Film Festival brings the ultimate girl power
A tremendous and diverse group of filmmakers will go far beyond the chick flick to put the spotlight on the ever-increasing impact of women in the film industry at the Baltimore Women's Film Festival.
Dedicated to furthering the contributions of women to the film industry, the Baltimore Women's Film Festival will screen nearly 200 films during the weekend-long event. The films in question range from short subjects to feature-length films, documentaries to music videos.
Though the films vary extensively in format and genre, all share a common ground in that they involve women in prominent roles during the filmmaking process. In addition to the screenings, the Festival weekend will include appearances by dozens of the filmmakers, performances by live bands and book signings.
The Festival shares a special connection with the Hopkins community: Fifty percent of proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to the Johns Hopkins Avon Foundation Breast Cancer Center. Located on the medical campus, the Center offers some of the most innovative care for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. One film set for a screening at the Festival deals directly with this issue. In Beyond Breast Cancer: Stories of Survivors, nine women candidly discuss their individual struggles with the disease.
Another Festival documentary dealing with women and health is My Dead Husband's Land. The film details the social revolution happening in the Orongo region of Kenya, where one in four people are HIV-positive. For generations, widows in Orongo have been forced to be inherited by another man or give up their property. With so many women left alone because of the AIDS epidemic, these widows had no choice but to submit to this law to ensure that their children were provided for, as most of them knew that HIV would eventually leave their children orphaned.
Now, however, women and community leaders are taking action to change these laws to allow widows to inherit land and to educate people about HIV. These women have, in effect, used the AIDS epidemic to transform their community for the better, and the resulting story told in this film is nothing less than awe-inspiring.
Dedicated to furthering the contributions of women to the film industry, the Baltimore Women's Film Festival will screen nearly 200 films during the weekend-long event. The films in question range from short subjects to feature-length films, documentaries to music videos.
Though the films vary extensively in format and genre, all share a common ground in that they involve women in prominent roles during the filmmaking process. In addition to the screenings, the Festival weekend will include appearances by dozens of the filmmakers, performances by live bands and book signings.
The Festival shares a special connection with the Hopkins community: Fifty percent of proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to the Johns Hopkins Avon Foundation Breast Cancer Center. Located on the medical campus, the Center offers some of the most innovative care for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. One film set for a screening at the Festival deals directly with this issue. In Beyond Breast Cancer: Stories of Survivors, nine women candidly discuss their individual struggles with the disease.
Another Festival documentary dealing with women and health is My Dead Husband's Land. The film details the social revolution happening in the Orongo region of Kenya, where one in four people are HIV-positive. For generations, widows in Orongo have been forced to be inherited by another man or give up their property. With so many women left alone because of the AIDS epidemic, these widows had no choice but to submit to this law to ensure that their children were provided for, as most of them knew that HIV would eventually leave their children orphaned.
Now, however, women and community leaders are taking action to change these laws to allow widows to inherit land and to educate people about HIV. These women have, in effect, used the AIDS epidemic to transform their community for the better, and the resulting story told in this film is nothing less than awe-inspiring.
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