2009 Women's Film Festival

The 18th Women's Film Festival will take place this year from March 13th to March 22nd in three downtown locations in Brattleboro, Vermont – the Latchis Theater, New England Youth Theater, and the Hooker-Dunham Theater & Gallery. The Festival will screen twenty-seven films from short documentaries to full-length features, most made by women. Films from around the world will bring to light urgent and engaging aspects of women’s lives and celebrate women’s achievements.

This year, when it seems that all eyes are on the United States, it is fitting that the Festival has its strongest line-up of American-made films in years, films that take a compassionate and incisive look at American women’s lives in areas as diverse as the arts (Alice Neel, Patti Smith: Dream of Life, and The Poet’s View); the struggles of immigrants to make a living (La Americana, Made In LA), mental illness (The Dust of Words) and girls’ sports (Kick Like A Girl), to name a few. Just a year before Obama’s election, the film Bama Girl documents the issue of race as it plays out in a contest for Homecoming Queen at the University of Alabama.

Special events will include directors’ talks and panel discussions in conjunction with specific films.

The festival will also screen films from eight foreign countries, focusing on a range of topics from a beauty contest in a Columbian prison (2008 Academy Award nominee La Corona) to the exploration of morality and gender issues in the military via the testimonials of six female Israeli soldiers (To See If I’m Smiling). Films from Germany, the Netherlands, Iran, India, France, the Bahamas, and Argentina (with Cannes Critic’s Prize award-winner XXY, which portrays with great sensitivity the life of an “inter-gender” teenager) round out the festival’s global kaleidoscope.

As a NY Times article recently reported, many of the best films made today do not get seen commercially. This will be the only area screening for most of the WFF fare. Additionally, this year for the first time the festival accepted unsolicited submissions and found some gems which festival-goers will be among the first to view anywhere!

Each program will play at least once in a handicapped-accessible theater.

All proceeds from ticket sales will go to benefit Brattleboro's Women’s Crisis Center.

Passes are available at bookstores throughout the region, at the festival web site (www.womensfilmfestival.org), and at theaters during the Festival.

A hotel/restaurant/ festival package is available through the Latchis Hotel (www.latchis.com).

For questions, email: Info@womensfilmfestival.org.