Spring brings a breeze of women's films

The 13th International Filmmor Women Film Festival on Wheels announced its events program and the nominees for the "Altın Bamya" (Golden Okra) during a press conference on Tuesday at the Rampa Theater. The festival will launch on March 13 in Istanbul under the general themes of women's cinema, women's resistance and the cinema of resistance. Until April 27, the festival will visit six different cities including Istanbul from March 13 to 22, Denizli on March 28 and 29, Muğla's Bodrum district on April 4 and 5, Diyarbakır on April 11 and 12, Adana on April 18 and 19 and İzmir on April 25 to 26. Taking the floor for the opening speech, Melek Özman, the festival's director, said that there is an attack on women taking place all around the world. "However, women globally show their resistance, and the festival committee wants to draw attention to the efforts of women. We witness violence against them in newspapers and on TV channels, yet women's resistance against violence is not covered as much. We are here to show it," Özman emphasized.

Throughout the festival, which commenced 12 years ago with the motto "Women make cinema," 61 films from 25 countries will be screened at Istanbul Modern, Pera Museum and the Rampa Theater. This year's film session themes will be: "Women's Cinema," "Our Body is Ours," "A Purse of Her Own," "Sexuality," "A film show from Margarethe von Trotta" and "A film show from Nahid Persson Sarvestani." Among the festival's esteemed guests, Margarethe von Trotta, who has created powerful female characters in her films since 1975, will be at Istanbul Modern on March 17. As a part of the festival, the workshop "Kaleidoscope" will present panel sessions with women featured in the films depicting resistance movements from Turkey and other countries. Viewers can meet with directors as well. The workshop sessions will begin with Hüseyin Karabey, the director of "Sesime Gel/Were Denge min" (Come to My Voice), on March 19 at the Rampa Theater. The session will introduce male directors who make films about women and explore what women suffer through their eyes.

Women's cinema
10,949 Women / France, Algeria

Director Nassima Guessoum introduces Nassima Hablal, a forgotten heroine of the Algerian Revolution, in Algeria. The film is about Hablal, an impressive woman living with her grandchild and working as the secretary of political head of the National Front of Liberation, but also depicts the role of women in the fight for an independent Algeria.

Let Them Eat Cake / USA

How is it that something that makes some people sick or kills others can be a sweet expression of passion and cultural values? Unaffordable for some yet a fast food alternative for others, cakes are a traditional variety of food, gradually becoming unfavorable for more people. The film offers global insight into the pleasures and risks of pastry, and also contains pleasure and risk with appetizing scenes of pastry making.

The September Women / Turkey

Sept. 12, 1980, was a very dark day in Turkish history. "The September Women," produced 34 years after the day when nothing was like it had been before, turns the camera on women who lived through the coup d'etat. The testimonies of 12 women also provides evidence that the feminist movement, which was the first movement to fill the streets emptied by the coup, was no coincidence.

Macondo / Austria

Ramazan is only 11-years-old, but he feels obliged to undertake the duty of being the man of the house and take the responsibility of his mother and two sisters. The center of the world is Macondo, an industrial suburb of Vienna where he lives with his neighbors from different ethnic origins. Ramazan translates for his mother who can't speak enough German to speak with the authorities. Aminat, who has lost her husband during the war, and her children will meet Isa in their struggle for survival.

Matilde / Mexico

At 72, Matilde realizes that she has nothing to do other than wait for death. She spends her days contemplating the view through the window of an old bus in Guanajuato until she confronts the unexpected.

The Easter Crumble / Poland

Urszula is preparing a traditional Easter breakfast to welcome her daughter and her new fiance.
When the couple arrives, the man turns out to be 30 years older than Urszula's daughter. As Easter breakfast turns into supper, Urszula experiences the the worst day of her life.

The Vast Landscape / Croatia

Seven characters, a foxhunter, a female porcelain shopkeeper, two scientist brothers, a seal, a boy and a music box, sit in their rooms filled with traces of longing, separated by a vast and bleak landscape. Four stories focus on love, contemplation and self-destruction.

Rosa Luxembourg / Germany

The fllm depicts a portrait of Rosa Luxembourg as a woman with aspirations, love stories and dreams aside from her political identity. She is a woman who falls in love, becomes jealous, yearns for a child, dances, likes to drink wine at sunset and turns a small corner in the prison's courtyard into a garden with flowers she planted. She is a true revolutionary aware that the revolution is a process to become real.

Count Us In / Turkey

Being a disabled woman in Turkey translates to doubled disadvantage and a hard life that requires struggle. Disabled women in Trabzon discuss their struggle of being disabled woman in Turkey through sharing their own stories and examples from their lives.

New Borns / India

"New Borns" is a documentary on women who survived acid attacks, leading the audience on a journey through the suffocation of private and public spaces in a nameless dystopia city.

Regarding Susan Sontag / USA

"Regarding Susan Sontag" is an original and sincere documentary about the life of one of the most provocative thinkers of the 20th century. The film features Susan Sontag, one of the important literary, political and feminist icons of her generation, her early infatuation with books, her first experience in a gay bar, her early marriage and her last love with her passion and frankness.

Tales / Iran

"Tales" narrates the story of men and women who have to fight for their rights: Women, filmmakers, workers, intellectuals, state employees, social workers and others. They have one point in common: They are passionate and in love. Tales is a love story about women and men who find the power to fight for a better life and the hope to get over the difficulties they face in love and passion.

Ziazan / Turkey

Little Ziazan's uncle earns his living by shuttle trading between Turkey and Armenia. As the border between the two countries is closed, he has to make a 36-hour journey through Georgia each time. The uncle brings small presents for his nephew every time he returns from Turkey, and Ziazan likes chocolate cream tubes the most. One day, Ziazan wants to have an adventure. He decides to hide in his uncle's luggage, secretly go to Turkey and buy lots of chocolate cream tubes. But will he make it?

The Truth Beneath the Ground: Guatemala, the Silenced Genocide / Spain

Between 1960 and 1966 in Guatemala, more than 200, 000 people were killed in systematic oppression and massacres, especially in parts where Mayas were the majority. Photographer Miquel Dewever-Plana brings together exhuming processes and his testimonies in a book namesake as the film. Years after, the Mayas come back for this book, which tells
their own story.

Marussia / France, Russia

Lucia, from Russia, and her 6-year-old daughter find themselves living on the streets of Paris. They don't have a stable life and sleep wherever they can: One night in the house of a Russian priest, another night in the social services center or a four-star hotel. They live each day as the day their life will change, meet different people, aimlessly wander around and wait for the miracle that will find them. Because their lives don't change as they hope and begin sleeping under a bridge, members of the Russian community buy them tickets to go back home. Maruissa rebels against her mother and runs away, as she wants to know what a real childhood is like. But what would Lucia do?