1st Lady Filmmakers Film Festival Closes
Women on Top at Inaugural Edition of Female-Friendly Fest
Nov 6, 2009
The Lady Filmmakers Film Festival, a new festival celebrating the work of women in the movie industry, closed its inaugural edition in Santa Monica, California.
The film festival, which was launched in 2009 by a small, mostly female group of film and entertainment industry vets, was created to celebrate women filmmakers as well as the men who collaborate with them.
“I think that people don’t think of lady filmmakers as mainstream Hollywood filmmakers of all types of genres and subjects,” said director Patricia DiSalvo Viayra about the need for a festival with this focus in an already crowded festival calendar. To qualify to take part in the event, women had to fill at least one of the positions of writer, director, producer or cinematographer in the film.
The first edition of the festival was held at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, California on October 17 and 18, featuring a program of shorts and feature-length movies across a range of genres.
Public Involved in Hybrid Selection Process
It is common for film festivals to ask attendees to vote for their favorite movie(s) and to hand out an audience choice award at the end of the event. This was also the case at the Lady Filmmakers Film Festival, where the audience choice award went to Slap, by Grant Barbeito and Gayla Hartsough (USA).
The movie, which also received the Festival Director’s Choice Award, is a short conversation between two garage workers about the state of world. The debate becomes progressively outrageous as they cover global warming, gay rights, religion, sports and urban myths. And yes, there is a lot of slapping involved.
Somewhat unusually, however, in the weeks running up to the Lady Filmmakers Film Festival, all the films submitted were given their own page on the festival website. The public was then invited to visit the site and vote for the films they thought should be included in the program. While the selection committee still had the final say on which films made the cut, the public votes were taken into consideration in this process.
When asked why she wanted to involve the public in this way, DiSalvo Viayra said: “I thought it would be a great way for filmmakers to promote themselves and get involved with the festival, as well as making the public feel like they are getting to see what they asked to see.”
Shorts Make up Majority of Festival Program
The films finally selected for the festival were divided into the following categories:
- Ladies First – for films premiering at the festival.
- Ladies Illuminate – for films that raise awareness about some of the social issues facing women and families today.
- Ladies Kick Butt – for films with intrinsic entertainment value and/or that have strong female leads.
The majority of films submitted were shorts, including The Monday Before Thanksgiving, the 20-minute directorial debut from Courtney Cox Arquette, about a happily single and successful woman (Laura Dern), whose family’s concerns start to make her doubt her chosen lifestyle.
The Lady Filmmakers Film Festival, so named to make it stand out from all the ‘women’s’ film festivals out there, is still in its infancy, and its programming and website reflect this. However, it has potential and could grow into an attractive platform for women in the movie industry.
 |
