[Nettime-ro] Women with Vision 2008: Past/Present Walker Art Center's

[irina botea <irinab@gmail.com>]

Women with Vision 2008: Past/Present
Walker Art Center's Annual International Festival of Works by Women  
Directors Celebrates 15th Anniversary

During March, the Walker Art Center presents Women with Vision 2008:  
Past/Present, the 15th installment of this renowned film festival  
that annually celebrates the work of women directors, filmmakers, and  
artists. Sheryl Mousley, the Walker’s film/video curator, often finds  
thematic threads connecting the films she selects. Past years have  
embraced women directors confronting the consequences of keeping  
silent, the era of increasing surveillance, and global migration,  
among other topical trends. Mousley explains this year’s subtitle,  
Past/Present: “The filmmakers look at how the past has shaped the  
present—several of this year’s filmmakers tell stories by looking  
back in time to understand where we stand in this complex,  
contemporary world.” Drawing entries from around the world, the  
festival also boasts a Minnesota premiere: producer Christine Walker  
and director Georgina Lightning present Older Than America. Global  
viewpoints come from Japan’s Naomi Kawase, with her Cannes Film  
Festival winner The Mourning Forest, and a slate of films from  
Austria, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Iran, Brazil, and of  
course, the United States.

Special programs include a tribute to International Women’s Day  
(March 8, 3–5 pm), including three film programs and a dialogue lounge 
—a place for filmmakers and audience members to enjoy conversation  
and refreshments—located in the Star Tribune Foundation Art Lab; a  
free panel discussion, Moving the Moving Image (March 13, 7 pm),  
focusing on the ways in which these media artists leverage ever- 
changing technologies to serve their creative processes; and two  
programs of short films (March 8, 2 pm, and March 29, 2 pm). Other  
highlights of this year’s festival include a screening of Rachel  
Talbot’s Making Trouble (March 9, 7 pm), copresented with the Sabes  
Foundation Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival; Parting Shot (Pas  
Douce), directed by Jeanne Waltz, featuring a performance by actress/ 
director Isild Le Besco, who made her directorial debut with Half- 
Price at the 2006 Women with Vision festival (March 14, 7:30 pm);  
Sandra Kogut’s Mutum (March 28, 7:30 pm), screening as part of the  
Walker’s Cinemateca series of new cinema from Latin America; and the  
closing-night screening of Hana Makhmalbaf’s Buddha Collapsed Out of  
Shame (Buda as sharm foru rikht), on Saturday, March 29, 8 pm. The  
annual sidebar festival Girls in the Director’s Chair will take place  
on Saturday, March 1, featuring works by young Minnesota filmmakers  
ages 8 to 18.

Unless otherwise noted, all films are screened in the Cinema. Tickets  
are $8 ($6 Walker members), or pick 3 films and get the 4th free for  
only $24 ($18). Tickets can be purchased by calling the Walker box  
office at 612.375.7600 or online at walkerart.org/tickets.

WOMEN WITH VISION: PAST/PRESENT
INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF FILM AND VIDEO
MARCH 2008

Opening Night
Friday, March 7, 7:30 pm
Older Than America
Introduced by director Georgina Lightning, producer Christine Walker,  
and special guest actress Tantoo Cardinal
A woman’s haunting visions reveal a Catholic priest’s sinister plot  
to silence her mother from speaking the truth about the atrocities  
that took place at her Native American boarding school. A  
contemporary drama of suspense, Older Than America (filmed on  
location in Cloquet, Minnesota) delves into the lasting impact of the  
cultural genocide and loss of identity that occurred at these  
institutions across the United States and Canada. 2008, U.S., 35mm,  
102 minutes.

International Women’s Day
Saturday, March 8, 3–5 pm
In honor of International Women’s Day, which marks the achievements,  
courage, and determination of women around the world, the Walker  
presents three film programs and a dialogue lounge—a place for  
filmmakers and audience members to enjoy conversation and refreshments 
—located in the Star Tribune Foundation Art Lab.

Saturday, March 8, 2 pm
Short Films, Program One

5 Cents a Peek
Directed by Vanessa Woods
2007, U.S., video, 7 minutes

Labyrinth
Introduced by director Jila Nikpay
2007, U.S., video, 4 minutes

Catalogue of Birds: Book 3
Directed by Jayne Parker
2006, U.K., video, 16 minutes

Drum Room
Directed by Miranda Pennell
2007, U.K., video, 15 minutes

Mirroring Cure
Directed by Charlotte Ginsborg
2007, U.K., video, 28 minutes

Saturday, March 8, 4 pm
WIFTI Short Film Showcase Celebrating International Women’s Day
This annual short film showcase is copresented by Women in Film & TV/ 
MN (WIFT) and organized by WIFT International (WIFTI) —the 2008  
program includes work by Minnesota members. For a complete schedule:  
filmvideo.walkerart.org/wwv. Total running time 110 minutes.

Saturday, March 8, 7:30 pm
Madonnas (Madonnen)
Directed by Maria Speth
“Everybody seems to know what a good mother should and shouldn’t do.  
And if she fails, massive moral sanctions are the consequence, unlike  
fathers in the same positions,” says filmmaker Maria Speth. “But  
social reality is full of mothers who fail to fulfill their role the  
way society expects them to.” Using this idea as a starting point,  
Speth tells the story of Rita, a single mother of five, struggling to  
create the family she never had herself. 2007, Germany/Belgium/ 
Switzerland, 35mm, in German and French with English subtitles, 125  
minutes.

Sunday, March 9, 7 pm
Making Trouble
Directed by Rachel Talbot
Introduced by Jewish Women’s Archive Chair Barbara Berman Dobkin
Tickets: $8 Walker members (612.375.7600); nonmembers (952.381.3499)
General admission tickets: 952.381.3499
Joan Rivers, Gilda Radner, and Wendy Wasserstein. Their comedy defied  
cultural expectations and changed the rules. This documentary spans  
more than a century of theater, film, and television—from vaudeville  
and the Yiddish theater and Broadway to the Ziegfeld Follies and  
Saturday Night Live. Mixing archival footage with original  
interviews, the film provides insight into what it means to be  
Jewish, female, and funny. 2007, U.S., video, 85 minutes.

This film was produced by the Jewish Women’s Archive. Copresented  
with the Sabes Foundation Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival.

Thursday, March 13, 7 pm FREE
Panel: Moving the Moving Image
In the late 1960s, when artists were beginning to use emerging media  
technology to push the boundaries of contemporary art, film, and  
video, women were already on the forefront of the movement,  
pioneering the connections between art and technology. Join musician  
and new media artist Steina Vasulka and interactive installation  
artist Amy Youngs for a discussion focusing on the use of moving  
images in their work, and the ways in which they leverage ever- 
changing technologies to serve their creative processes. Moderated by  
art historian Jane Blocker. Presented as part of the University of  
Minnesota’s symposium Wonder Women: Art and Technology, 1968 to 2008.

Target Free Thursday Nights is sponsored by Target.

Friday, March 14, 7:30 pm
Parting Shot (Pas Douce)
Directed by Jeanne Waltz
A troubled young nurse (Isild Le Besco) working in a mountain town on  
the Franco-Swiss border and depressed by her love life, her  
relationship with her estranged father, and her boring small-town  
existence, commits an impulsive act of violence and then is assigned  
to care for the teenage boy she has shot. The French title of this  
tale of anger, guilt, and redemption translates literally as “not  
gentle.” Le Besco made her directorial debut with Half-Price at the  
2006 Women with Vision festival. 2006, France/ Switzerland, 35mm, in  
French with English subtitles, 81 minutes.

Saturday, March 15, 7:30 pm
Faces of a Fig Tree (Ichijiku no kao)
Directed by Kaori Momoi
Inspired by the serialized novel Ichijiku no kao, actress Kaori Momoi  
developed an innovative screenplay for her first film. The narrative  
centers on the Kadowaki family, whose members lead normal lives until  
confronted by dramatic circumstances. Momoi presents her mysterious  
story with vibrant colors, crazy camera angles, and quirky characters  
that burst off the screen. 2006, Japan, 35mm, in Japanese with  
English subtitles, 94 minutes.

Sunday, March 16, 2 pm
It Happened Just Before (Kurz davor ist es passiert)
Directed by Anja Salomonowitz
Utilizing an unusual documentary approach, this film examines the  
real stories of women victimized by human trafficking. These first- 
person narratives are read by a customs officer, a neighbor, a  
bartender in a brothel, a diplomat, and a taxi driver—people who  
weren’t directly involved in the women’s tragic destinies but, as the  
film suggests, may have played roles in them. Here, ordinary days at  
a border crossing, in a peaceful neighborhood, and at the workplace  
serve as backdrops for what can be considered modern slavery. 2006,  
Austria, 35mm, in German with English subtitles, 72 minutes.

Thursday, March 20, 7 pm FREE
Operation Filmmaker
Directed by Nina Davenport
In the wake of Operation Iraqi Freedom, American actor Liev Schreiber  
had an idealistic thought: rescue an Iraqi film student from the  
rubble of his country and bring him to Prague to work as an intern on  
a Hollywood movie he is directing (Everything Is Illuminated). What  
promises to be a heartwarming tale quickly becomes a mirror of the  
complex intercultural realities that have plagued the United States’  
war in Iraq. Director Nina Davenport sets out to document Schreiber’s  
charitable effort, but soon finds herself embroiled in an escalating  
power struggle between herself as filmmaker and her young Iraqi  
subject. 2007, U.S., video, 92 minutes.

Target Free Thursday Nights is sponsored by Target.

Wednesday, March 26, 7:30 pm
Shara (Sharasojyu)
Directed by Naomi Kawase
 From the old town of Nara, the capital of Japan during the eighth  
and ninth centuries, the Aso family sets out for the Jizo Festival in  
the dizzying heat of midsummer. When Kei, one of the Asos’ twin boys,  
suddenly disappears as if he’d been spirited away, time stops for the  
family until years later, when the remaining twin returns to the Jizo  
festival. Working cleverly with gaps in the narrative, Kawase evokes  
her characters’ feelings through stunning and resounding images.  
2003, Japan, 35mm, in Japanese with English subtitles, 100 minutes.

Spotlight on Naomi Kawase
Naomi Kawase was only 27 when she won the Camera d’Or at Cannes for  
her independently produced debut Suzaku in 1997. Reaffirming her  
reputation with Shara in 2003, she is now recognized as one of  
Japan’s leading directors. This reputation was solidly confirmed on  
the international stage when she won the Grand Jury prize in Cannes  
2007 for The Mourning Forest.

This program is copresented with the Institute for Advanced Study  
Film Collaborative and the Consortium for the Study of the Asias,  
University of Minnesota.

Thursday, March 27, 7 pm
The Mourning Forest (Mogari No Mori)
Introduced by director Naomi Kawase
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes 2007, this film pairs an  
elderly man whose dementia confines him to a nursing home and the  
young nurse who befriends him. On this unexpected journey of  
discovery, an eloquent story unfolds against the lush and tranquil  
setting of western Japan, where Kawase’s natural touch as a filmmaker  
creates an inner geography of emotion. 2007, Japan/France, 35mm, in  
Japanese with English subtitles, 97 minutes.

Preceded by a free screening of Birth/Mother (Tarachime) at 5:30 pm.  
A documentary by the filmmaker on the birth of her son in the  
traditional Japanese way, and her relationship with her 90-year-old  
great aunt. 2006, in Japanese with English subtitles, 43 minutes.

Kawase’s documentary Sky, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth (Kya Ka Ra Ba A)  
will be screened at the University of Minnesota on Friday, March 28,  
at 3:30 pm. Free and open to the public. For more information, visit  
http://fc.umn.edu.

Friday, March 28, 7:30 pm
Mutum
Directed by Sandra Kogut
Based on the popular novel Campo Geral by João Guimarães Rosa, Sandra  
Kogut’s debut film won the Première Award (Best Film) at the Rio de  
Janeiro International Film Festival. An isolated farm in the arid  
backlands of Brazil provides the backdrop for 10-year-old Thiago to  
invent stories that help him understand the intricacies of grownups.  
This film is part of the Walker’s ongoing series Cinemateca: New Film  
from Latin America. 2007, Brazil, 35mm, in Portuguese with English  
subtitles, 95 minutes.

Saturday, March 29, 2 pm
Short Films, Program Two

Auditions for a Revolution
Directed by Irina Botea
2007, U.S., video, 22 minutes

Curtea de Arges
Directed by Ulrike Ostermann
2007, Austria, video, 6 minutes

Sakura
Directed by Esther Harris
2007, U.S./Japan, video, 7 minutes

Ver Llover
Directed by Elisa Miller
2006, Mexico, 35mm, in Spanish with English subtitles, 14 minutes

Betty + Johnny
Directed by Ellen Lake
2006, U.S., 16mm, 4 minutes

Everyone I Have Ever Known
Directed by Salise Hughes
2006, U.S., video, 4 minutes

Orange Glasses
Introduced by director Lu Lippold
2008, U.S., video, 11 minutes

Jeff Moves
Directed by Madeleine Schwartzman
2007, U.S., video, 9 minutes

Closing Night
Saturday, March 29, 7:30 pm
Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame (Buda as sharm foru rikht)
Directed by Hana Makhmalbaf
Hana Makhmalbaf’s directorial debut, which centers on a six-year-old  
girl’s efforts to learn to read, is the winner of the Special Jury  
Prize at San Sabastián Film Festival, where it was noted that “this  
first feature by a young director impressed the jury with its  
exquisite cinematography and the remarkable performance by the child  
actress Nikbakht Noruz.” Set in the Afghani province of Bamian where,  
in 2001, the Taliban destroyed a pair of massive fifth-century Buddha  
carvings, this story shows the of children who live near the remains  
of the destroyed Buddha. Hana’s sister, Samira, premiered her first  
film, The Apple, at the 1999 Women with Vision Festival. 2007, Iran/ 
France, video, in Farsi with English subtitles, 81 minutes.


Girls in the Director’s Chair 2008
Saturday, March 1 FREE
11 am and 1:30 pm: For all ages
3 pm: For ages 13 and older due to mature subject matter

Women accounted for only 7 percent of directors in 2005, and only  
three female directors have been nominated for Academy Awards (none  
have won). Doing its part to tip the scales, the Girls in the  
Director’s Chair Film Showcase highlights the work of 36 young  
Minnesota women filmmakers ages 8 to 18.

The showcase, now in its 13th year, is curated and organized by  
filmmakers Whitney Garner and Erica Hungerford, high school seniors  
in media arts at the Perpich Center for Art Education, who hope to  
provide a community of young female directors with a quality  
screening room and connections to professional women filmmakers. “I  
want the viewer to acknowledge young women in the media, be inspired  
by the filmmakers, and walk away with an understanding of how women  
need to be represented in the film industry,” Hungerford says.

Program One, 11 am and 1:30 pm
For all ages

Splish Splash by Hannah Bigot, Samantha Gildemeister, Juliana  
Lillehi, and Alex Schreyer
The New Girl by Estephanie Luis
Public Service Announcement by Breawnna Blaesing
Hmong Superstitions by Choua Lor
Girls and the Media by Daryll Berg, Dede Davis, and Bao Yang
I Want Candy by Hannah Hallman
Nett Lake School by Tea Drift
The Sacred #4 by Magdelina Rodriguez
Bead Bandit by Grace Dupre
Beauty by Serina Vue, Mai Nou Vue, Maniechan Xiong, and Yuni Xiong
Messy Situation by Margaret Kittok

Program Two, 3 pm
For ages 13 and older due to mature subject matter

Uncovering May Day! by Kaya Allen, Moriah Petty, and Hannah Silver
Belle by Maya Blevins
The Science of Home by Madeline Shaw
Garden by Robin Purgan
Waiting for You by Cylicia Roybal
It Happens by Brandy Hyatt
Basketball Everywhere by Jenni Bruce and Lawrence Roy
Frances Gumm, World’s Greatest Entertainer by Emma Kopp
The Diary by Cha Lor
Unfinished Housewife Drama Parts 1 & 2 by Bridget Collins
Dearest Albina by Annie Wood
he is who he be by Alyse Martin
Who’s Left? by Kirsten Nelson
Illuminate by Allison Anderson
New Orleans by Molly Nemer


Related Program

Screenings from the Collection
Great Genius and Profound Stupidity
Directed by Benita Raphan
Lecture Room, March 1–April 30
Screens each half-hour starting at 12 noon during gallery hours
Filmmaker Benita Raphan continues her series on genius with an  
investigation of the balance between perceptions of intellect and  
idiocy. Her interviews include choreographer Merce Cunningham’s tale  
of teaching dance to Helen Keller. 2007, U.S., video, 27 minutes.

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