Sometimes it’s necessary to travel far afield to find good news, as was the case this week when the Toronto Film Festival’s first-round lineup was revealed to be only 10% directed by women.
Good news arrives from the Sarajevo Film Festival (August 15–23), then, where 10 of the 19 nonfiction films in competition are from female filmmakers. The featured documentarians hail mostly from Central and Eastern Europe.
The films deal with a variety of issues, including the status of refugees (Evaporating Borders), corruption in Communist regimes (Uncle Tony, Three Fools and the Secret Service), and the brave women of Tahrir Square (Private Revolutions — Young, Female, Egyptian).
Here is the list of women-directed docs in competition:
Ghetto 59
Ines Tanović (Bosnia and Herzegovina) [world premiere]
Naked Island
Tiha Klara Gudac (Croatia) [world premiere]
Private Revolutions — Young, Female, Egyptian
Alexandra Schneider (Austria) [world premiere]
Scandal
Elton Baxhaku, Eriona Cami (Albania) [world premiere]
Uncle Tony, Three Fools And The Secret Service
Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova (Bulgaria)
Evaporating Borders
Iva Radivojević (US-Cyprus-Greece-Serbia)
Judgement In Hungary
Eszter Hajdu (Hungary-Germany-Portugal)
Kismet
Nina Maria Paschalidou (Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Croatia, UAE)
Happily Ever After
Tatjana Božić (Croatia-Netherlands)
Stream Of Love
Ágnes Sós (Hungary)
[via Screen Daily]