FILM
Elimination of Violence Against Women Days
Martha (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974, Drama, 112')
On Wednesday, November 23, 2022 to coincide with Elimination of Violence Against Women Days, in the anticipation of the 10th edition of Baturu Cultural Festival, Consulate of Germany in Chengdu together with Goethe Institute will present “Martha” (1974) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Synopsis
After the death of her abusive father, the lonely librarian Martha marries an equally vile businessman - Helmut. The cruel and torturous nature of their relationship leads Martha to believe Helmut might be trying to kill her.
Director’s Bio
Rainer Werner Fassbinder (31 May 1945 – 10 June 1982), sometimes credited as R. W. Fassbinder, was a German filmmaker. He is widely regarded as a prominent figure and catalyst of the New German Cinema movement. Fassbinder's main theme was the exploitability of feelings. His films dealt with the Nazi past, the German economic miracle or the terror of the Red Army Faction.
His first feature-length film was a gangster movie called Love Is Colder Than Death (1969); he scored his first domestic commercial success with The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972) and his first international success with Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), both of which are considered masterpieces by contemporary critics. Big-budget projects such as Despair (1978), Lili Marleen and Lola (both 1981) followed. His greatest success came with The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), chronicling the rise and fall of a German woman in the wake of World War II. Other notable films include The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), Fox and His Friends (1975), Satan's Brew (1976), In a Year with 13 Moons (1978), and Querelle (1982), all of which focused on homosexual themes. (Wikipedia)
Brava (Roser Aguilar, 2017, Drama, 91’)
On Friday, November 25, 2022 to coincide with Elimination of Violence Against Women Days, as part of the 10th edition of Baturu Cultural Festival, Miguel De Cervantes Library will screen a drama by Roser Aguilar “Brava” (2017). Producer The event will be introduced by a representative of Baturu Cultural Festival, film producer Li Ziwei.
Synopsis
A woman is sexually assaulted by two young delinquents in a subway in Barcelona. Because of that, she travels to the countryside to her father's house and tries to rebuild her life from that traumatic experience.
Time: 25 November, 2022
Address: Shanghai, Miguel de Cervantes Library, 82 Fuxing Xi Lu, near Yongfu Lu
Gender. Battle for Being Oneself
Baturu Cultural festival & Movies that matter
ON THESE GROUNDS (Garrett Zevgetis，2021, documentary，108’)
An explosive video goes viral, showing a white school resource officer in South Carolina pull a Black teenager from her school desk and throw her across the floor. An outraged nation divides over who is at fault and what role race played in the incident. Healer-Activist Vivian Anderson uproots her life in NYC and moves to South Carolina to help the girl and dismantle the system behind the "Assault at Spring Valley". To contextualize this incident, geographer Janae Davis treks the surrounding swamps to unearth the overgrown and neglected homes of formerly enslaved people of African descent, drawing a throughline connecting trauma from the past to present.
Director’s bio
Boston-based filmmaker focusing on fascinating people and social change. My first feature documentary BEST AND MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS had a World Premiere at SXSW in 2016, and screened at Hot Docs, Mill Valley Film Festival, Camden International Film Festival, Independent Film Festival Boston, Margaret Mead Film Festival and more, receiving five festival awards. The film was released theatrically by First Run Features (NYT Critics’ Pick), and broadcast by PBS’ Independent Lens and Netflix. Grew up in Kissimmee, Florida, served in the U.S. Navy during Desert Storm, and earned an MFA in Media Art from Emerson College. Worked at PBS’ FRONTLINE, and as a producer for the nationally syndicated public radio program, “Radio Open Source with Christopher Lydon.” Named one of 10 Filmmakers To Watch by The Independent Magazine.
The Abominable Crime (Micah Fink，2013, documentary，65’)
The Abominable Crime is a documentary that gives voice to gay Jamaicans who, in the face of endemic anti-gay violence, are forced to flee their homeland.
The film follows Simone, a mother, and Maurice, a human rights activist, as they navigate the conflict of loving their homeland and staying alive. Simone is seeking asylum after getting gunned down because she knows her life hangs in the balance. Shortly after Maurice files a case to overturn his country’s anti-sodomy law, his life is put in danger when he is outed by a Jamaican newspaper.
Told firsthand as they unfold, these personal accounts take the audience on an emotionally gripping journey traversing four years and five countries. Their stories expose the roots of homophobia in Jamaican society, reveal the deep psychological and social impacts of discrimination on the lives of gays and lesbians, and offer an intimate first-person perspective on the risks and challenges of seeking asylum abroad.
Director’s bio
Micah Fink, the founder of Common Good Productions, is an award-winning producer, director, and writer specializing in international affairs, public health, science, and the environment. He is also on the faculty at the Graduate Program in Social Documentary at the School Of Visual Arts in New York City.
THE DILEMMA OF DESIRE (Maria Finitzo，2020, documentary, 108’)
Entertaining, thrilling and radical, THE DILEMMA OF DESIRE explores the work of four women who are shattering myths and lies about female sexual desire, bodies and - ultimately - power.
Groundbreaking artist Sophia Wallace challenges long-held ideas of women with her “cliteracy” project, putting front and center the clitoris as fundamental to female orgasm. Dr. Stacey Dutton, a neuroscientist who realized she had never seen a drawing of the clitoris until she discovered Wallace’s work, is now committed to studying its biology and pushing the publishing industry to correct the deliberate omissions of the clitoris in major anatomy textbooks. With 20 years of research, Dr. Lisa Diamond is dismantling outdated notions aboutwomen’s arousal. And industrial designer Ti Chang heads CRAVE, a company dedicated to designing and manufacturing elegant vibrators for women.
Providing the embodiment of this work are the personal stories of Umnia, Becca, Jasmine, Sunny, and Coriama - five young women discovering and owning their sexuality.
THE DILEMMA OF DESIRE is a powerful reminder that true equality will come only when we allarrive at a place of understanding and acknowledgement that women are sexual beings,entitled to live their lives fully within the expression of their desire.
director’s bio
Maria Finitzo (Director/Producer) is a two-time Peabody Award-winning social issue documentary filmmaker whose 30 years as a filmmaker has resulted in a body of work that has won every major broadcast award including most recently the Alfred E duPont Award and has been screened in festivals and theaters around the world. Her films are novelistic in their structure, providing multiple points of
connection for an audience. She allows the narrative arc of her character’s story to evolve, colliding with other subjects from the film, creating a complex, nuanced story that serves as a vehicle to deepen our understanding of society through everyday human drama.
A Fantastic Woman (2017) (Sebastián Lelio，2017，drama，104’)
Marina, a transgender woman who works as a waitress and moonlights as a nightclub singer, is bowled over by the death of her older boyfriend.
director’s bio
Born in 1974, Sebastián Lelio is one of the leading figures (along with Pablo Larraín, Andrés Wood and a few others) of the post-dictatorship Chilean cinema. After graduating from the "Escuela de Cine de Chile" in Santiago, Lelio started by making shorts (he made five from 1995 to 2003, as well as a documentary). From 2005 on, he directed four remarkable feature films, the first three very dark, the fourth one somewhat lighter, which all garnered awards in the festival circuit. The Sacred Family (2005) is kind of Chilean version of Pier Paolo Pasolini's Theorem (1968). It was followed by Navidad (2009), a drama of uncommon intensity focusing on three teenagers alienated from their families and The Year of the Tiger (2011), recounting the escape of an inmate during Chile's 2010 earthquake. Coming after this taught triptych, Gloria (2013) surprises by its peaceful tone. The amorous adventures of Gloria, a sixty-year-old office worker in Santiago, although not without tensions and bitterness, are less upsetting than what Lelio had filmed before. But whether dark or rosy, Lelio's cinema explores the Chilean society of today with the same acuteness.
SHIELD AND SPEAR (Petter Ringbom，2014，documentary，89’)
An artist paints a caricature of South African president Jacob Zuma that provokes a lawsuit, death threats and a massive street protest. Around this incident, Shield and Spear explores a constellation of stories about identity, art, race, and freedom of expression in South Africa, twenty years into democracy.
director’s bio
Petter Ringbom is a New York-based director of documentary and narrative films. His debut feature documentary The Russian Winter, a film about American musician John Forté, premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2012 and screened at IDFA, Moscow Int’l Film Festival, and Gothenburg Int’l Film Festival. His short film May Fly premiered at Stockholm Int’l Film Festival and screened at festivals around the world. Petter’s video collaboration with the artist Karl Haendel, Questions for My Father, has been shown at Harris Lieberman Gallery, Susanne Vielmetter Projects, Utah Museum of Contemporary Arts, and Wexner Center for the Arts. Questions for My Father was selected for the Art Video program at Art Basel Miami in 2012. After studying at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York, Petter partnered in the creative agency Flat, where he served as an art director for clients like MoMA, Red Cross and ESPN. He has taught at Parsons School of Design and New York University and served on the board of the American Institute of Graphic Arts. Petter is a Film Independent Fast Track Fellow for 2013.
feminist film archive
5 films by Barbara Hammer
Nitrate Kisses (1992，documentary，66’55”)
In her first feature, after decades as a pioneer of lesbian cinema, Barbara Hammer weaves striking images of four contemporary gay and lesbian couples with footage of an unearthed, forbidden, and invisible history, searching eroded emulsions and images for lost vestiges of queer culture. Questions of historic representation are examined through addressing the margins, between-the-line readings, and images outside of prescribed textual boundaries. Archival footage from Lot In Sodom (1933), often regarded as the first queer film made in the United States, as well as footage from German narrative and documentary films of the thirties, are interwoven with contemporary footage in this multi-faceted, haunting documentary.
"Nitrate Kisses questions how history is recorded and encourages the viewer, gay or straight, to save scraps, letters, books, records, and snapshots in order to preserve our 'ordinary' lives as history." — Barbara Hammer
NoNo Nooky TV (1987，documentary，11’52)
Using a 16mm Bolex and Amiga computer, Hammer creates a witty and stunning film about how women view their sexuality versus the way male images of women and sex are perceived. The impact of technology on sexuality and emotion and the sensual self is explored through computer language juxtaposed with everyday colloquial language of sex. No No Nooky T.V. confronts the feminist controversy around sexuality with electronic language, pixels and interface. Even the monitor is eroticized in this film/video hybrid that pokes fun at romance, sexuality, and love in our post-industrial age.
Dyketactics (1974，documentary，4’)
"Hammer's films of the '70's are the first made by an openly lesbian American filmmaker to explore lesbian identity, desire and sexuality though avant-garde strategies. Merging the physicality of the female body with that of the film medium, Hammer’s films remain memorable for their pioneering articulation of a lesbian aesthetic.” - Jenni Sorkin, WACK! Art and The Feminist Revolution, 2007.
Multiple Orgasm (1976，documentary，5’32”)
History of the World According to a Lesbian (1988，documentary，16’22”)
She Makes Comics（Marisa Stotter，2014，documentary，70’）
She Makes Comics traces the fascinating history of women in the comics industry. Despite popular assumptions about the comics world, women have been writing, drawing, and reading comics since the medium’s beginnings in the late 19th century. And today, there are scores of women involved in comics and its vibrant fan culture.
Featuring dozens of interviews with such vital figures as Ramona Fradon, Trina Robbins, Joyce Farmer, Karen Berger, Kelly Sue DeConnick, and Becky Cloonan, She Makes Comicsis the first film to bring together the most influential women of the comics world.
director’s bio
Marisa Stotter is the director and producer of She Makes Comics. Based in Los Angeles, she is currently Manager, Creative Affairs at IDW Entertainment, the film and TV development arm of the independent comic book publisher. Prior to IDW, Marisa worked in scripted TV development Condé Nast Entertainment, and she served as executive assistant to veteran producer Gale Anne Hurd at Valhalla Entertainment for 2 years.
Belgian female directors
Stay quiet please (Aude Verbiguié-Soum，2021, Documentary，22’)
In film schools, on a film set, during the screening of their film, women encounter injustices, benevolent sexism, discrimination. They tell us how they decided to act, or why they could not react.
director’s bio
Aude Verbiguié is known for Yassas (2019), Birds of prey (2015) and Stay Quiet Please (2021).
OYSTERS (Maïa Descamps，2019, drama，23’31”)
At a bachelorette party, Charlotte, 30, gets together with old friends she has not seen for a long time. The excitement of the party is marked with apprehension and undercurrents. Charlotte has a secret she has painfully kept to herself. Mouths stay shut like the oysters these women are busy opening. But as shells shatter and hands are torn, truth rises to the surface.
La Protagoniste (Sarah Carlot Jaber，2021, drama，14’)
Being the mother, the secretary, the lover, the nanny, the baby bottle, the side piece of the main male character is no longer enough for our dear Protagonist. Put on "mute" after the allocated time for female* characters in a film was reached, she runs away with her friend Voice-Over for a new journey with plenty of humor.—Sarah Carlot Jaber
director’s bio
Author and director, Sarah Carlot Jaber grew up in the Middle East and work nowadays (2021) in Brussels. A Institut des Arts de Diffusion graduate (2014) and holder of a master degree in Gender Studies (2020), she is particularly interested in themes that meet those two disciplines. With five other filmmakers, members of the 'Elles Font des Films' collective, they have created a series of short films : the 'Female Gaze Collection' (2021). Sarah wrote and directed 'La Protagoniste', a 'meta' comedy that questions representations of female characters in cinema. Sarah is working on her next short fiction film 'Olga' (2021) while continuing to write her first feature-length fiction film, selected at the 'Atelier Grand Nord' in 2019 in Québec.
The Pacifist. Gertrud Woker: A Forgotten Heroine (Fabian Chiquet, Matthias Affolter，2021, documentary，75’)
The moving life story of Gertrud Woker takes us back to the beginning of the peace and women’s movement.
tove (Zaida Bergroth，2020，drama, 100’)
The war is over and life begins again for Tove Jansson. When she meets theatre director Vivica Bandler, she falls in love. At the same time, her creativity begins to take unexpected paths and she starts writing the story of the Moomins.
ladies of steel (pamela tola, 2020, 92’)
Inkeri, 75, has hit her husband Tapio, on the head with a frying pan and is planning to bury him in their garden after being belittled by him for almost 50 years. Suddenly, Inkeri realizes that she will be spending the rest of her life in prison. For one last road trip, Inkeri takes her sisters Sylvi and Raili on a wild ride to Koli National Park. Their travel through Finland begins with a charming young hitchhiker, their car breaking down, and some sinful dancing in a restaurant. When Inkeri comes across her old university writings and finds Eino, a crush from her youth, she is reminded of her dreams that were later suppressed by a patriarchal marriage. But will Eino still remember Inkeri? Is he only madness and an illusion? Or will Inkeri become that same free woman she used to be, who desired a feminist revolution in the '70s? When Tapio appears alive, Inkeri has to make the biggest choice concerning the rest of her life: a choice between happiness and convention.
San Mao: the desert bride（Marta Arribas、 Ana Pérez，2020，documentary，86）
In the 1970s, the Chinese traveler writer Sanmao lived an intense love story with the Spanish freediver José María Quero.