Women directors embellish IFFI ensemble

Be it Venice, Cannes, Berlin or Toronto, to name a few, and nearer home IFFI and our own BIFFES are curating films by women directors

Gender equity has become the new normal at film festivals. Providing women on par platforms for reasonable representation of their eclectic works has become the natural do at film festivals in the recent past. If earlier, it was a Sisyphean struggle for women to find the right voice and pride of place in the scheme of things, at the annual cinema jamborees, things have taken a 360-degree turn for the better for women in recent years.

Film festivals will be considered much poorer if a handsome number of films helmed by some of the finest women auteurs do not find representation to delight the die-hard cine buffs with their nifty, nuanced narratives. So much so, reflective of this happy trend, the way film festivals have gone on to ensure women directors get deserved due to showcase their creative mettle at many festivals worldwide speaks of the fresh breeze blowing for the greater good of cinema.

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Be it Venice, Cannes, Berlin or Toronto, to name a few, and nearer home IFFI (the International Film Festival of India) and our own BIFFES (the Bengaluru International Film Festival) are providing and curating sizeable films by women directors. This has become more so post #MeToo a la affair Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein which gave rise to the movement the world over. Following in their wake, IFFI and BIFFES have been leading the way, ensuring a healthy percentage of women's films are featured and showcased at these film festivals.

The 53rd IFFI, which got underway on November 20, is a sterling example of this, a practice which has been continued since such a precedent began. As many as 52 films by women film directors, drawn from nearly as many nations, are being showcased at IFFI.

IFFI's flagship - International Competition Section – sees as many as four films by women directors from among 15 in the fray. These are Belgium's I Have Electric Dreams by Valentina Maurel, Palestinian Mediterranean Fever by Maha Haj, Nezouh by Soudade Kaadan (Syria) and The Line (La ligne) by Ursula Meier (France).

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Further, the Mid Fest Section sees the Canadian feature 'Fixation' by Mercedes Bryce Morgan to delight the audience. IFFI's best debut feature section sees three by women from among seven chosen. These are the Grecian flick Behind The Haystack by Asimina Proedrou. Cherry, a US feature by Sophie Galibert and Mayo Nilo (Laura) by Lovisa Siren from Sweden. Besides co-directed Mexican fare The Island Of Lost Girls with co-director Ann Marie, the better half of the documentary-making couple.

The Festival Kaleidoscope sees six features: Charlotte Wells' 'Aftersun' from the UK, Alcarras from Spain by Carla Simon, France's veteran Clare Dennis' Both Sides Of Blade, Mia Hansen-Love's French romance One Fine Morning, Mexican Natalia Lopez Gallardo's Robe Of Gems, renowned French director Alice Diop's Saint Omer, Moroccan 'Fipresci' award winner Maryam Touzani's The Blue Caftan.

These apart, the Cinema of World section brims with 36 choicest films from 81 movies collated, with two among nine featured in the ICFT-UNESCO Gandhi Medal competition section, Bulgarian 'Mother' by Zornitsa Sophia and Canadian White Dog by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette. The new Macabre Dreams section showcases four horror genre films including these three - Hatching by Finland's Hanna Bergholm, Huesera by Mexico's Michelle Garza Cervera and Slovakia's The Night Siren by Tereza Nvotová.

Latvia's My Love Affair With Marriage by Signe Baumane and Romania's Anca Damian's The Island are two animation features. The Country Focus section features two - Other People's Children by Rebecca Zlotowski and The Crossing by Florence Miailhe. Indeed, this critic, who has been privy to nearly a dozen films, can vouchsafe that these are nuanced works, among them being Aftersun, Alcarras, Both Sides of Blade, Hatching, and many more.

The IFFI has served some of the finest films by contemporary women directors. Each of these films by women weaves in a fiesta of feminine perspectives to an otherwise patriarchal and "male gaze" dramaturgy that unfolds in regimental regularity—vive la women's cinema.

(The author is a film critic)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.