Revivified!!!  Adapting a series started in 2011, a round-up of big stories about women and film each week, I’m re-launching it here as Women’s Stories Weekly which I plan to post every Saturday.  If you hear of a big story about women filmmakers or women in film, please forward a link to me here, and I’ll try to include it in that week’s post.  Or, connect with me on twitter or facebook to let me know.

Berlin Hosts the “8 Arab Women Filmmakers Festival”

Eight Arab women filmmakers saw their films screened in Berlin from February 29 to March 6 at the Akademie der Künste and Cervantes Institute.  The overall theme was the Arab Spring, and a variety of formats were included (shorts, docs, animation).

 

The filmmakers and their films are:

FORBIDDEN (2011) / dir. Amal Ramsis

KINGDOM OF WOMEN (2010) / dir. Dahna Abourahme

NI ALLAH, NI MAÎTRE (NOR GOD, NOR MASTER) (2011) / dir. Nadia El Fani

A GAME (2010) / dir. Marwa Zein

Watch the short:

 

LETTER TO MY SISTER (2006) / dir. Habiba Djahnine

DAMASCUS ROOF AND TALES OF PARADISE (2010) / dir. Soudade Kaadan

LEMON FLOWERS (2007) / dir. Pamela Ghanimeh

SHOUTING IN THE DARK (2010) / dir. May Ying Welsh

Filmmakers were Egyptian, Palestinian, Algerian, Syrian, Franco-Tunisian, Sudanese, American and Lebanese.

Read the full story here:  “Arab Women Bring Spring to the Screen” (8 March, Inter Press Service)

Women In Film and Television India Launches in Mumbai

WIFT India has launched as the global organization’s 45th Chapter!  The Mumbai-based chapter is headed by co-founding president, Petrina D’Rozario, with Uma da Cunha serving as vice president.  Both are filmmakers, with D’Rozario having started as a journalist and moved into documentary filmmaking and da Cunha playing many roles, including casting director, critic and editor of a film magazine and festival organizer.  Filmmaker Kiran Rao and writer-director Sooni Taraporevala are among those who will serve on WIFT Mumbai advisory board.

Read the story here:  “Women in Film & Television India Chapter Launched” (7 March, The Hollywood Reporter)

Visit the WIFT India website by clicking here.

Oscar-winning SAVING FACE Premes on American Television

Co-directors’ Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Daniel Junge’s documentary Saving Face premiered on International Women’s Day (March 8) on HBO in the U.S.  Just under two weeks ago, they were handed two 9-pound statues for their film, Oscars for Best Documentary Short.  The film focuses on cruelty perpetrated against women in Pakistan in the form of acid attacks which mutilate and disfigure the faces of the victims.  A Pakistani plastic surgeon returns to the country to help women reconstruct their lives and their bodies.  Saving Face is the first Pakistani film to ever win an Academy Award.

Watch the trailer below and read an interview by National Geographic with the directors:

“‘Saving Face,’ the Oscar-Winning Documentary, Has Its TV Premiere”

Check out the Oscar page, including a Nominee Questionnaire, by clicking here.