10 March – 10 May 2018

48 films from dozens of cinematic masters, in myriad languages, a slew of panels, forums, workshops, and talks, all brought to you by the 16th International Filmmor Women’s Film Festival on Wheels. This year the festival will stop in Istanbul, Trabzon, Izmir, Antalya, Bodrum, Mersin, Adana and Diybarbakır, and entrance to all film screenings and other festival activities will free of charge.

The 16th Filmmor Women’s Film Festival on Wheels will bring women’s films, words, dreams, tales, poems, stories, paths, songs, hopes, resistance, and experiences to meet with those of women in the following cities on the following dates: 10-17 March İstanbul; 23-25 March Antalya; 30 Mart-1 April Izmir; 6-8 Nisan Trabzon; 13-15 April Bodrum, 20-22 April Mersin, 27-29 April Adana ve 4-6 May Diyarbakır.

All women are invited to the festival
The Filmmor Women’s Film Festival will kick off with a march on March 9th, to mark the beginning of the festival. The march will begin and end at the French Cultural Center, where all of the Istanbul film screenings and events will take place. Those who wish to do so may sign up at the French Cultural Center website to watch films free of charge.

Two “awards”: One inspires hope, the other inspires fear
As always, amongst the 48 films that will be screened at the festival there is no competition, only solidarity. However, the festival does present two awards; one that inspires hope, and another that inspires fear. Giving us hope for the future is the “Purple Camera Solidarity Award” presented to a Promising Woman Filmmaker; inspiring fear are our annual awards with which we seek to draw attention to sexism in Turkish cinema, with the hope that we never have to present them to anyone ever again, and those are the uncovered Golden Okra Awards…

Award Winners, Premieres, Eagerly Awaited Movies Galore 
This year the Women’s Film Festival is back once again with a program chockfull of films by dozens of great filmmakers in a myriad of languages, as well as a slew of workshops, panels, forums, and talks.

Women’s Cinema
The films in this section are not just “films by women directors” or “films about women”; they include the latest films by 21st century masters of the art, all women who offer new perspectives on cinema and life via their unique lenses 

16 Weeks / Carlota Coranado 

The Teller / Beril Ece Güler, Nazli Khoshabar 

Apnoea / Nicola Stephanie Sangs 

Arin / Mizgin Müjde Arslan 

Carmen / Natalia Presston 

Tire-Languages / Caroline Emery, Stephan Bauer 

Something Usefull / Pelin Esmer 

Inflame / Ceylan Özgün Özçelik 

Faces, Places / Agnes Varda, Jr 

Scale/ Emine Gezici Üstündağ 

Snake Hips Lulu / Lulu Keating 

Complicit / Heather White, Lynn Zhang 

Tupperware / Laurie Kahn 

Miss Wamba / Estafanya Cortes 

Zama / Lucrecia Martel 

Good Films Make Good Neighbors:
In this section we come together with neighbors from near and far, from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and more, to take a look at neighborly relations, woven tightly in solidarity, from women’s perspective:

7 Veils / Sepideh Farsi 

Mothering / Roqiye Tavakoli 

Submarine / Mouna Akl 

Villa Dwellers / Monir Geyhdi 

Faoueyia / Myrna Tsapa 

Stitching Palestine / Carol Mansour 

Israfil / Ida Panahandeh 

With Open Wings / Vivian Papageorgiou 

The War Show / Obaidah Zaytoon, Adreas Dalsegaard 

Ballad for Syria / Maise Elhafez, Eda Elif Tilbet 

Hope I’m in the Frame / Netalie Braun 

Yeva / Anahid Abad 

Women are Everywhere
As Juliet Mitchell once said: Women’s history is as much a history of resistance as it is one of oppression. Women are everywhere, and as much as they face oppression, they are resisting that oppression, through the strength of solidarity and the power of cinema, by speaking truth and recording that truth…

The Astronauts Bodies / Alisa Berger 

Benzine / Sarra Abidi 

Skyscrapers / Fabianne Giezndanner 

Animal / Nayla Al Khaja 

The Divine Order / Petra Volpe 

Women with Camera / Neslihan Siligür 

The Long Summer of Theory / Irene von Alberti 

The Garden / Sonja Kröner 

Beauty and The Dogs / Khauther Ben Hania

Women are Everywhere Forum: 
The forum will begin on at 13:00 on Saturday, March 10th, at the French Culture Center, and kick off with a screening of Canan’s video “Women Bathe in the Moonlight.” In this world of ours, which has a tendency to turn a blind eye to women’s struggles, let us zoom in on women’s experiences of existence and creation in 2017, using a wide lens to take in the stories of women from all corners of the earth, from Iran to Tunisia, and from Canada to Turkey. 

Our Bodies Are Ours
Sexual politics tries to force women into molds. We’re here to shatter those molds—because our bodies are ours. 

What Doesn’t Kill Me / Rachel Meyrick 

Geek Girls / Gina Hara 

Breaking Silence / Nadya Ali 

Faces of Harassment / Paula Sacchetta 

Panel: Time’s Up: Sexual Harassment in the Film Industry
In 2017, women stood up to the industry’s male predators and declared, via campaigns like #metoo and #TimesUp, “We’ve had enough, your time’s up, this is it, we’re going to speak out now, and things are going to change!” And now is the time for us to come together and share experiences with the women are spearheading this struggle at this watershed moment in history.

Sex-Gender-Sexuality 
Films that turn their lens to issues of sex, gender, and sexuality:

Adela / Evangelina Montes 

Homur Homur / Simay Çalişkan, Nergis Karadağ 

Silvana / Olivia Kastebring, Christina Tsiobanelis, Mika Gustafson 

Tribute: Fiona Tan
Four films by “image maker” Fiona Tan that record images onto both personal and political memory:

Kingdom of Shadows 

May You Live In Interesting Times 

History’s Future 

Ascent 

Master Class with Fiona Tan on March 13th at 17:00 at the French Cultural Center.

“Let’s Go to the Movies Kids!” Special Session for Children
For children, there is no place on earth for war, borders, bureaucracy, or enmity; it’s all-meaningless to them:

The Day My Father Became a Bush / Nicole Van Kilsdonk 

Panel: A Purse of Her Own: New Generation Women Producers
In the film industry, having a purse of one’s own doesn’t only mean parity of resource distribution between the genders, it also means hope for the structural change that will transform the status quo and allocation of resources from now on. Filmmor invites you to listen to new generation women producers discuss their experiences of this transformation-in-progress.

Workshop: Short Film Workshop 
Margaret Atwood: “We no longer live in the white margins of books. We are no longer the blank spaces between stories. We are the stories themselves now and we now write our own stories.” And camera! 

For those who want to film their own stories, our Short Film Workshop will begin on March 10th. Working with Nefin Dinç, Meryem Yavuz, Claire Pijman, and Laurie Kahn, the goal is to have participants make 4 films of their own stories.

Special Event: Feminist Memory: Kate Millett, Şirin Tekeli
Şirin Tekeli: “The 21st century is most definitely the century of women. And time cannot be turned back. The women’s movement has always been a cyclical movement. It’s made gains and then those gains have been pushed back. And then starts all over again. Our grandmothers struggled to win some rights; our mothers then think they’ve got it made, but the truth is, they do not, far from it. And then some of those previous gains are lost. Next the grandchildren arrive, and the cycle starts all over again. I mean, actually, what we’re talking about is an endless struggle. What we can now say with absolutely certainty though is that in the 21st century, women are everywhere.”

As with every feminist organization founded and campaign undertaken since the 1980s, Şirin Tekeli was an active contributor to Filmmor. It was from her that we learned about oral history in 2005, and she was the person we turned too whenever we felt we’d hit a head end. Şirin Tekeli and Kate Millett will take part in the festival with the Filmmor production “A Feminist Movement” with Şirin Tekeli and Luce Guilbeault, Nicole Brossard, Margaret Wescott’s video Some American Feminists “Kate Millett.” After the film screenings, there will be a discussion about these women who, though they physically left us last year, will always remain with us.

Festival Spring
With film screenings and events that will take place over two months in 8 cities, may the 16th Filmmor Women’s Film Festival, in solidarity with the Filmmor Women’s Cooperative, Izmir Women’s Solidarity Association, Bodrum Women’s Solidarity Association, Antalya Women’s Solidarity Association, Black Sea Women’s Solidarity Association, Izmir Independent Women’s Initiative, Women’s Labor Collective Association, Middle East Cinema Academy Association, and the Adana Women’s Platform, be a gift to and a source of hope and healing for women everywhere.

Filmmor Women’s Film Festival