Family of Woman Film Festival Will Take Place in Sun Valley, March 7-10

The 7th annual Family of Woman Film Festival will take place at the Sun Valley Opera House, March 7-10, with dramatic and documentary film screenings from around the globe and internationally recognized speakers. A special pre-film festival event with Allison Shigo, producer of the Emmy Award-winning documentary film, "A Walk to Beautiful," which was presented at the 2009 Family of Woman Film Festival, will launch a new festival retrospective of filmmakers returning to talk about their current life and work.

Shigo has started a charity in northern Ethiopia to help victims of fistula-the subject of her documentary. She is currently partnering with the United Nations Population Fund [UNFPA]. She will screen her film and speak about her humanitarian work at The Community Library on Tuesday, March 4, at 5:30 p.m.

The festival is also proud to present the first Bonni Curran Memorial Lecture for The Health and Dignity of Women on Thursday, March 6, at 6 p.m. at The Community Library. An international humanitarian and advocate for many local causes, Bonni died in an accident this past August. She had been a supporter of the Family of Woman Film Festival from its inception. The inaugural speaker for the Bonni Curran Memorial Lecture will be Meagan Carnahan Fallone, Head of Global Strategy for Barefoot College. Based in India, the college is the subject of "Rafea: Solar Mama," which will screen at this year's festival. Barefoot College is a non-profit organization based in India teaching rural women solar electrification, water purification and livelihood development.

The film screenings will begin on Friday, March 7, at 7 p.m. at the Sun Valley Opera House with opening remarks by astronaut Barbara Morgan. Morgan is a Distinguished Educator in Residence at Boise State University, with a dual appointment to the Departments of Engineering and Education. At the start of her career, she was a schoolteacher in McCall, Idaho. Morganparticipated in a mission to the International Space Station as a robotic arm operator and transfer coordinator.

After Morgan's opening remarks, the festival will screen "Bay of All Saints," (Brazil) by Annie Eastman, who will be in attendance. "Bay of All Saints," a feature documentary filmed over two years by Eastman in Brazil, follows the stories of three single mothers who, though illiterate, find their voices as leaders in their slum community. "We're continuing to try and use the film as a tool to affect change in the lives of the slum dwellers," Eastman said.

On Saturday, March 8, at 11 a.m. at the Sun Valley Opera House, filmmaker Jeremy Teicher will present a screening of his 2011 Student Academy Award nominated film, "This Is Us," which was the inspiration for his feature-length drama. "Tall as the Baobab Tree," (Senegal), which will screen the same day at 3 p.m. Based on a true story, the film tells the story of Coumba and her little sister Debo who are the first to leave their family's remote African village, where meals are prepared over open fires and water is drawn from wells, to attend school in the bustling city. All Wood River Valley students as well as interested community filmmakers are encouraged to attend Teicher's free 11 a.m. screening. Tickets for the 3 p.m. screening will be available to students with ID without charge.

Also on Saturday, March 8, at 7 p.m., "Anita" (U.S.) will screen at the Sun Valley Opera house prior to its national opening and will be presented by Academy Award winning filmmaker and Sun Valley resident Freida Lee Mock.

An entire country watched transfixed as a poised, beautiful African-American woman in a blue dress sat before a Senate committee of 14 white men and with a clear, unwavering voice recounted the repeated acts of sexual harassment she had endured while working with U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. That October day in 1991 Anita Hill, a bookish law professor from Oklahoma, was thrust onto the world stage and instantly became a celebrated, hated, venerated and divisive figure. Against a backdrop of sex, politics and race, "Anita" reveals the intimate story of a woman who spoke truth to power.

On Sunday, March 9, at 3 p.m. "Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame," (Iran/Afghanistan) an allegorical drama by Hana Makhmalbaf, will screen at the Sun Valley Opera House. "When I was making the film, I kept asking myself is this film for children or for adult people?" Makhmalbaf said. "When the film was released, I got the answer that it was for both. Adults were watching to see what they are doing in their normal life to children and how they affect them, and by affecting children how they are making the future."

The film festival screenings will end at 7 p.m. on Sunday, March 9, at the Sun Valley Opera House with "Rafea, Solar Mama," (Jordan/India), by Mona Eldaief and Jehane Noujaim. Meagan Carnahan Fallone, a representative from the Barefoot College, will be present for the screening.

Living with her daughters in one of Jordan's poorest desert villages on the Iraqi border, Rafea travels to India to attend the Barefoot College, where illiterate grandmothers from around the world are trained in six months to be solar engineers. "It was joyful to see how all the women bond from completely and utterly different cultures with no common language and transcend from an impoverished place, trying to provide for their children and no one ever gave them a chance," Eldaief said.

The festival will conclude on Monday, March 10, with Anzaira Roxas, a nurse-midwife from the Philippines and winner of Friends of UNFPA's 2013 International Award, speaking at The Community Library at 6 p.m. on the UNFPA's recent typhoon relief work and special needs of women in crisis situations.

Tickets to all screenings will be available Wednesday, Feb. 12, at Chapter One Bookstore and Iconoclast Books in Ketchum. Individual tickets are $15 or $60 for all five films. For more information, visit www.familyofwomanfilmfestival.org.

 

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