8 films compete for the prize of €15,000
Many things are different in 2021. And Internationales Frauen* Film Fest Dortmund+Köln is no exception. Originally scheduled for April, it has also been forced to change plans and will now take place as an online event from 15 to 20 June 2021. Following the live opening on 15 June, all films can be seen via the festival’s video-on-demand platform up to and including 20 June.
70 current international films, online discussions with guests from all corners of the globe, a video studio in the Dortmund festival office and audiences who can watch the films whenever it suits them for six days, without having to travel from all over Germany. For film fans, this will hopefully make up for the disappointment of not being able to meet and keep in touch with friends personally. We see our online programme as an opportunity to raise awareness of the film festival without being tied to a specific location, and in doing so expand our audience reach. Despite the adverse circumstances, we want to make the most of this opportunity – albeit in the full knowledge that online programmes cannot replace an in-person, live film festival, or at least can only do so to a degree.
The online programme will be posted on our brand-new festival website on 18 May under the new URL www.frauenfilmfest.com.
Feature Film Competition 2021
Quo vadis? Where is it all going? The question that lends #Jasmila Žbanić’s# anti-war film its title reflects a theme running through our strong 2021 competition selection. Most of the films were produced prior to the coronavirus pandemic before being completed in 2020, and will hopefully appear on cinema listings very soon. The films selected come from Egypt, Argentina, Costa Rica and Cameroon right through to Bosnia, Iran, Tunisia and France, and also include two German premieres.
The film-makers’ stories are told in highly assured style, many of them from marginalised perspectives. They chronicle a history of failures and abuses, without bringing their heroes and heroines to breaking point. Despite facing circumstances verging on the intolerable, they keep their proactive spirit alive and use what leeway they do have to put up a fight.
»Although we’ve naturally received fewer entries than in previous years, we are highly impressed by the overall quality and diversity of the films submitted this year. The competition line-up reflects the broad scope of forms, themes and cinematic language presented by women film-makers around the world. These range from a biting satire on the art business, a film about the gripping and empowering process of handling trauma in our first ever competition entry from Cameroon, to the magical realism of Céline Sciamma«, says festival director Maxa Zoller.
The makers of road movie Bandar Band were caught cold by the real flood disaster in Iran in 2019 during filming. Massive deforestation is said to be behind the floods and forms the backdrop of Manijeh Hekmat’s depiction of the dreams and perspectives of the young
generation in Iran. One in a Thousand presents a socially realistic and at the same time utopian image of a young queer community that creates its own milieu tucked away from the main streets. The social dynamic between the main characters in Aurora, a teacher and a pregnant teenager, also seems ahead of its time and gives a sense of how, beyond the story, things could be – moving past the patriarchal order. That is the direction things are going in. And indeed, with her wonderfully magical journey through time in the form of Petite Maman, Céline Sciamma appears to have got there already.
The international jury, co-director and curator of the Barcelona International Women’s Film Festival Marta Nieto Postigo, director Monika Treut and screenwriter and producer Elma Tataragić, will announce the award-winners in an online stream.
The €15,000 prize money is split between the director (€5,000) and the German distributor (€10,000). This is intended to promote the distribution of films directed by women in Germany. The award will be presented online on 20 June 2021.
The nominated films
Aurora
Dir./Script Paz Fábrega, Costa Rica/Mexico 2021, 90’, German premiere
Bandar Band
Dir. Manijeh Hekmat, Iran/Germany 2020, 77’
Enterrés | Buried
Dir./Script Françoise Ellon, Cameroon 2020, 88’, German premiere
Las mil y una | One in a Thousand
Dir./Script Clarisa Navas, Argentina/Germany 2020, 120’
Petite Maman
Dir./Script Céline Sciamma, FR 2021, 72’
The Man Who Sold His Skin
Dir./Script Kaouther Ben Hania, Tunisia, France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden 2020, 104’
Quo vadis, Aida?
Dir./Script: Jasmila Žbanić, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Austria, Romania, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, France, Norway 2020, 104’
Souad
Dir.: Ayten Amin, Egypt, Tunisia, Germany 2021, 96’
International Jury
Marta Nieto Postigo
Born in 1987. Marta Nieto Postigo is co-director and curator of the Barcelona International Women’s Film Festival. She is also a member of Drac Màgic, a cultural cooperative founded 50 years ago, which is based in Barcelona and dedicated to film and media education through a feminist lens. She is a guest lecturer at the Film and Audiovisual School of Catalonia (ESCAC), where she teaches a course on feminist non-fiction, and at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), where she teaches audiovisual narrative in the gender and communication master’s programme. She has participated in numerous international events on film and education, has been a jury member at numerous festivals and collaborates with media specialised in film and education in Catalonia and Spain.
Monika Treut
Born in 1954. Literary scholar, director and producer Monika Treut is an avant-garde figure of the New Queer Cinema scene. She has been working with video since 1976 and was a founding member of the women’s media project, bildwechsel. In 1984 she set up the film production company Hyena I/II with Elfi Mikesch, producing the love drama Seduction: The Cruel Woman. The feature films Virgin Machine and My Father Is Coming were followed by documentaries exploring sexual transgressions and portraying charismatic figures such as Annie Sprinkle or Sandy Stone. The same personalities also featured in the award-winning trans*futuristic Gendernauts (1999).
The follow-up, Genderation, premiered at the Berlinale in 2021. Treut’s work has been the subject of over 30 international retrospectives to date. She teaches in California, New York and Hildesheim.
Elma Tataragić
Born 1976 in Sarajevo. Tataragić is a screenwriter, director, producer and film curator. She has a PhD in film and literature. Her extensive filmography includes the multi-award winning feature films Snow (screenplay, production) and God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunya screenplay), which won the IFFF Dortmund+Köln main award in 2019.
Tataragić has worked for the Sarajevo Film Festival since 1995, and is now curator for its Competition programme. She is President of the Association of Filmmakers of Bosnia and Herzegovina and also its European Film Promotion (EFP) representative. She has been teaching screenwriting at Sarajevo Academy of Performing Arts since 2002, now as a professor and vice dean coordinator for international cooperation. She is currently working on three feature films as well as a short film.
Online Fest info
As well as the online film programme, we have daily morning commentaries, live talks in the evenings (7.30 pm), our digital Wonder-Bar, as well as clips, film excerpts and interviews on our website and social media channels – all designed to give audiences the chance to interact with us and the film-makers.
Many of the films are shown in their original language with German ubtitles. Audiences can choose between buying tickets for single films (EUR 5.50) as well as various multiticket options.
From May 18, all information will be available on our brand-new festival website at the new URL www.frauenfilmfest.com.
Festival sponsors
Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North-Rhine Westphalia; City of Cologne; City of Dortmund Film- und Medienstiftung NRW; Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth; Sparkasse Dortmund; Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media
