From February 26th to March 5th 2009 we showed for the sixth time international feature films and documentaries about selected topics concerning women’s politics. For the first time the movies were screened at Filmhaus Kino am Spittelberg, and the opening took place at Haydn Kino.
For the first time, the festival has been under the auspices of the president of the Austrian National Assembly, Barbara Prammer.
We were very pleased with the fact, that the audience perceived our focus on Afghanistan very well. The accompanying discussions were very pulsating and many spectators longed for more discussions.
The most successful documentary of this year’s festival was the world premiere of WEIBERLEUT, a movie about female Austrian farmers, who farm their courtyard alone. Due to the heavy rush of people we set another screening of WEIBERLEUT on May 19 at Filmcasino. This second screening was with 280 viewers the most successful documentary at the festival in 2009.
Another Highlight was our opening film, MATAHARIS by Icair Bollain, about three Spanish female detectives as well as DIE WIDERSTÄNDIGEN – ZEUGEN DER WEISSEN ROSE (WITNESSES OF THE WHITE ROSE) about the resistant movement in Munich and WER BIST DU, DASS DU SPRICHST (WHO ARE YOU TO TALK?) concerning torture and governmental violence in Turkey. For this film, director Verena Frank was our guest in Vienna. The podium discussion was presented by Inge Schubert from ai women’s network. Furthermore, Katrin Seybold, director of DIE WIDERSTÄNDIGEN attended our festival. She spoke about the long period of development of the film and the right handling of the traumata of the protagonists.
The documentary DIE DÜNNEN MÄDCHEN (THIN GIRLS) by Maria Teresa Camoglio about the problem of anorexia was also of big interest. Many social workers demanded for the film in order to use it for their daily work. BITCH ACADEMY by Alina Rudnitskaya and SHORTCUT TO JUSTICE by Daniel Burkholz and Sybille Fezer, a documentary about women in India who have established their own tribunals in order to defend women from recurring domestic and sexual violence, were also well attended.
On the contrary, the film NIE MEHR ALLEIN (NEVER ALONE AGAIN) by Uta Bodenstein did not meet our expectations. Only very few viewers saw the screening about two women being stalked for years.
Nevertheless we are happy to inform, that the total number of spectators had an increase of about 13 percent in contrast to last year. In 2009 about 1.350 visitors attended the womens film days and dealt with the topics of our films. The feedback was also very positive: 92 percent of the interviewees were satisfied.
A nice success!
