18th International Filmmor Women’s Film Festival on Wheels Starts!

International Filmmor Women’s Film Festival on Wheels celebrates its 18th anniversary in 7 cities with 46 films, interviews, panels and workshops. The festival, which will start in Istanbul on March 16, will last until May 10.

18th International Filmmor Women’s Film Festival on Wheels starts on 16 March in Istanbul. The screenings will start at Institut Français and will continue until March 22. After 22nd of March, the festival will continue at Cennet Culture and Art Center in Küçükçekmece and will visit 6 villages of Istanbul via Cinebus of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

18th Filmmor Women’s Film Festival travels with in solidarity of Filmmor Women’s Cooperative, Antalya Women’s Solidarity Association, Bodrum Women’s Solidarity Association, Rosa Women’s Association, Mersin Women’s Labor Collective, Adana Women’s Platform, Yalova Women’s Platform. First, in Bodrum on 4-5 April, then in Antalya on April 11-12, in Mersin on April 18-19, in Yalova on April 25-26, in Adana on May 2-3 and in Diyarbakır on May 9-10 the movies will meet with the audience.

All festival screenings and events are free of charge.

This year at 18th Filmmor Women’s Film Festival, 47 films from 21 countries will meet with audience. Alongside Rights Based Cinema section, there are Women’s Cinema, Our Body are Ours, Sex-Gender-Sexuality, Feminist Memory and Consecutive Films in the festival.

Rights Based Cinema 

Even though equality is still far, women are making more and more films and telling their stories in their own language, putting the concept of “rights” in words more often and having a determined attitude toward injustice. Against injustice, Filmmor, opposes to violations of rights, gives voices to rights, and turns to Rights Based Cinema. Ahu Öztürk, Helena Ignez, Meltem Cumbul, Nur Sürer, Melek Özman will discuss rights orientedness, discourses of films, rights and violations of rights in the production of cinema in the panel of Rights Based Cinema, in addition to the film program.

Films of Rights Based Cinema Section:

  • Women Who Persist / Chieko Yamagami
  • Fundamental: Gender Justice. No Exceptions / Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
  • Maiden’s Tower / Susanna Lira
  • Sofia / Meryem Benm’Barek

Women’s Cinema                  

This section, where films from all over the world meet, presents Extracts, Women with Her Own Light, Fakir, Leonie, Actress and Spy, Porcelein, Britt-Marie Was Here, Delphine and Carole, Feelings To Tell and I love Everything I Hate About You. Director of Extracts, Women with Her Own Light, Sinai Sganzeria and director of Fakir will be in the festival.

  • Acting / Christine Jezior
  • A Place in Between / Selin Bonfil
  • Britt-Marie Was Here / Tuva Novotny 
  • Da Capo / İpek Efe 
  • Deep Blue / Sarah Gignac 
  • Delphine and Carole / Callisto Mc Nulty 
  • Extracts / Sinai Sganzerla 
  • Fakir / Helena Ignez 
  • Feelings To Tell / Wen Li 
  • Fight#??? / Jee Woo Kim 
  • Good Morning! / Şehbal Şenyurt
  • I love Everything I Hate About You / Nadine Keil
  • La Llorona / Rosana Cuellar
  • Leonie, Actress and Spy / Annette Apon
  • My Sister / Burcu Aykar
  • Off The Record / Liana Chirita, Nicoleta Miron 
  • Porcelain / Jenneke Boeijink 
  • Reverie / Ilgın Hancıoğlu 
  • Tell Me You Still Love Me -Rui Ting Ji
  • Tell Tale / Fu Yang
  • The Big Questions In Life / Ingrid Hübscher
  • The Hive / Eylem Kaftan
  • The Room / Latifa Saïd
  • The Woman With Her Own Light / Sinai Sganzerla 
  • Till The End Of The World / Florence Bouvy
  • Unsurpassed Team / Ruxin Liang, Changjiang Wang, Michael Davin 
  • Witch Trilogy 13+ / Ceylan Özgün Özçelik

Our Body are Ours

In this section, there are films that reverse the norm by saying “I comb my hair, I knock my hair, to whom?”

  • Flora Chaerin Im 
  • My Body Is More / Susanna Lira
  • Singled [Out] / Mariona Guiu, Ariadna Relea
  • Swallows / Caroline Emery
  • Women with Pretty Little Noses / Handan İpekçi

Gender-Sex-Sexuality

In Gender-Sex-Sexuality section also this year welcomes the films that say “Down with the dual gender regime!” Dorris Dörrie’s Cherry Blossoms and Demons will premiere in Turkey.

  • Cherry Blossoms & Demons / Doris Dörrie
  • Girls Grow Up Drawing Horses / Joanie Wind 
  • Italy & (This Is) Water / Anja Franziska Plaschg, Loan Gavriel
  • Portrait of a Lady on Fire / Céline Sciamma 
  • XY / Anna Karín Lárusdóttir

Feminist Memory: Alice Guy-Blaché

Feminist Memory section greets Alice Guy-Blaché, the first fiction film director of cinema history. Along with The Consequences of Feminism and Falling Leaves, Alice Guy Blaché, uniting the feminist stubborn heritage and legacy in the male-dominated film industry, Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché by Pamela B. Green.

Consecutive Films

In Consecutive Films section, there are two documentaries of Pelin Esmer. The Play is about women, who released their first play in 2005 in Arslanköy village and Queen Lear is again same women from Arslanköy after 14 years.

Workshop, Panel, Discussions

Chieko Yamagami, director of Women Who Persist movie, which still follows the struggle of women for equal employment in Japan, will have a chat with the audience as a guest of the festival. Galatasaray University Mediar Research Centre and HESCALE academic research groups will hold together a panel on Women’s Cinema in Maghreb and Turkey with the participation of Gülsenem Gün, Hülya Uğur Tanrıover, Meryem Benm’barek and Patricia Caille.

In the series of panels that Filmmor started three years ago to make women visible and discuss their presence in different areas of the film industry, this year, women working in the art groups of the film industry; Artists of Cinema will be on the spotlights. Women who say “tell your story” will meet with Şeyda Taluk at the Storytelling Workshop. Golden Okra Awards, which are anticipated every year, will be announced at the closing of the festival.

Filmmor celebrates its 18th anniversary with everyone who created the festival by sharing Purple Camera Solidarity Award with all the films in the festival, taking care of the copyright of each film and delivering all the films and events free of charge throughout the festival. By always screaming “not grace, not a gift; it’s women’s right”.