HOME announces Celebrating Women in Global Cinema - a year-long celebration of women in film taking place throughout 2019
In 2019 HOME Manchester will host a year-long
programme of films and special events highlighting and celebrating women in
film from across the world.
From specially curated retrospectives, seasons and
special events, to takeovers of annual favourites such as Not Just Bollywood, this branded series of screenings and events
will explore and challenge the place and space of female filmmakers from a
variety of cultural, social and political perspectives.
Recognising the importance of accessibility and
equality within the film industry from entry-level upwards, HOME has opened up six programming slots across the year
to be curated by burgeoning female creatives and women looking to break into
film exhibition, who are invited to attend a public “Meet Up” event in January to meet the HOME programming
team, with a view to pitching their own content ideas.
Women in
Global Cinema will partner with the recently launched Girls On Film podcast - the all-female review show presented by
film journalist Anna Smith - to
bring a series of live podcasts to HOME across the year. Championing the female
perspective in film criticism and its importance to the exposure of
female-led films, the events will include live debates, interviews and film
reviews.
Celebrating
Women in Global Cinema is co-curated by Rachel Hayward, HOME’s Film Programme Manager and Andy Willis, Senior Visiting Curator:
Film and Professor of Film Studies, School of Arts and Media at University of
Salford.
Rachel Hayward commented:
“In 2019 we’re taking our
on-going commitment to diverse and inclusive film programming to the next level
with the theme of women in film permeating our cinemas for an entire year – as
opposed to a one-off season or event. We look forward to celebrating what women
from across the world have achieved in film to date and encouraging and
supporting the female creatives of the future so that female voices in our
industry become louder in the years to come.”
An overview of the programming
announced so far follows:
Celebrating ground-breaking women working on both
sides of the camera - from directors, writers and producers to on-screen talent
- a series of mini-retrospectives will kick off in January with the ICO’s new
retrospective of Margarethe von Trotta, one
of the leading lights of the New German Cinema of the 1970s and 1980s. Other
retrospective subjects will include: Euzhan
Palcy, the first black woman to direct a Hollywood studio picture (A Dry White Season, 1989); Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding), one of India’s most critically acclaimed
filmmakers; BAFTA-wining producer Rebecca
O’Brien (I, Daniel Blake); and
award-winning television writer and producer Debbie Horsfield (Poldark,
Cutting It).
Further retrospectives and special events will
explore the often complex relationship that influential female filmmakers and
stars have had with Hollywood with subjects including: the Oscar, Emmy, Grammy
and Tony-award winning Barbra Streisand;
controversial Italian director Lina
Wertmüller, the first female Best Director Oscar nominee (for Seven Beauties, 1975); and, Ida Lupino, a pioneering director and
producer who took on the male-dominated Hollywood studio system and worked on
more than 130 films and television programmes from 1931-1978 and was the first
woman to direct a film noir (The Hitch-Hiker,
1953).
New and specially curated seasons foregrounding women
in film will include: Women, Organise!,
a collection of films focussing on women’s activism and involvement in trade
unionism marking the 120th anniversary of the GFTU (General Federation of Trade
Unions) in 2019; and, a major retrospective in May of
pioneering Hong Kong filmmaker Angie
Chen, whose expansive career spans award-winning short films and
documentaries, collaborations with directors including Jackie Chan (Dragon Lord, 1982) and high-profile
commercials.
Some of HOME’s most popular returning seasons will
have a Celebrating Women in Global Cinema
take-over, including Not Just Bollywood
- HOME’s annual showcase of independent Indian filmmaking - which will devote
the 2019 programme to female creatives in Indian film, including a
retrospective on actor-director Nandita
Das (Firaaq).
As a celebration of global cinema, the programme will
include work from South and East Asia, Africa, Europe, and North, South and
Central America. There will be a special season dedicated to women filmmakers
in the Arab world, particularly in Lebanon
and Palestine, in partnership with the School of Arts, Languages and
Culture at the University of Manchester, in addition to a focus on women’s contributions
to East Asian cinema, to be
announced in 2019.
Further annual events will spotlight women in film
including HOME’s Pride programme and
year-round LGBTQ+ work, and ongoing
partnership with the Women Over Fifty
Film Festival. HOME will also continue to partner with The University of
Manchester’s Sexuality Summer School whose
2019 “Queer Dialogues” programme will include an event with writer and activist
So Mayer entitled “Dial(ogue)
D for Dyke Disruption: A Queer Toolkit for Blowing Up the Film Canon” which will include talking points from
queer and feminist filmmakers and critics from around the globe.
Similarly HOME’s Engagement
and Industry programmes will foreground women’s voices. In-depth evening
courses open to the public will explore women in cinematic spaces that are not
deemed traditionally female - for example, “Women in Science Fiction” and “Women
in Film Comedy” - while industry discussions with female creatives aim
to increase the awareness of opportunities for women within the sector and
inspire young audiences.
Further screenings and work-in-progress content will
be announced throughout the year - including a focus on women in documentary filmmaking and screenings of films by trans women - all of which
will be Women in Global Cinema
branded, allowing audiences to readily identify content by and about women.
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