on getting as much experience as I possibly could so I devoted almost all of my free time to working on student film sets. Though I did and still do greatly enjoy script supervising, I knew I wanted to eventually direct and I figured the more experience under my belt, the more likely I’d have a chance at actually getting the opportunity to do so. Now that I’ve graduated from college I feel as though I’m taking these first steps all over again and I’m as excited as ever to see where they lead me.

How did you get the idea for The Womanhood and was it clear for you from the start that you were going to direct it?

To be honest, the idea for The Womanhood came to me while I was in fact a ‘member of the force’. I was trying to come up with ideas as to what could possibly make getting your period fun when I jokingly told my mom: ‘You know, it wouldn’t be so bad if we got to at least be superheroes and have some sort of superpowers’. She agreed and together we started joking about how chocolate would be our power-up and PMS would be our superpowers and then it hit me that I needed to make a film about it. I had been wanting to try my hand at directing for a while so when I came up with this idea I knew right off the bat that I wanted to personally direct it.

What is The Womanhood about, for you?

For me, The Womanhood is about female empowerment. Within the world of The Womanhood, the villains are stereotypical male chauvinists, the women in distress are victims of their chauvinistic ways, and the heroes are women who stick up for the other women. The film is about the camaraderie between women and this notion of being there for each other in order to seek justice against the stereotypical chauvinistic man.

Furthermore, The Womanhood is also mainly about countering the media’s depiction of periods. In today’s society we are constantly reminded of how terrible periods are; whether it be a commercial for pain-relievers reminding everyone of the unpleasant cramps, or a TV show insinuating that all women who have their periods are unable to control their emotions. My intention was to help counteract all the negativity by shining a positive light on periods and teaching young girls that getting their first period isn’t as scary as the media tends to portray it.

The London Feminist Film Festival is the third feminist film festival The Womanhood will be screened at. What are your thoughts about the film’s popularity at feminist film festivals?

Being that I made the film with the intention of it being a story of female empowerment, I am very proud of its current success within the feminist film festival circuit. It’s very reassuring and comforting to learn your film’s main message is in fact being perceived correctly.

How did you go about funding and planning your directorial debut?

When it came to funding, my Executive Producer Tara Mastroeni and I put together several fundraisers to help us achieve our goal. In the end, the bulk of the budget came from my own savings which I had put away specifically for this project.

You recently graduated summa cum laude with a BA in Directing Narrative Fiction and a minor in Photography. How have things changed for you as a filmmaker since graduation?

As a filmmaker, the biggest change I’ve encountered since graduation is the type of projects I’m working on. Prior to graduation I only worked on one feature film and since graduating I’ve been fortunate enough to work on three more and I couldn’t be more excited. I feel as though I’m really just building up my experience once again only this time on professional shoots rather than student sets.

You are currently working on a couple of projects in various roles, including assistant director. Are you working on another film of your own in the meantime as well? If so, can you tell us a bit more about it?

As a matter of fact I am currently working on another film of my own. I’m only in the very early stages of development however I can say it is another feminist project. It provides the stereotypically ‘mundane mom’ character with a much more action-packed life.

What is your favourite feminist film?

One of my favourite feminist films is Legally Blonde. I love how it manages to portray such a powerful female character through so many negative stereotypes. One of my favourite feminist TV shows is Buffy The Vampire Slayer. It encompasses so many strong female characters yet none of them feel repetitive.

Thank you Yvonne!

The Womanhood will celebrate its UK PREMIERE at the London Feminist Film Festival on Sunday 2 December at 6.30 pm as part of the FIGHTING BACK! short films screening.

We can hardly believe it but Lesbiana has SOLD OUT AGAIN!! Sorry, there won’t be any more tickets, as that was the BIGGEST screen at the Picturehouse! How exciting!! It’s gonna be a good one!

Spectra concludes that the film ’does not cast its subjects into guilty or innocent’ but moves them ‘from the margins of faceless prison statistics’ and that director Suzanne Cohen ‘reveals her subjects as so much more: hopeful, anguished, flawed, good-humored, regretful, silly … a beautiful sentence, indeed’. You can read Spectra’s full review here.

We have just heard that one of the film’s leads, Nimmi Harasgama, will be able to join Jill Daniels, director of The Border Crossing, for a panel discussion following the screening. Suba however will not be able to join us for the festival, so we spoke to her in the run up to the festival to discuss her film and its premiere at this year’s Berlinale.

I Too Have a Name is your first film as a writer and director. What
is your background and how did you get into the film industry?

Well, I didn’t have a structured path into film. My background was really in policy and political science, and I have worked mostly in those areas. I’d always wanted to work in film however, but it took some time, working on friends’ films and the like, to find my own way into doing my first film, which this is. In retrospect however, all of my varied interests have been extremely useful in writing, production, and post production so I can’t complain!

What was your motivation for wanting to tell the story of I Too Have a Name?

As a woman, I felt that the way women experienced loss and trauma was very different from men, particularly in a patriarchal society where they are not privileged in structures of power. I also felt that it was important to show this experience, for both men and women, and for people from the developed world and the developing world, to show that there was a way in which one could locate agency in the narrative of one’s own life. Too often, women are seen as victims or purely as objects of desire; I wanted to get away from that but in a way that was still relevant in a Sri Lankan context and not in a ‘Western’ way. That sounds very abstract, but it really was the underpinning force behind I Too Have A Name.

How did you go about financing and planning your directorial debut?

I wish there was more planning and better financing!! I had an amazing cast and crew who really believed in the project. Many people volunteered their time and effort both while shooting and during the post in New York as well. It all came together when it had to, but there was very little (besides the script) that was planned in advance!!

What did you take away from directing your first film?

I think the importance of working with the right people. If we hadn’t had such a wonderful cast and crew, I really do believe it would have been a different film. Also, of course, the importance of being responsive to the many obstacles that occur during shooting, and trying to ensure that the final film is as close as possible to what you dreamed up at a desk!

I Too Have a Name was selected and screened at the Berlin Film
Festival this year. What was that like and did you attend the
screening?

The Berlinale was our premiere and it was great to have the film selected there and screened. It was also meaningful because some of the crew attended along with me all the way from Sri Lanka, making it a shared experience. It was wonderful to see it for the first time on the big screen, with real, dedicated audiences at sold out screenings! Whatever the audience size, however, I find that really good film festivals are ones with really dedicated staff devoted to cinema and unique histories, and we are happy to screen at those wherever we can.

What are your plans for the near future?

I think the next plan is really to start writing at some point on the different ideas that are swimming around in my head. Writing is never a planned process or a linear one for me, so it’s hard to predict what will happen on that front. I also really enjoy helping out on friends’ films and I imagine I’ll continue doing that as much as possible as well.

What is your favourite feminist film?

Ooh, a difficult question. I think feminism looks different in different countries, but a film I consider a feminist evocation and one that I can say did influence me quite a bit in my thinking was Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern. As a subtle allegory on both patriarchy and censorship that showed how women were prevented from choosing their own way of life, I found it remarkable in its originality at the time and in its feminist consciousness of the developing world.

I Too Have a Name will celebrate its UK PREMIERE at the London Feminist Film Festival on Sunday 2 December at 4.00 pm as part of the MEMORIES screening.

Lesbiana – A Parallel Revolution has been moved up from Screen 2 to Screen 1 at Hackney Picturehouse, meaning there are more tickets on sale now! Tickets had sold out so quickly and we were still getting people wanting to buy tickets, so we thought it would be great to move it up a screen and allow more people to see this amazing film. This means that seating will now be unallocated, so if you bought your ticket before the film got moved up a screen your seat number won’t be valid for Screen 1. But we hope you’ll understand and will be as excited as we are that the film has moved up a screen!

You can book your tickets through the Hackney Picturehouse website.