CROSSINGS, the Gender Institute's 11th Annual International Women's Film Festival at the Market Arcade Film and Arts Center at 639 Main Street in downtown Buffalo, showcased films films that cross time, culture, memory and mortality to discover community and renewal.  

January 25:  The Faces of the Moon / Las Caras de la Luna with director Guita Schyfter
February 1:  Grbavica:  The Land of My Dreams
February 8:   My Cultural Divide with director Faisal Lutchmedial
February 15:  Festival
February 22:  Compensation with director Zeinabu irene Davis
March 1:  A Night of Shorts with local women filmmakers in person

JUST ADDED:  Compensation director Zeinabu irene Davis will present a talk about her film and African and African-American cinema.  Join us at 3pm on February 22nd in 31 Capen Hall on UB's North Campus!  Free and open to the public.

International Women's Film Festival Call for Work  

Article on International Women's Film Festivals, by Film Committee Co-Chair Behi Henderson

Faces of the Moon/Las Caras de la Luna

Director Guita Schyfter will join us in person from Mexico to discuss her film.  Five women from wildly divergent backgrounds find themselves swapping views on feminism, politics, and culture as they come together to review and rate this year's entries in Mexico City's Latin American Women's Film Festival. Magdalena is the coordinator of the festival.  Joan is a lesbian film writer from New York whose views on the cinema are just as extreme as her position on gender politics. Maruja is a mainstream film producer from Spain. Mariana is a veteran filmmaker whose career broke new ground for women in the Latin American film industry. Balsher is a political filmmaker exiled from her native land, and Julia is a woman from Uruguay who has spent early a decade and a half in prison. In six dizzying days the women share their experiences, their ghosts, their expectations. Through each of their revelations, they illustrate the recent history of Latin America and explain their personal stories.

 February 1

 Grbavica
Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2006, 90 minutes, 35mm, color feature
Director:  Jasmila Zbanic

Single mother Esma lives with her 12-year-old daughter Sara in Sarajevo’s Grbavica neighborhood, where life is still being reconstructed after the 1990s Yugoslav wars.  Still haunted by the past, Esma attends group therapy sessions at the local Women’s Center and relies on her best friend Sabina and Pelda, a compassionate male co-worker from the nightclub where she waitresses to find money for Sara's school trip.  Meanwhile, feisty tomboy Sara begins to put soccer aside as she develops a close friendship with classmate Samir.  As mother and daughter struggle with daily life in postwar Sarajevo, a terrible secret strains their relationship.  Winner of the 2006 Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear Award for Best Film.

 February 8 

My Cultural Divide
2005, Canada/Bangladesh, Color Documentary, DVD
Director: Faisal Lutchmedial
Cinematographer: Tara Arnst

With director Faisal Lutchmedial in person.  Accompanying his ailing mother to Bangladesh, Faisal Lutchmedial makes his way into some of the worst factories in the country and talks frankly with the workers inside about their job and living conditions.   Lutchmedial and cintematographer Tara Arnst take us on a personal and hilarious journey to bridge the gap between his heritage in Bangladesh and his life in Canada. He connects his politics with his humanity, questioning the logic of the political activist and wondering aloud whether ethical consuming actually does anything good for the women workers behind the machines. 

February 15 
Festival
2005, Scotland, 107 minutes, Color Feature, DVD
Director:  Annie Griffin, a Buffalo native An ensemble comedy about the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, that strange month of August when the whole world comes to Scotland to perform, to watch and to drink, and every show promises to be better than the last one.  Festival’s black comedy imagines the backstage dramas that lie beneath the surface of the world’s first alternative theater festival.  The Edinburgh Fringe is an internationally renowned cultural event that hosts performances ranging from stand-up comedy to esoteric and avant-garde theatre.  *Festival* opens on Edinburgh's streets, a cacophony of noise and colour where every other person is handing out leaflets dressed in weird and wonderful costumes.  Following everything from one-woman shows to the high-profile Comedy Awards, *Festival* has been compared to *Nashville*; Annie Griffin spins multiple stories of the backstage dramas, bawdy sex, and unexpected connections that blossom at the world's largest alternative theater festival.  Griffin, a Buffalo native, started out as a performer at the Fringe and fell in love with its atmosphere, now making her home in the UK.

February 22

  Compensation
1999, US, 95 minutes, BW Feature, VHS
With director Zeinabu irene Davis in person to discuss her film!  ASL interpreters will be provided. 

JUST ADDED:  Director Zeinabu irene Davis will present a talk about her film and African and African-American cinema.  Join us at 3pm on February 22nd in 31 Capen Hall on UB's North Campus.

Inspired by a poem written by Paul Laurence Dunbar, this moving narrative presents two unique African-American love stories between a deaf woman and a hearing man.  Malindy, an educated seamstress, befriends Arthur, a recent migrant to 1910 Chicago; this tale is woven alongside the contemporary story of Nico, a children’s librarian, who learns ASL in order to date Malaika, a graphic designer.  Director Davis incorporates title cards, dialogue, and silent film music with images of Chicago past and present to provide a view of Black Deaf culture and the vast possibilities of language and communication. 

 March 1 

Buffalo Shorts: WNY filmmakers present original short films to make the finale a local sensation!

Tickets:  $8.50 public, $6.50 students and Hallwalls members, and $6 seniors. Passes are available at the Market Arcade box office for $43 general, $30 students, seniors and Hallwalls members (a 25% discount).