Spotlight on the Samsung Women’s International Film Festival

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Image via nawff.org

The subject of “women’s films” has been discussed recently in the US media. Earlier this month, Bridesmaids became the top grossing R-rated female comedy of all time. Though Bridesmaids has been praised for its cross-gender appeal, the center of discourse surrounding it now has become its status as a “women’s film.” It raises interesting questions — what exactly is a “women’s film”? Can a “women’s film” appeal to different genders and life experiences? Does the gender of the filmmaker matter to one’s interpretation of a film?

Over the next week, filmmakers from around the world will gather in Chennai, India to address these very questions. Tomorrow is the start of the 4th annual Samsung Women’s International Film Festival (SWIFF), which seeks to “initiate discussions with film practitioners and viewers to enhance our understanding of this debatable question of what constitutes “a woman’s film.” This year’s festival will feature films from Algeria, China, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Ghana, Holland, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Venezuela, Uzbekistan, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia and South Africa, with the largest number of films coming from India and South Korea.

The festival highlights will include screenings of Korean filmmaker Park Chan-Ok’s work. Her films are not exclusively about women, but rather relationships between men and women. She discussed her work at the International Film Festival Rotterdam last year (contains subtitles):

Other highlights of the festival include a tribute to the late Indian actress Smita Patil, screenings and panel discussions on the work of UK filmmaker Kim Longionotto and German filmmaker Monika Treut, and a panel discussion called “Freeing the Lens: Fact, Fiction and the Freedom of Expression.” The latter will feature Leena Manimekalai’s Sengadal, a film about human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.

The diversity and range of the films presented certainly go far beyond the current conversations about Bridesmaids. In these discussions, “women’s films” are about specific topics related to women — marriage, friendship with other women, shopping (in the case of Sex and the City 2, the film which Bridesmaids beat as top-grossing female comedy) — rather than, say, a woman’s take on an issue like the state of human rights in Sri Lanka. Even though Park Chan-Ok’s work relates to love stories, her focus on male and female characters with equal depth and complexity is something often lacking in mainstream Western “women’s films.” It will be interesting to observe what other films are highlighted at the festival and what opinions about “women’s films” are revealed during the panel discussions.

What do you believe constitutes a “women’s film”? What are some of your favorites?

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