The second annual FFFEST (Female Filmmaker Festival) is set to take place at NYC’s Quad Cinema October 25-27, a press release has announced. This year’s celebration of women filmmakers will include screenings of Kirsten Johnson’s “Cameraperson” and Nadia Fares’ “Honey and Ashes.” The former is a curated collection of footage that Johnson assembled from years spent working as a cinematographer and the latter is a drama following the interwoven lives of three Tunisian women.
Created last year by Women & Film and Passerbuys, FFFEST aims to inspire more women to make movies by showcasing “overlooked films” and offering “a platform and community for cinephiles and filmmakers to share resources and guidance.”
The 2019 edition will also feature “Variety,” Bette Gordon’s tale of one woman’s sexual self-discovery, as well as Shirin Neshat’s “Women Without Men,” a feature comprised of vignettes set in Iran during the 1953 coup d’état. Short films by the likes of Laurie Simmons and Sofia Bohdanowicz are set to screen too.
FFFEST will present panels “How to Break In & Navigate Your First Film Deal” and “Women in Film Programming” this year. Desiree Akhavan (“The Bisexual”), Dianna Agron (“Novitiate”), and documentarian Erin Lee Carr (” At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal”) will participate in the former, a discussion about establishing oneself as a filmmaker. New York African Film Festival founder Mahen Bonetti, Alamo Drafthouse Downtown Brooklyn programmer Cristina Cacioppo, and veteran fest programmer Nellie Killian are “Women in Film Programming’s” panelists. “In addition to covering the general roles and responsibilities of professional programmers, the panel will speak to the intersectional politics of archives, distribution, and access, and the unique challenges — and successes — of presenting women’s stories on screen,” the press release details. “The discussion will also touch on the largely under-sung history of women in curating and collecting film.”
FFFEST 2019’s full film program is below, courtesy of The Quad. For more information and tickets, head to the festival’s website.
The Music of Regret
Laurie Simmons, 2006, 40m, U.S., DCP
An extension of Simmon’s oeuvre of idiosyncratic and imaginative photographs and miniatures, “The Music of Regret” stars the legendary Meryl Streep alongside a cast of vintage puppets. The story revolves mostly around the turmoil caused by two feuding families, but also features a ballad on the subject of dependency and communication, as well as anthropomorphic pocket watches. A rare treat filmed on 35mm that must be seen to be believed.
Q&A with filmmaker Laurie Simmons and Shirin Neshat (Women Without Men)
Cameraperson
Kirsten Johnson, 2016, 103m, U.S., DCP
A visual diary composed of decades of personal archival footage, “Cameraperson” gives the audience an unprecedented view into the life of a cinematographer. Past the surface level synopsis, however, this film asks the viewer what it means to view and observe the world in a meaningful way, and what it means to be human by following veteran director of photography, Kirsten Johnson, around the world. Not your average documentary, “Cameraperson” is visceral, universal, and breathtaking. You will walk away with a refreshed perception of the world. A critical darling, “Cameraperson” debuted at Sundance to a wide acclaim, and went on to garner numerous awards and nominations, including the top prize at Sheffield Doc Fest.
Q&A with filmmaker Kirsten Johnson
Preceded by:
Veslemøy’s Song
Sofia Bohdanowicz, 2018, 9m, DCP, Canada
A continuation of Sofia Bohdanowicz’s 2016 film “Never Eat Alone,” the film stars Deragh Campbell as Audrey Benac, a young woman attempting to research and recover the history of a largely forgotten female violinist and composer who had taught Audrey’s grandfather. Premiering at the Locarno Film Festival and screening at TIFF, the film made the festival’s annual year-end Canada’s Top Ten list.
Honey and Ashes
Nadia Fares 1996, 80m, Tunisia/France, DCP
By exploring the parallel lives of three Tunisian women with intersecting lives, Swiss-Egyptian director Nadia Fares holds a mirror up to race, class, and gender in North Africa. Though specific in its setting and narrative, this film also functions as a larger allegory of how we are all beholden to gender expectations, even when we think we aren’t. The first feature for Fares, “Honey and Ashes” proved Fares is a fearless director with strong imagery and storytelling, and left audiences hungry for more.
Q&A with filmmaker Nadia Farés moderated by writer Fariha Róisín
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
Shinya Tsukamoto, 1989, 77m, Japan, DCP
A horrific, cyberpunk-influenced science fiction tale about the intersection of man and post-industrial technology. The central character is a Japanese salaryman, an average office worker who is transformed by a brief encounter with a metal fetishist, a man who has purposefully implanted pieces of scrap metal in his body. The salary man soon begins sprouting pieces of metal from various parts of his body, a change which is accompanied by increasingly nightmarish visions and bizarre, metal-filled sexual fantasies. A masterclass in DIY filmmaking, dystopian horror, and narrative efficiency, “Tetsuo” holds the audience hostage to its equal parts gory, erotic, and strangely beautify story. Though there are certainly nods to directors like Lynch and Cronenberg, as well as Japanese art and animation, “Tetsuo” remains a staunchly singular viewing experience that shouldn’t be missed.
Followed by:
Organ
Kei Fujiwara, 1996, 105m, Japan, DCP
A Japanese horror film written, directed, produced by, and starring first-time director Kei Fujiwara (an actress best known for starring in the cult film “Tetsuo: The Iron Man”). It tells the grim story of a pair of detectives, Numata and Tosaka, who stumble across a ring of thieves who deal not in gems or stolen electronics, but human organs, which the villains graphically and forcefully harvest from living victims. When things go haywire during a raid on the group’s surgical headquarters, Numata barely escapes. Through a series of surreal and gory events, the identities of the organ dealers are revealed as Numata plans his revenge.
Variety
Bette Gordon, 1983, 100m, UK/West Germany/U.S., DCP
The sexually charged tale of a woman’s journey of self-discovery, Bette Gordon’s “Variety” is a fascinating independent film that challenges common notions about feminism and pornography. Emerging out of the underground NYC arts scene that produced the late ’80s boom in American independent cinema, “Variety” contains the contributions of an impressive array of talent, including cinematographer Tom DiCillo (“Living in Oblivion”), actor Luis Guzman (“Boogie Nights”), a script by the late cult novelist Kathy Acker, and a score by actor and musician John Lurie (“Stranger Than Paradise”). Renowned photographer Nan Goldin appears in a supporting role, as does Mark Boone Junior (“Memento”).
Q&A with Bette Gordon moderated by Katherine Bauer, Co-President The Film-Makers’ Cooperative
Women Without Men
Shirin Neshat, 2009, 99m, Iran, DCP
The first feature by artist Shirin Neshat, based on Shahrnush Parsipur’s novel of the same name, the film follows four women who find solace and companionship in an orchard garden during Iran’s 1953 CIA-backed coup d’état. A series of politically and religiously charged vignettes set in Tehran, “Women Without Men” artfully depicts the socio-political landscape that led to the Iranian revolution. Neshat, an Iranian whose family fled to America prior to the coup, infuses the film with her memories, real and imagined, of her motherland. This film serves as a platform for this refugee director to reminisce, analyze, and dream about the country that has inspired the lion’s share of her artistic work in a way that’s both historic and poetic.
Q&A with filmmaker Shirin Neshat
Preceded by:
The House is Black
Forough Farrokhzad, 1962, 26m, DCP, Iran
“The House is Black” is an empathetic portrait of a leper colony from Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad. Her work, both in film and poetry, has influenced everyone from Iranian New Wave master Abbas Kiarostami to French essay film pioneer Chris Marker.
