Sweet Yet Sour

Sunday (yesterday), I attended the Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival.  The Festival is an annual event that lasts for three days and is always in early November.  All of the films featured have either been produced or directed by women and most are documentaries.  The Festival has been going on for many years and I have attended in years past, but have not gone since 2006.  It was a great treat to be able to go this year.  Each day there are different movies, and some people (not me) attend all three days – and honestly that’s way too much sitting on my butt for me, but more power to them!

I always come away from the festival having learned lots, cried some and enjoyed myself immensely; this year was no different. Films are shown all day (with breaks about every two hours and for lunch) and in two separate theaters.  Different movies are played in each theater so you have a range of choices of films to see at each time slot.

This year I chose to see the following (this is the order in which I saw them):

Plastic: This was a charming 8 minute short about a girl (Anna) preparing for a date with a man (Henry) she has not seen for a while.  She struggles with her outfits, her jewelry, etc. and then discovers that she has (of course!) a zit on her nose.  In her frustration Anna presses her hands against her forehead and realizes that she can mold her body any way she likes.  So she does what we all would do and does a little body work; some things get pushed in, some shoved up, some lengthened, etc… It was lovely and heart-warming to see what finally showed up at the door when Henry arrived.

Bake Shop Ghost: Another charming short starring Kathryn Joosten (whom I loved as Mrs. Landingham on West Wing) and Marianne Jean-Baptiste.  Joosten plays a bake shop owner in a small town who haunts a succession of people who try to take over the shop after her death.  It was a sweet and amusing film that I will remember for a long time.

Daughters of Gardeners: A documentary about the causes, prevalence and affects of female infanticide in India.  The film was well done, explained the many reasons of why the aborting or killing of girls is so rampant in India, and explored the high crime rate, sex and human trafficking and bachelorhood problems that India faces because of this problem.  I’m definitely glad I saw the film, but was horrified by the opening scenes of dead baby girls floating in a river.  I found it frankly unnecessary and upsetting (worse because I am pregnant and the mother of a daughter).  The rest of the film was a great learning experience but I don’t think that those pictures were imperative to getting the point across.

Flying Lessons: A short film starring Dana Delaney about the struggles of a single mom with a teenage son who is autistic.  The film was informative and heart-breaking.  I was hoping for a happier ending, but I realized after thinking about it that the ending was as happy as it could be for the subject matter.

Sin by Silence:  This film was by far the most moving experience of the day.  In it you meet women in the California prison system who are members of Convicted Women Against Abuse (CWAA).  All of the women that are profiled have been in prison for many years, most sentenced to life in prison, for killing their abusers.  The stories of the abuse that they suffered are horrific and heart-rending.  All were convicted in the 1980’s when the courts would not allow testimony or evidence of previous abuse and the “Battered Woman’s Syndrome” was not admissible.  The center of the film focuses on a woman named Brenda, in jail since 1985, who killed her abusive husband.  During one 6 month period of their marriage there were 42 domestic violence calls from their home and Brenda endured multiple visits to the emergency room.  One night in prison, after learning that her son, whom she had to give up for adoption when she entered prison, was killed in a car accident, Brenda decided to either commit suicide or start a group for abused women.  Fortunately, Brenda started CWAA and has gone on to help many women, both inside and outside of prison, as well as change many laws regarding abuse testimony in court.  Spoiler alert!  One day in 2002, Brenda received a letter from her son, whose adoptive parents had lied about his death (this was the part where I really cried).  The following week Brenda was contacted by some attorneys who had determined that, in large part owing to the laws that Brenda helped to get passed in California, Brenda could be re-tried with the abuse evidence allowed.  Long story short, Brenda was released from prison and reunited with her son in 2008.  The best part of going to the Film Festival is that some filmmakers attend and answer questions after the film.  Olivia Klaus, the filmmaker of Sin by Silence, attended the festival and was met with rousing applause and a standing ovation when she came to the stage to answer our questions.  But, to our even greater surprise, Brenda appeared upon stage soon afterwards, to even greater applause and a longer standing ovation.  It was such a moving experience that even now it sends chills up my spine!

After a nice lunch break (which was highly needed after such a morning), we returned to the film festival for more films…

A’Mare: This was a short film about two young brothers who go fishing far out to sea and catch a drowning man instead of a fish.  It was okay, but really didn’t belong in the festival and I think it was mostly filler…

Speaking In Tongues: This documentary followed several children, all of different ages, who are all enrolled in language immersion schools in San Francisco.  The film details the best ages for children to learn language (before age 13) and studies how well they do in school.  The kids are all learning different languages, Spanish, Mandarin and Cantonese, and study subjects in both English and their immersion language.  The kids were amazing, bright and all doing at or above their grade levels in all subjects.  The film also covered the opposing “English Only” movement and how this affects America’s competitiveness in a global economy.  It was a great documentary and made me hope that I have the ability and opportunity to enroll my children in such a program.

Blessed is the Match: My film festival day ended with this documentary about the life and death of Hannah Senesh.  Hannah grew up in a middle class Jewish family in Budapest in pre-Nazi Hungary.  Upon the death of her father when Hannah was 6, Hannah began to write poetry and continued to do so throughout her life.  In her teen years antisemitism grew in Hungary and faced with this Hannah’s brother Giorg left to study in France and Hannah applied to agricultural college in the newly established Jewish lands in Palestine (soon to be Israel).  Hannah’s mother was left alone in Hungary to deal with the growing Nazi movement.  Upon realizing what was truly happening in Europe with the rise of Hitler, Hannah volunteered to be part of a rescue mission.  She was one of only 30 Jews from Israel who parachuted into Yugoslavia in an effort to save Jews from the death camps.  Unfortunately, Hannah was caught and I’m sure you can fill in the details of what eventually happened to her at the hands of the Gestapo.  Hannah’s bravery at such a young age (she was 22 when she volunteered), her heroism and her beautiful poetry all made for a moving film during which I was glad to have brought stores of tissues.