Angles: Women Working in Film and Video (1994)

Toronto International Film Festival of Festivals Human rights from diverse perspectives BoM. uring the Toronto International Film Festival of Festivals lines of avid moviegoers weave their way from movie to movie, starting as early as 9 a.m. and ending well after midnight. For 10 days you live on popcorn and sodas, cappuccino and muffins, and grilled sausages sold by street venders. You might take time out for a real dinner at a restaurant but not without a pang of regret. What great film are you missing? Forget the glitz and glitter — though there are plenty of celebrities to gaze at — this festival is about seeing movies. This year there were more than 300 films — mostly full-length features with some shorts — from 45 countries. About 70 films were by women, representing 23% of the program. Hopefully this figure will go up. Canada has a strong tradition of funding filmmakers, which may be why women accounted for 43% of the films in the special Canadian program. While it prides itself on the absence of hype, a certain amount of it is inevitable at Galas and Special Presentations. Films and filmmakers in these categories get a lot of media attention. Jane Campion’s The Piano was the only film by a woman in the group of 27. On the other hand, you’re more likely to discover new directors —or at least directors whose work you rarely have the opportunity to see — and find challenging or surprising work in other sections: Contemporary World Cinema, which according to the catalog, “takes the pulse of the social, political and economic changes in each country and culture”; The Edge, described as the unconventional, oppositional and innovative; and First Cinema. Women made about a fourth of the films in these categories. Toronto also had an excellent selection of international works by women, especially in the Asian and Latin American segments. From Tracey Moffatt’s Aboriginal and Irish ghost stories in Bedevil, to Beth B’s disturbing portrait of a mother in Two Small Bodies, to Sylvia Chang’s melodrama Mary From Beijing, to Nancy Savoca’s quirky tale, Household Saints, content, style and themes were diverse. But 6 ANGLES Gb fe Reké iD M. “Shadow of Doubt/L’ombre du doute”’ AeB. Boxe human rights issues surfaced in several films, especially those from Latin America. Hoping that history won’t repeat itself, Lita Stantic addresses the issue of bearing witness to past atrocities and injustices in her semi-autobiographical.A Wall of Silence/Un muro de silencio. The multi-layered, somber story focuses on Sylvia, played by Ofelia Medina, who is trying to go on with her life years after her husband, and father of her child, disappeared and presumably was murdered by the military regime. Painful memories surface when a British director (Vanessa Redgrave) begins making a movie based on the young lovers’ story. The director, who wants to bring this brutal history to the attention of a younger generation, is confounded by Sylvia’s refusal to delve into her past. The relationship between Sylvia and her daughter is especially poignant. The mother eventually realizes that in trying to protect her daughter she is shutting out an important part of her past. A Wall of Silence is Stantic’s first feature film. She has produced several works for Maria Luisa Bemberg. With You Only Live Once/La vida es una sola, Peruvian director Marianne Eyde examines the effects of neverending political violence on family and community. Her story takes place in the Andes, where a peasant village is terrorized first by the Peruvian military and then by Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) rebels. Family members and old friends are torn apart by these opposing factions. Tragically, children are taken away from their families and forced to join the rebels. Those who resist and attempt to stay together face the danger of being killed by one side or the other. Eyde’s courageous work is the only Peruvian film to tackle this controversial material. Individual freedom, a recurring theme in Maria Luisa Bemberg’s films, is the focus of I Don’t Want To Talk About It/De eso no se habla. It tells a magical story of Charlotte (Alejandra Podesta), a charming, unusual child with a physical characteristic that sets her apart from others. This is never mentioned by her mother