Imagine This Women's International Film Festival Dazzles Brooklyn

Nov 20

Nov 20 Imagine This Women's International Film Festival Dazzles Brooklyn

From November 7-10 2019, Imagine This Women’s International Film Festival (ITWIFF) descended on Brooklyn. From short block screenings to feature length films, from networking parties and screenplay competitions to pitch workshops, ITWIFF created a dynamic and informative film-filled weekend. With screenings at multiple locations including Firelight Studios, Alamo Drafthouse, and UnionDocs, ITWIFF set Brooklyn abuzz with big, bold content and events.

*Imagine This Women’s International Film Festival 2019*

ITWIFF, diverse in both style and content, offered web series, documentaries, narration, animation and music videos, resulting in a showcase of innovative and rich stories from both established and emerging female filmmakers. A truly international event; with filmmakers heralding from Nigeria, Australia, Iran, Germany and Denmark, to name a few; with a serious grounding in strong and inspiring storytelling, creating compelling, and at times unnerving dialogue between the films.

For me, good cinema unsettles and upends expectations all the while caring for the audience and their experience. ITWIFF achieved this and more. I personally enjoyed the blocks of shorts; 6 or 7 short films back to back across a range of genres. All Skinfolk Ain't Kinfolk, directed by Angela Tucker, was a powerful opening documentary, following the mayoral race in New Orleans between two very different black women, Desirée Charbonnet and LaToya Cantrell. This was sharply juxtaposed by Savannah DesOrmeaux and Madison Seely’s Ghost Town, an interview-format comedic talk show that explores the modern dating phenomenon of “ghosting” and what it means for any human navigating the world of love, sex, and…abandonment. This was hilarious and managed to be original in both style and delivery, which considering the genre of pop culture was an achievement. Looking at Millennial dating trends such as ghosting is vital to understanding how language adapts to shifting cultural environments.

Esther, a hauntingly beautiful and suspenseful horror, follows a husbands plot to kill his wife with his mistress. Yet as director Montana Mann demonstrates, things don’t always go to plan. A silent film for a modern audience, yet set centuries earlier, Esther, confronts your expectations of revenge and adultery and creates 10 minutes of compelling feminist horror. The most affecting from this block of Sunday shorts was certainly Fatemeh Mohammadi’s delicate depiction of the cruel disease that is Alzheimer’s. Oblivion tenderly yet bluntly follows Mehrbanoo’s attempts to make her husband’s life, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, worth living. From rental issues to absence of their children, Oblivion achieves the poignancy of portraying how often love and suffering co-exist.

Watching the dance between genres, from psychological horror to political documentary, macabre animation to family drama, with seconds between films you feel caught up in the theatre of the experience. Watching blocks of shorts intentionally keeps you unsettled; whats coming next? What emotion will be evoked? What will I bear witness to?

“According to statistics, women still lag behind men directors in the film industry,” ITWIFF Co-Founder Patrice Francois said. "We are trying to create a platform of diverse storytellers from all over the world that is available to everyone to create an inclusive environment that supports and elevates women storytellers. We create opportunities for women to take their stories to the screen and share with the community." ITWIFF’s dedication to providing aspiring women storytellers and filmmakers a platform that encourages original content creation and project development is overwhelmingly evident and resulted in a fantastic four day film festival that delivered at every angle.