By Max Kyburz
Film has always been a male-dominated realm; very rarely do women filmmakers get a fair share of attention. Kathryn Bigelow may have won big at this past year’s Oscars, but there remains a deficiency.
At the Doris Honig Guenter Women and Film Festival (named for the director CCSU’s Women Center), however, this ignorance is turned flat on its face.
Hosted by CCSU and the New Britain Museum of American Art, this three day event has been a gracious outlet for the much-labored works of passionate and dedicated female filmmakers. With screenings held at CCSU’s Torp Theatre and the museum, this year’s fest has been hailed by festival organizer Karen Ritzenhoff as a “big success.” With over 1100 people attending, the festival enjoyed “its biggest turn out yet.”
Ritzenhoff, who also teaches media studies and production at CCSU and has organized five of these university-hosted festivals, was pleased with how attendees (specifically the students) reacted to the films.
“Our screening of Lioness about women veterans from Iraq was an amazing and very well-attended event. It was an evening that may truly change people’s ideas about the war and the people who fight in it. Focusing on women in this context, for example, provides a new and unique lens,” said Ritzenhoff.
Lioness, directed by Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers, was just one of the dozen films on tap from Oct. 26-28. Other films included Sin By Silence (Olivia Kraus, 2009), a documentary focused on women inmates in the U.S.; She’s A Boy I Knew (Gwen Haworth, 2007), a multi-media study of director Haworth’s male-to-female transformation; and Ella es el Matador (Gemma Cubero & Celeste Carrasco, 2009), a study on the groundbreaking wave of female bullfighters in Spain.
As can be seen, these are films by, for and about women. Ritzenhoff says that as far as film submissions, “The basic requirements are that the films have to be directed by a woman.”
Far from the confines of the Hollywood boy’s club, the films cover topics ranging from the personal to multinational concerns.
Another film being screened was There Oughta Be a Law (Beverly Peterson, in progress), a documentary project about workplace bullying. Peterson’s film exposes the shocking social plague that has driven employees around the country to depression and, in some cases, suicide. According to the film’s website, NoJobIsWorthThis.com, Peterson “stumbled onto the vicious little secret of the American workplace the hard way.” This oppression inspired her to tell her story along with those of other victims. The result is an informative project that hopefully will raise more awareness about the repugnant trend.
The Doris Honig Guenter Women and Film Festival is not about monetary gain; it is about reaching out to the community in new and imaginative ways. Ritzenhoff, while impressed with the directors on board and enormous support of CCSU and various state groups, has high hopes for future years.
“It may be useful in the future to get faculty to commit their classes to coming and attend the festival early,” said Ritzenhoff. “I tried to do that because the festival program was in place at the end of the spring semester. People have known about it for a long time…but it is still very hard to get the word out and build excitement around the festival.”
While some improvements are in order, the Women and Film Festival remains an integral part of the culture CCSU has to offer. Those who missed the festival are encouraged to seek out the featured works. They may not be the most ‘entertaining’ films, but they greatly serve their purpose of representing film as a means of expression and political weaponry. For those looking for a cinematic change of pace, keep an ear out for it – it’s worth checking out next time it comes around.