Announcements
12th ANNUAL WOMEN OF COLOR FILM FESTIVAL 2007
With Featured Artist-LOURDES PORTILLO in person March 1, 3
Artists in Person at every screening!
March 1-3, 8-10 at the Pacific Film Archive
2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, Ca 94704 (Near Bowditch)
(510) 642-1412/Advanced Tickets: (510) 642-5249
$4 UCB students, $8 General, $5 Non-UCB students, seniors and disabled
March 17 Presented by SF Cinematheque
California College of the Arts
1111 Eighth Street (near Sixteenth), San Francisco
Discounts for students, seniors
and disabled.
Lights! Camera! Women of color
filmmakers are at the center of the action! This season we celebrate
our twelfth year of screening exceptional works by fresh and accomplished,
award-winning filmmakers from the African, Asian, Latina, Middle Eastern,
and Native diasporas. Bringing you an array of colors from the infinite
film palette, our festival has five programs at PFA, two presentations
at San Francisco Cinematheque, and Bay Area based filmmaker Lourdes
Portillo in residence, too.
While particularly concerned
with Latino and Chicano issues, Portillo's work transcends borders.
Nominated for over thirty awards, her creations have moved the imaginations
of generations of young filmmakers and her original documentary film
style continues to challenge the way stories are told and viewed. Please
join us as we meet and celebrate Portillo along with the other excellent
artists featured throughout the festival. It has been a treat to program
this year's festival; we hope it will inspire, incite, and make you
laugh.
~Patricia Contreras, Eileen Koh, Jooyeon Nam
Festival Coordinators
Thursday March 1
Free First Thursday Screening!
Tickets available at the PFA Theater starting at 4:30
5:30 Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo
(Susana Munoz, Lourdes Portillo (Argentina, 1985)
When tens of thousands of daughters, husbands, future doctors, and scholars were silently abducted by government agents during Argentina's "Dirty War," the country vibrated with accusations of torture and murder. The mothers of these "disappeared" took to the streets to pursue their children's dreams of social justice. Lourdes Portillo, together with Susana Munoz, tells the story of how a band of fourteen undefeated mothers grew into a popular resistance movement. Their film is preceded by two provocative shorts that detail how historical memory weighs upon the present.
~Wanda Dabkoska, Eileen Koh
(64 mins, In English and Spanish
with English subtitles, 16mm, From Xochitl FIlms)
Preceded by shorts:
Untold Legacy (Leslie Brown, U.S., 2005) listens in on a New York city council meeting where a proposed law demanding that companies disclose any ties to slavery is discussed. As one advocate aptly puts it, "power does not concede without a demand." (13 mins, Beta SP, From Third World Newsreel)
The Farm (Reiko Fujii,
U.S., 2006). The discovery of a creaky old trunk of family photos sweeps
viewers into Reiko Fujii's story of her family's farm, the internment
of Japanese Americans, and the continuation of family traditions. (5.5
mins, Mini-DV, From the artist)
7:30 Salon with Lourdes Portillo
Lourdes Portillo will trace the arc of her illustrious filmmaking career, which spans over twenty-five years. Including short films, clips, and discussion, this program is designed with students and filmmakers in mind, but open to the public.
(Program time: c. 90 mins)
Saturday March 3
7:00 Corpus: A Home Movie for Selena
Lourdes Portillo (U.S, 1999)
As fans continue to celebrate her life years after her tragic death on March 31, 1995, the image of Tejano singer Selena remains deeply imbedded in Chicano and non-Chicano cultures alike. Portillo takes a critical yet heartwarming look at the superstar and her legacy through candid interviews, family photos, and footage of her performances. Patricia Contreras
(47 mins, Color, In Spanish with
English subtitles, Video)
Followed by short:
My McQueen (Lourdes Portillo,
U.S., 2004). In her latest video, Portillo finds new meaning in Steve
McQueen's celluloid persona as seen in Bullitt (of San Francisco car
chase fame). She wittily examines the film for its machismo and ponders
its impact on San Francisco's image, all the while reflecting on her
own filmmaking process. A collaboration with Kyle Kibbe and Vivian Hillgrove
for the School of Journalism at UC Berkeley. (20 mins, Color, Video)
9:00 The Devil Never Sleeps
Lourdes Portillo (U.S., 1995)
(El diablo nunca duerme). In The Devil Never Sleeps, Portillo creates a new form of documentary that we might call "docu-telenovela" a blend of documentary, Mexican soap opera, and personal revelation, drawing from both sides of the border. Portillo travels back to Mexico to discover more about her Tio (Uncle) Oscar's mysterious death, and finds more questions (and gossip) than answers. As the film progresses, so does the seeming irrationality of his death, and soon everyone is a suspect in this murder mystery. Portillo's own brand of investigative probing draws on interviews, archival footage, home movies, and family photographs. It reveals in close-up one family's "skeletons" . . . and what family doesn't have them? Northern Mexican locals have a saying, "When evil lurks, the devil never sleeps." This film asks: who really is the devil?
~Patricia Contreras
Written by Portillo. Photographed by Kyle Kibbe. (87 mins, In English and Spanish with English subtitles, Color, 16mm, From Xochitl Films)
Thursday March 8
7:30 Gathering Strands
In this visually mesmerizing collection of shorts, artists experiment with storytelling techniques, drawing from their individual experiences and expressive cultural vocabularies. Kim Trang-Tran's Epilogue: The Palpable Invisibility of Life is a cerebral yet touching examination of a mother-daughter relationship by way of Derrida and medical images; Tamales in January shows a mother's influence on her son through visceral spoken word. N. Sikand must come to terms with appropriation and contamination of her cultural icons in In Whose Name; Sarah del Seronde's personal documentary Sa'ah attempts to discover and preserve the true way of beauty of her tribe. Syrian director Diana el-Jeiroudi provides an intimate and candid look at pregnancy and motherhood in The Pot. In A Short Tale of Xuan, an introspective young girl finds wonder in collecting little stories; Elizabeth Farfan's La Catrina boldly creates her own narrative and leaves a lasting impression in Vida Publica
~Aileen Cruz, Jooyeon Nam
The Glass Kimono (Reiko Fujii, U.S./Japan, 2006, 4 mins). Epilogue: The Palpable Invisibility of Life (T. Kim-Trang Tran, 2006, 14 mins). The Pot (al-Qarura, Diana el-Jeiroudi, Syria, 2004, 20 mins, In Arabic with English subtitles). Tamales in January (Renata Gangemi, Ruben Gonzalez, Carlo Baldi, 2005, 3 mins, From Third World Newsreel). In Whose Name (Nandini Sikand, U.S./India, 2004, 11 mins). Sa'ah (Sarah Del Seronde, 2005, 20 mins, In English and Navajo with English subtitles). A Short Tale of Xuan (Terrie Samundra, 2006, 12 mins, 16mm). Color Conscious (Cheraine Stanford, 2005, 3 mins). Vida Pablica (Elizabeth Farfan, 2006, 11 mins, In Spanish with English subtitles, B&W)
(Total running time: 98 mins,
U.S., Color, Video, From the artists, unless indicated otherwise)
Saturday March 10
7:30 Sidestepping the Eternal Repetition
Film is the playground of reinvention
in tonight's works that deconstruct history, rewrite archaic fairy tales,
and energetically shape the future. Photographers and hip-hop wordsmiths
navigate New York's urban maze in two videos that embody every artist's
struggle for recognition, Perros sin amor and She Rhymes Like a Girl.
Spirited young women in Chicago challenge misconceptions about living
with disabilities in Beyond Disability. Age and limited English do not
slow down Grandma Kim, an activist who marches so that Los Angeles's
Metro es para todos (is for everybody). Undaunted by the popularity
of certain cultural icons, Little Red and the Big Red Book and Columbus
on Trial are irreverent visions of a world free of big bad wolves. Rather
than retelling her past, the narrator of Paper, Scissors and Rock looks
ahead, showing that sometimes change means trading in a wedding band
for a different kind of rock, punk rock. -Eileen Koh, Jooyeon Nam
Perros sin amor (Loveless Dogs, Christina Soto, 2006, 6 mins). Come On Big Empty (Kirthi Nath, Amanda Davidson, 2006, 11.5 mins). She Rhymes Like a Girl (JT Takagi, 2005, 7 mins, From Third World Newsreel). Beyond Disability: The Fe Fe Stories (produced by Beyondmedia Education, 2004, 26 mins, From Beyondmedia Education). Little Red and the Big Red Book (Helene Park, 2006, Silent, 5 mins). Columbus on Trial (Lourdes Portillo, 1992, 18 mins, In English and Spanish with English subtitles, From Xochitl Films). Finding Common Ground in New Orleans (Walidah Imarisha, 2006, 7 mins). Paper, Scissors and Rock (Jane Kim, Canada, 2005, 4 mins, From Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre). Metro es para todos (Eurie Chang, 2006, 10 mins, In English and Korean with English subtitles)
(Total running time: 94 mins,
U.S., Color, Video, From the artists, unless indicated otherwise)
March 17 presented by SF Cinematheque
California College of the
Arts
6:00 Reception, open to public
7:00 Revisioning
Political, noir, thriller and animated works show the world through multiple lenses
Fashion Resistance to Militarism by Kimberley Alvarenga, Take a Walk by
Hsin-I Tseng, The Body in the Park by Shi Liu, The Shooter by Jin Yoo-Kim,
Migration by Christina Battle, What Keeps Me Going by Joenel Scott, Come on
Big Empty by Kirthi Nath, Recámara by Rosario Sotelo, and Palpable
Invisibility of Life by Tran
T. Kim-Trang.
9:00 Queering the Image
Fun, energetic shorts about our bodies and sexualities
Game by JJ Goldberger, Rated F by Donna Lee, Girl Cleans Sink by Sook-Yin
Lee, Before Nine by Hana Abdule, Make a Move by Hanifah Walidah, and other
titles to be determined.
This festival is made possible
by curators and volunteers Lynda Byrd, Marie-Josee Carlsen, Susan Chen,
Amy Corbin, Aileen Cruz, Wanda Dabkoska, Desi Gallardo, Sara Gambin,
Elaine Kovacs, Cindy Lin, Claudia Lira, Cheryl Mak, Maria Mejia, Jenny
Oh, and Pui Man Wong.
Lourdes Portillo's residency
is funded by a grant from the Consortium for the Arts at UC Berkeley.
The Women of Color Film Festival is an ASUC-sponsored, wheelchair-accessible
UC Berkeley student initiative and is co-presented with the Empowering
Women of Color Conference. A heartfelt thanks to our individual donors
and other sponsors: Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, Graduate
Assembly, Film Studies Program, Ethnic Studies, SUPERB, Multicultural
Student Development Center, and Gap Inc.
The 22nd Annual Empowering Women of Color Conference will be held on March 3 on the UC Berkeley campus. For more information, please consult the conference website at ewocc.berkeley.edu.
