Guest Post by Justina Walford
“But we already have a women’s organization for film.”
I was building a three-day film festival of female-created films in Dallas, and to a few, that seemed superfluous because we already had a film organization with the word “women” in its title. Every time I heard the rebuttal that women were given enough, I felt the spark fade a little. I’m sure the person telling me this saw my eyes darken, my posture slump. The first few times I heard this, I simply smiled. But this time, I straightened my back, winked and said, “You’re right. There is one. There should be two. Hell, there should be two hundred.”
And then they ask, “Why?”
I knew I could pull together the resources to make a film festival, but I was well into building a team and booking the venue when I realized the reason I was creating a women’s film festival. I had heard from many people that the ratio of young aspiring filmmakers is 50/50 but it mysteriously changes over time to a predominantly male industry. Many just assume girls find better things to be interested in. But I’ve struggled as a screenwriter in Hollywood. I know the complex list of experiences that exhaust us, hurt us, and push us out of our dreams. And a significant amount of those experiences are aimed at our gender.
Recently, I was at a filmmaking event geared toward young filmmakers and was invited to mention my film festival’s submission dates. I was expecting a bunch of bored tweens and teenagers just waiting to see their work on screen. What I saw was a packed theater of lively kids at that glorious 50/50 gender mix. And as soon as I was introduced as the woman making a women’s film festival, the girls sat up with wide eyes and beaming smiles wanting to hear more. I asked the audience, “Who here is a girl who wants to make movies?” Their hands shot up so fast, I thought I would hear the air break, while their mothers laughed proudly. Those faces, so full of excitement and ambition, reminded me that when I was that age, my face lit up like that, too. And it also reminds me when I lost it. Experiences I rarely talk about to this day made that light in my eyes dull. And seeing all those faces made me want to follow each one of them through life, fanning the fire that moves them so ardently now into filmmaking.
I’m not an artistic director. I’m an evangelist for the power of female storytelling. There is a pantheon of women who create worlds and put them on the screen. They create worlds that are gritty and raw and tough to watch. At first viewing, these stories don’t seem specifically created by a certain gender. But a woman knows she’s watching a woman’s story because we are seeing our own experiences in these films. It’s so subtle, it can’t be categorized or perfectly explained. But I know so well the shocked and relieved intake of air, sitting in a theater chair and shedding decades of forcing myself into a male POV (even if the gender of the protagonist matches my own). It’s seeing experiences I never told anyone I had. It’s crying at feelings I never knew were universal until that very moment because the movies and TV shows are where feelings are so often validated. It’s seeing my light on screen through the lens of another woman.
Women Texas Film Festival runs August 19–21 at the Texas Theatre. Tickets can be bought here.
Justina Walford is a filmmaker and a serial artistic director. In the early 2000’s, she was artistic director of the Split.Id Stages in Los Angeles where live theater barely lives. She is the co-writer of “Ladies of the House,” a cannibal love story.
