East End Review

Tag: London Feminist Film Festival

  • Rio Cinema set to host the London Feminist Film Festival in August

    Rio Cinema set to host the London Feminist Film Festival in August

    A still from Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model
    A still from Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model

    The organisers of this year’s London Feminist Film Festival (LFFF) aim to provide a space for discussion, organisation and celebration.

    The fourth edition of the festival is opening with a 25th anniversary screening of Pratibha Parmar’s A Place of Rage. Parmar’s award-winning documentary celebrates African American women within the context of the civil rights, black power and feminist movements, all of which the organisers deem important struggles to recall in a time when women’s rights are still under attack.

    The films aren’t all quite so heavy, with some screenings coming from places of laughter such as feature length “pop-u-mentary” Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model, in which a young girl and her aunt attempt to create an alternative pop star who isn’t hyper-sexualised.

    Other notable screenings include the European premiere of documentary feature No Kids for Me, Thanks!, about childless women, and the Shappi Khorsandi-narrated short One Thousand And One Teardrops, about women’s dress codes in Iran.

    Each screening will be followed by a discussion with the filmmakers, providing opportunity to discuss the themes of their work and talk about the challenges of working in the film industry.

    Throughout the festival there will also be panel discussions addressing topical social issues such as the right to abortion, the experiences of refugee women and the representation of the female body in patriarchal society.

    The festival takes place at the Rio Cinema in Dalston from 18 to 21 August, and the full programme can be found on the festival website. If you’re even slightly interested in female empowerment, there’s definitely something at this year’s LFFF for you.

    London Feminist Film Festival
    18-21 August 2016
    Rio Cinema
    107 Kingsland High Street
    E8 2PB

  • London Feminist Film Festival gets underway

    Feminist classic: The Company of Strangers. Photograph: NFB Canada
    Feminist classic: The Company of Strangers. Photograph: NFB Canada

    This year’s London Feminist Film Festival (LFFF) opens today, showcasing films on a wide range of subjects and issues by women directors from across the world.

    Fifteen films in total will be screened throughout the four-day festival, which is taking place at Dalston’s Rio Cinema as well as the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn.

    Some of the themes covered include women in UK hip hop, children’s views on gender, sexual harassment in public space and Jewish feminism.

    This Saturday there will be a screening of six short films and, on its final day, the festival will hold a ‘feminist classics session’. Each session will be followed by a panel discussion.

    The festival begins this evening at the Rio with The Lady of Percussion, a film about a female drummer trying to make it in the male-dominated Cuban music industry. This is followed by Through the Lens of Hip Hop: UK Women. After the screening rapper Pariz-1, who features in the film, is set to perform.

    Tomorrow (21 August) will see the UK premiere of She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry by Mary Dore, a history of the “outrageous … brilliant women who founded the modern women’s movement from 1966 to 1971”, while Saturday’s screenings include the European premiere of It Happened Here.

    This documentary follows the stark and disturbing prevalence of sexual assault on US university campuses. The film will be followed by a panel discussion chaired by Jessica Horn, a women’s rights consultant and a founding member of the African Feminist Forum. All profits from this screening go to Rape Crisis England and Wales.

    The final day of the LFFF kicks off with a matinee screening of But They Can’t Break Stones by Elena Dirstaru, which offers an insight into women’s rights in Nepal, and is preceded by a short by Maryam Tafakory about FGM.

    At 4pm the festival will dig up a feminist classic: Cynthia Scott’s 1990 film The Company of Strangers. The film blends fiction, documentary and improvisation to track the (mis)adventures and of a bus-full of elderly women, stranded in the Canadian countryside. The film won Best Canadian Film at that year’s Vancouver International Film Festival.

    The festival finale that evening is another UK premiere, Esther Broner: A Weave of Women by Lilly Rivlin, which documents the evolution of Jewish feminism through a portrait of Esther Broner, founder of the first Feminist Passover Seder service in New York in the 1970s.

    The LFFF’s director and founder Anna Read said of the festival:“There is still so much discrimination and oppression of women everywhere in the world – we screen films showing women fighting back and navigating a space for themselves and other women in this sexist world.

    “We aim to show films which deal with the important issues of the day and which can inspire others to get involved in feminist activism in one way or another. So often we see a narrow, stereotypical misogynist view of women in films – LFFF prides itself on showing films with positive role models for women and girls. So, in essence, we’re trying to create a space for feminism and women filmmakers and to perhaps change the world just a tiny bit.”

    The London Feminist Film Festival runs until 23 August at the Rio Cinema, Dalston and the Tricycle Cinema, Kilburn.

    For the full programme and venues, see: http://londonfeministfilmfestival.com/lfff-2015-programme/