Olivia, an undocumented Filipino transwoman, works as a caregiver to Olga, an elderly Russian woman, in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. When Olivia runs out of options to attain legal status in the US, she becomes romantically involved with Alex, Olga’s adult grandson, in the pursuit of a marriage-based green card.
Sensual and provocative, “Lingua Franca” is critically acclaimed filmmaker Isabel Sandoval’s third narrative feature. Novelistic yet intimate, “Lingua Franca” is an unflinchingly candid chronicle of a disempowered woman’s political and sexual awakening.
Isabel Sandoval is a New York-based filmmaker whom The Museum of Modern Art–citing her “muted, serene aesthetic”–has recognized as a “rarity among the young generation of Filipino filmmakers”.
She has produced, written and directed three full-length features, including SEÑORITA (2011), which premiered in competition at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland and was nominated for Best Picture by the Young Critics Circle of the Philippines. SEÑORITA also won the Emerging Director Award at the 2012 Asian-American International Film Festival.
Her third feature, Lingua Franca, an immigration drama set in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, stars Eamon Farren, Lev Gorn and Lynn Cohen. It has received support from IFP, SFFILM, Frameline, the New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME), New York Foundation for the Arts and the Tribeca Film Institute.
After the screening, Isabel Sandoval will join us for a Q&A via Skype.
Paula Eiselt’s debut feature documentary offers a fascinating insight into the Hasidic community. The film’s main character Rachel “Ruchie” Freier is as charming as impressive: the mother of six, earned a law degree at 40 and does not compromise her quest to establish an all-female ambulance corps. She may be hesitant to call herself a feminist but is a true inspiration way beyond her own community.
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They may build walls, but tear them down and they will crumble.
Films (81 min)
Zoe Salicrup /2019 USA / 15 min
Angela Chen / 2019 USA / 16 min
Isabel Castro / 2019 USA / 15 min
Thiago Zanato, Adriana Barbosa / 2018 Mexico / 20 min
Toni-Marie Gallardo, Rosalee Bernabe, Seo Yun Son, Joi Purvy / 2019 USA / 7 min
Francy Fabritz / 2019 Germany / 8 min
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Film: MAXIMA
MAXIMA tells the incredible true story of the Peruvian farmer Máxima Acuña who stood up to one of the largest gold-mining companies in the world and triumphed.
On her farm in the Peruvian highlands, Máxima Acuña grew up surrounded by mountains, lakes and natural water systems. As a multi-billion-dollar mining project is launched in the area by the American Newmont Mining Corporation, Máxima decides to fight for justice to protect the land, the water supply and the indigenous people from environmental destruction at American hands. Nature to her and her neighbours is understood to be an integral part of life and she will not let it be abused for capitalist interests.
MAXIMA tracks the journey from the Peruvian Andes all the way through the Peruvian Supreme Court to the door of the World Bank in Washington D.C.. A journey that will involve conflict, eviction, violence and criminal prosecution. Máxima Acuña’s relentless grassroot activism and stand against the destruction of natural resources was awarded with the world’s most prestigious environmental award, the Goldman Environmental Prize.
Panel discussion:
Followed by a panel on intersectional perspectives on climate justice. In the panel, we want to ask what role gender, race, ethnicity and economic inequality play when it comes to climate change. How can the climate movement be a more inclusive movement and make BIPOC voices heard? And what can we learn from indigenous activists at the forefront of the climate movement?
Guests:
Felesmira Glandien is a Peruvian activist, who has been living in Berlin for 30 years. She is active in the climate and the indigenous rights movement. She is part of the Peruvian Women’s Initiative Warmis, which is an indigenous word for women. Warmis organizes events to spread awareness about indigenous rights and the discrimination of indigenous people as well as about the political and social situation in Peru and Latin America.
Avrina Jos is a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Göttingen. Her project envisions to theorize the future of the feminist movement amidst global technological and climate change. She has an MA in English Philology, during which she studied the historicization of the British Women’s Liberation Movement in the radical feminist magazine Trouble & Strife. For her thesis, she won the Niedersachsen Research Award and Gender Thesis Award in 2019. Also a creative writer, her short story The Plumage was shortlisted for the Berlin Writing Prize 2019. (www.avrinajos.net).
Isadora Cardoso works with GenderCC-Women for Climate Justice, an NGO fighting for climate and gender justice globally. Isadora holds a MA in development studies and has been working since 2015 with sustainable development, gender equality and climate change issues in international organizations and NGOs. At GenderCC, she manages the project “Not without us! Climate justice and gender justice in international climate politics”, which seeks to promote the integration of gender justice in international climate politics and within the global climate justice movement, along with a selected activists and gender experts from environmental groups and women’s organizations, from South Africa, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Fiji, Germany and Brazil.
Dr. Malika Virah-Sawmy is a visiting Scientist at the Humboldt University Berlin. She works in the Science and Policy interphase especially focusing on the agriculture-energy-environment nexus. Her work in this field has involved improving sustainability standards, establishing deforestation-free supply chains, defining low-carbon pathways for urban development, enabling equitable green growth and responsible mining. Previously, Dr. Virah Sawny worked for many years on the ground on conservation and agricultural programs in Madagascar, Congo and several Indian Ocean islands.
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Vai is a portmanteau feature film made by nine female Pacific filmmakers, filmed in seven different Pacific countries: Fiji, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Kuki Airani (Cook Islands), Samoa, Niue and Aotearoa (New Zealand).
]]>What is love? How do we learn to love, and why is it sometimes so similar to violence and control? What is the relationship between domestic violence and romance? What can we learn from non-traditional relationship models in order to end gender violence in relationships?
These questions have been approached by the Brazilian sociologist Marilia Moschkovich as a German Chancellor Fellow, funded by Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, in partnership with the Berlin Feminist Film Week. These issues shaped this short film program and will be discussed right after the screening together with Marilia Moschkovich.
Films
A mulher que eu era (The woman I was)/ Brazil, 12 min – Fiction by Karen Suzane Silva
A black woman struggles to get rid of colonial standards of love and marriage.
Viva, Maria, Viva! (Long live Mary!)/ Brazil, 27 min – Documentary by Caroline Araújo
Different straight and LGBT older women reflect on the role of marriage, divorce, widowhood and time in their lives.
Tamagotchi (Tamagotchi)/ Brazil, 23 min, Fiction by Fernanda Barcellos
In a dystopic near future, Laura meets Agatha who is too perfect for her.
Dublê (Proxy), Brazil, 12 min – Fiction by Fernanda Barcellos
Proxy is an app that allows anyone to rent a person to show up for them in events they can’t attend – a hardcore discussion of a tense relationship, for instance.
Sweet Heart (Sweet Heart)/ Brazil, 21 min – Fiction by Amina Jorge
A Chinese-Brazilian teenager’s journey discovering the city and her own sexuality intensifies when she becomes interested in her parent’s restaurant’s new employee
Speaker
Marilia Moschkovich is a Brazilian sociologist with a PhD in Social Sciences and Education. She’s been a feminist activist for the past decade and experienced non-monogamous relationships since 2014, recently making it into her research object.
]]>‣ Who gets this label and who gives it?
‣ How does one engage in conversation about marginalized communities that they are not a part of?
‣ How can we avoid turning attempts to support into even more emotional labor for those we want to help?
These topics and more will be discussed in this interactive workshop hosted by Jarral Boyd in cooperation with aequa.
The workshop will be conducted in English.
The facilitator:
Jarral Boyd is a linguist and educator who hails from one of the most segregated cities in the United States. Having a black father and indigenous mother, she never had the advantage of ignoring the impact of systematic racism, but it wasn’t until she finally decided to take up roller derby that she became passionate about education and communication on the subjects of white feminism/fragility, implicit bias, and the responsibilities of so-called allyship.
In her 13th year here in Berlin, she now captains her team and heads her rolly derby league’s Inclusion Committee, as well as offering workshops on these subjects to the public.
This workshop is hosted in cooperation with aequa. aequa is a community for social equity. Our vision is an equitable society in which every person can thrive. Our mission is to activate, empower and connect a diverse, intersectional community — and to do so sustainably. We do that by hosting gatherings for folks to exchange resources, tackle shared challenges, and collaborate to create the world we dream of.
]]>Trigger warning: Sexual violence
Yuri Jang / 2019 USA/South Korea / 8 min
Ximena Campuzano Hurtado / 2019 Mexico / 4 min
Nadin Heinke / 2019 Germany / 1 min
Carla Villa-Lobos / 2018 Brazil / 20 min
Alice Seabright / 2019 UK / 15 min
Abby Jane Dunn / 2018 Australia / 8 min
Joana Correia / 2019 Portugal/China / 11 min
KC Cory / 2019 USA / 13 min
Mia Jessup / 2019 USA / 3 min
]]>The queer friend who turns out to be a bisexual. The fabulously promiscuous gay friend who jumps from relationship to relationship. The friends who are clearly more than “friends.” The fabulous drag queen who rocks the ball but doesn’t allow drag kings on stage. The perfect LGBTQ+ couple who are killed by a random stray bullet. We recognize that film and media are hyperrepresentations of our reality and world, but we are all completely exhausted by the LGBTQ+ tropes, and, yet, we sit there wondering when? When will there be more accurate representation? When will we see the development of a character in addition to a gender identity? When will we truly see mirrors of ourselves on screen?
Gatekeepers of the industry homogenize gender and create tantalizing scenarios to attract members of the LGBTQ community but leave us feeling empty and often disconnected from the characters on the screen. They do so as “a way of appealing to [LGBTQ+ audiences] without alienating their main audience,” and yet, they still create alienation causing many to feel that there is a lack of our representation, that LGBTQ characters are less valuable, less relatable, and less worthy of being at the forefront of compelling stories. Stories that need to be told, seen, and heard. In this workshop, we will discuss, dissect, and revaluate these tropes in order develop true characters. Most importantly, we will write! We will write about ourselves, our characters, and our stories. We will give birth to believable characters that break boundaries and propel stories. Our stories and representations are necessary for a changing world, and we will be damned if another bullet stands in our way.
BIO
I am doodling Iranian-American with a Surrealist outlook. I co-parent the Women Writing Berlin Lab (WWBL), co-founded the Berlin Diaspora Society, and teach workshops for GLADT, WWBL, and the Feminist Film Week. I won the Sherry Debrowski Prize for Best Feminist Multi-Genre Fiction writer in 2009. Since then, my work has been featured in: The Wild Word: “Dream a Little Dream” (2018), Berlin and Her Places (2018), The Bear: October’s Favorite Storyteller (2018), KCRW’s “Holiday Storytelling Special” (2018), The V Series Poetry Anthology (2019), Berlin Untelevised (2019), Coven: Lymph (2019), Venus: Revolution (2019), What’s Afghan Punk Rock Anyway?! (2019), The Ghosts of Berlin: Der Geister von Berlin (2019), Literarische Diverse (2019) and much more.
Two in the Bush is a true indie rom-com gem that shies away from the normative narrative. The film was hot over only 10 days with only 50k USD budget with a mainly queer and female crew. This is director Laura Madalinski’s and her partner Kelly Haas’ love letter to the queer, sex worker and polyamorous communities, as they need and deserve their own rom-com love stories.
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The Film
“Baby, don’t forget to catch me” – the Andreases, Tobiases and Christians of the German film critics all agreed: Katja von Garnier’s road movie was rubbish, even embarrassing, what was she thinking? The audience felt differently, especially amongst young women and girls, the film was an instant hit and Bandits turned into a feminist cult film.
Emma, Luna, Angel and Marie start a rock band while in prison and escape during a performance at the police ball. Once on the run, they take an attractive male hostage and play concerts along the way. Both the fictional band and the film itself became subjects of fan’s affections.
Jasmin Tabatabai is a German-iranian actor. After studying drama at the arts college “Hochschule für Musik und Kunst” in Stuttgart, she was discovered in 1992 playing the main role in the Swiss film Kinder der Landstrasse (Children of the open road). Tabatabai has since been a household name in the German film industry, acted in over 40 films and is known for Vier Minuten, Bandits, Der Baader Meinhof Komplex and Gripsholm.
Dr. Maria Sulimma is an American Studies scholar working in the intersecting areas of cultural studies, gender studies, feminist media studies, and urban studies. Based at the University Duisburg-Essen, she is the Postdoctoral Researcher in the Research Group “Scripts for Postindustrial Urban Futures: American Models, Transatlantic Interventions.” Her most recent publication is the monograph Gender and Seriality: Practices and Politics of Contemporary US Television which will be out with Edinburgh University Press in 2020.
Photo credit: © Olga Film/Rieger
]]>M and Deborah, like an estimated 1.7% of people, were born intersex; with sex characteristics different from the binary understanding that everyone must be either male or female. Sometimes, such differing characteristics are clear from birth. In other cases, the variations might not be apparent until puberty. As many others in their situation, M and Deborah were both subjected to invasive surgery while they were only children, uncomprehending of what was being done to them. This documentary looks at how many intersex persons, later in life, attempt to reclaim ownership of their own bodies and identities.
Panel with:
(European Premiere)
The director Chet Pancake will be present for a Q&A with the audience afterwards.
]]>The first few minutes or even seconds set the tone for any film. They can literally throw you out of your chair because the opener is mindblowing, and classic scriptwriting often is based on the idea that the first minutes should contain the idea of your movie in a nutshell. Also, openers can be a very strong statement about your content, your formal decisions, and your attitude – towards the topic of your film, towards societal questions, and also towards filmmaking issues – meta openers.
I would like to discuss several examples that I will bring and that I like because they make strong points, question established narratives, or raise doubts about filmmaking and reality. We will try to find out why they work, and how they work. And I would like the participants, if they want, to bring examples that they like – especially examples that are not so well known in the global northwestern film canon.
The participants are also invited to bring a project that they are currently editing, if they would like to have feedback on their opening. If anybody would like to use this opportunity, please contact me beforehand to discuss this part of the workshop in detail!
Workshop facilitated by Katharina Voß, TINT Filmkollektiv
Kat Voss works as freelance filmmaker, editor, teacher and sometimes assistant editor, and is a member of Berlin based TINT Filmkollektiv, a feminist filmmaking collective
]]>Saleh Kashefi / 2019 Iran / 15 min
Merve Cagla Dincer / 2019 Turkey / 8 min
Mariana Campos / 2019 Brazil / 22 min
Liz Sargent / 2019 USA / 13 min
Agustina Figueras / 2019 Argentina / 14 min
Anna Paavilainen / 2019 Finland / 20 min
]]>Films:
Manning Up / Aira Vehaskari – 2019 Finland – 28 min
Mixed Race (Parda) / Tai Linhares – 2019 Brazil – 29 min
SOPHIE / Anna Cangellaris – 2019 – USA – 4 min
]]>Is it true that roles for people aged 50+ are scarce and older women* – especially senior women* of color – are almost invisible on screen? Which challenges do we face in terms of age discrimination in casting and hiring? How does ageism determine the choices we make as writers, directors and producers? Will we ever grow out of our obsession with youth?
During our panel we will take a closer look at the representation of age in cinema, speak about the ways in which ageism limits careers and discuss possibilities to shift the narrative around aging.
Panelists:
Dr. Nataša Pivec is a creative academic, born in Slovenia, now living in Berlin since 2017. Got her Ph.D. degree in sociology of gender at Faculty of Social Sciences (Ljubljana, Slovenia), which focused on Othering and film. Has published several academic papers on sexism, ageism and popular media, runs her own blog “the Other matters” and lectured at several institutions (among others, HU Berlin). Ex-journalist, copywriter, DJ, but current cultural analyst, film worker, lecturer, researcher and consultant.
www.theothermatters.net
Greta Amend is a german actress, director, lecturer, researcher, former casting director, artist, and producer for film and theatre. She has been teaching actors and directors in european film and theatre schools, such as the National Danish Film School, the Danish National School of Performing arts in Copenhagen, the Actors Center, Oslo, and the German Film and Television Academy (dffb) Berlin. She was a casting director for more than 50 productions in film and television, and is currently working as a producer for film and theatre with her german-skandinavian group “Superbohemians”.
https://www.greta-amend.com/
https://www.superbohemians.com/
Sema Poyraz has been working as a film director, screenwriter and actress for film, television and theatre since 1980. She studied directing at the German Film an Television Academy Berlin, her graduation film Gölge (1980) is considered an early precursor of German-Turkish cinema. Since then, she has directed several feature films, taught at the Bilgi University in Istanbul and been a festival jury member. In 2013 she won the Golden Tulip as Best Actress at the Istanbul Film Festival and worked as an actress with directors such as Helma Sanders-Brahms, Tuncel Curtiz, Sinan Akkuș and Hakan Savaş Mican. She is currently a member of the ensemble of Maxim Gorki Theater.
The discussion will be held in English and the entry is free of charge. You are welcome to stay for a get-together after the discussion and have a coffee with the members of Filmnetzwerk Berlin and the Women+ Film Network Berlin!
]]>FABULOUS, Audrey Jean-Baptiste, 2019, France, 46 min, French with English subtitles
Lasseindra Ninja, the main character of the film, is a professional transgenre dancer born in 1986. She’s a well-known artist in France’s voguing scene. After building her career through the balls of New York, France and Brazil, among many other main stages, she comes back to her home country to introduce voguing in French Guiana. By the means of her workshop, we catch a glance of its emergence and its impact on self-empowerment for a consolidating LGBTQ community. A glimpse of self-liberation and freedom of expression through the body.
For the screening of Fabulous we are collaborating with the ballroom collective So Extra Berlin of Mother Zueira Gucci, who proudly invites the main protagonist of the documentary, the Legendary Mother Lasseindra Ninja from Paris. After the screening, the pioneer of the French and European ballroom scene, will answer all voguing-related questions and present a showcase of the history of Vogue Performance
]]>Director Sasie Sealy brings to life a dark comedy about immigrant life, the vulnerabilities of aging, and an unexpected friendship. Set in alleyways, casino buses, and underground mahjong parlors with a cast of richly drawn characters—including Taiwanese breakout talent Corey Ha—Lucky Grandma is a love letter to Chinatown and an homage to all the badass elderly women who inhabit it.
(German Premiere)
Text: Tribeca Film Festival
]]>Charlotte Mars / Australia / 18 min
Ève-Chems de Brouwer / France / 20 min
Chanelle Eidenbenz / Switzerland / 20 min
Amanda Aagard, Alexander Toma / Sweden / 15 min
What do you know about the water and the moon?
Layla Jian Luo / China / 16 min
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Feminist love talks is a curated program by Brazilian activist and sociologist Marilia Moschkovich. The program looks at the intersection of violence and love and questions traditional and normative relationship structures.
What is love? How do we learn love, and why is it sometimes so similar to violence and control? What is the relationship between domestic violence and romance? What can we learn from non-traditional relationship models in order to end gender violence in relationships?
These questions have been approached by the Brazilian sociologist Marilia Moschkovich as a German Chancellor Fellow, funded by Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, in partnership with the Berlin Feminist Film Week. These issues shaped this short film program, and will be discussed right after the screening together with Marilia Moschkovich.
]]>Maryam is a doctor in a small Saudi-Arabian town. Despite being highly competent, she continuously has to fight to earn the respect of her employees and patients. After complaining about the conditions of the road leading up to her clinic, her demands are met with disinterest by local officials. When Maryam’s attempt to visit a medical conference in Dubai fails due to not having a male travel companion, she realizes that signing up as a candidate for a local election will allow her to access through road blocks and also give her some leverage to change road conditions. Maryam employs the help of her two sisters, one of whom is a wedding videographer, to organise the launch her electoral campaign that will challenge the patriarchal structure and social codes of Saudi Arabia. At every corner they are met with the restrictions against women, but Maryam’s voice only gets louder, her steps more courageous and her demands more radical.
As in her film Wadjda, Al-Mansour uses Maryam’s character to explore women’s rights in Saudi Arabia through her lens. It’s an uplifting story of how a small act, can slowly but surely affect change.
]]>Sophie longs to be reborn while seeking to know her double. A party in the hills of Los Angeles offers a corporeal shift to her existence.