The 2005 Women's Film Festival in Brattleboro, Vermont, an annual outreach and fundraising event of the Women's Crisis Center of Windham County, is scheduled for March 4th through March 20th.

The 2005 schedule is now available. As always, we have a fabulous lineup of ground breaking films and documentaries planned. Some of the highlights from Week 3 include:

The Man Who Stole My Mother's Face - Australia, 75 minutes - Writer/Director, Cathy Henkel
In a film directly relevant to the concerns of the Brattleboro Women's Crisis Center, Henkel uses film to investigate the violent assault on her mother by a local teenager in Johannesburg, South Africa, fourteen years after the crime. Although Laura Henkel identified her attacker, the man was never charged and remained free, while Laura sunk into depression and rejected contact with the world. In an attempt to help her mother heal, Cathy Henkel took matters into her own hands, returned to Johannesburg and confronted her mother's attacker. What begins as a powerful exploration about the unsolved assault becomes a gripping revelation about the healing process. The story transcends that of Laura Henkel and confronts, as well, the very high degree of violence against women in post-apartheid South Africa. Named one of the "25 Best" at the Tribeca Film Festival by the Village Voice, The Man Who Stole My Mother's Face is an intimate look at violence against women and a moving account of one family's quest for justice.
Winner, Best Documentary Feature, Tribeca Film Festival
Best Documentary, DocAviv Documentary Film Festival

Chisholm'72 - Unbought and Unbossed - Directed by Shola Lynch, USA, 76 mins
An eye-opening and ultimately inspiring film about Shirley Chisholm, the New York Congresswoman, and her 1972 run for the presidency. Chisholm's bid engendered strong, and sometimes bigoted opposition, setting off currents that affect American politics and social perceptions to this day.
http://chisholm72.net

Divan - Directed by Pearl Gluck, USA, 77 minutes
Excerpts from the director's statement:
"The camera was always a presence in my family history, my father behind the super 8, a silent witness to both dissolution of a family and also its ultimate realignment. But, where I come from, it's not part of the norm to watch movies, let alone create them, because it is considered a diversion from a life of piety, devotion, and modesty.   Hence, the paradox of my cinematic project: on the one hand, film has informed my entire life, on the other hand, it was entirely forbidden".
"...it was in Hungary while conducting oral histories that my Hasidic past began to haunt me. The ruptured trajectory of my own family kept returning. In awe of the ruins of the Hungarian Jewish landscape, I was forced to confront my act of leaving the Hasidic community of my youth. Ever an ethnographer, I turned the camera inward"
"... the divan (couch)...became a magical homage to the rebbes, a sacred memory object"... "It gave me the possibility of yearning, contemplating, and reflecting on the world I left behind".
"While grappling with this loaded legacy, I met other people who also left the Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox world. Their voices form a chorus that takes this film out of the realm of the strictly autobiographical and into a larger communal narrative. By interweaving the elements of my personal story with the chorus as well as the couch itself, I sought to create a three-layered tapestry of a post-modern Hasidic tale, embracing the elements of mystery, devotion, and joy".
-Pearl Gluck

To learn about the other wonderful films we have scheduled for this year, take a look at our schedule.

In addition to the wonderful films showing in week 3, we also have some great special events planned:

Art, Agriculture and the Revitalization of Communities
March 20th, at approximately 8 PM, following "Downside Up" and "Sweet Soil" at Hooker/Dunham theater.
Panelists include: Joe Thompson, Director, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art; Gail Nunziata, Brattleboro Arts Initiative; Laura Meister, Director, Sweet Soil; Amanda Thurber-Ellis, farmer, Lilac Ridge Farm, Brattleboro; additional participants TBA! Facilitator: Orly Munzing, Executive Director, Strolling of the Heifers, Inc.
Two films showing the last night of the festival, March 20th, address the revitalization of community economies and cultures through support of the arts and agriculture. Western Massachusetts filmmaker Nancy Kelly (in Downside Up) and Laura Meister and Erica Spizz (in Sweet Soil) document ways in which art and agriculture each can play a critical role in the rebirth of communities and regions. Ironically, though, artists and farmers are amongst the poorest paid members of those communities. In "Downside Up," Nancy Kelly investigates what happens when the town of North Adams, against huge odds, decides to invest its energy into nurturing art, artists, and the spirit of hope that art can inspire. In "Sweet Soil," Meister and Spizz paint a portrait of regional renewal as a local food coop invests in supporting and nurturing its farmers. Brattleboro and Bellows Falls, VT are two more communities which have looked to both art and agriculture as a means to economic and cultural revitalization. On this panel advocates for the arts and agriculture discuss with the film audience what has to happen to make these relationships among artists, farmers, and communities mutually nurturing.

The votes are now in for the 2004 Best of the Festival. 2004's best film --based on audience feedback cards distributed and filled in at festival screenings-- was What I Want My Words to Do to You directed by Judy Katz and Madeleine Gavin. In this documentary, women incarcerated in a New York State penitentiary, including Kathy Boudin, and Pam Smart, attempt to tell their stories and heal through a writing program with Eve Ensler. Heart of the Sea came in second and Tomboys came in third. To learn more about these films and the other wonderful films featured in previous years, click on our Archives link above.

Click here for more information concerning the Women's Crisis Center, and take a look at the Vermont Network Against Domestic Violence, www.vtnetwork.org. This website includes a link to the Women's Crisis Center in Brattleboro as well as other crisis centers around Vermont.

See you at the festival!