IWDFF: Short Films About Women Artists

Join Hostelling International USA, Women in Film & Video New England, and the United Nations Association of Greater Boston for the second annual International Women's Day Film Festival.

The goal of the festival is to promote a greater understanding of the extraordinary lives of women around the world through relevant and thought-provoking films and discussions. Join us to honor the struggles, victories, and remarkable experiences of women around the world.

Short Films About Women Artists

Exposing Homelessness (USA, 2006, 20 min)
Exposing Homelessness documents the experience of three formerly homeless women who participated in a three-month photography workshop. Diverse in age, race, class and citizenship status, the women succeed in challenging the homeless stereotype and empowering themselves in the process. The relationship and intimacy that grows between the women over the course of the workshop proves to be a healing and powerful experience for the women and holds a vital message for the viewer.

Singing Pictures (India, 2005, 40 min)
For generations, Patua (Chitrakar) communities of West Bengal, India have been painters and singers of stories depicted in scrolls. Recently a group of women from Naya village near Calcutta formed a scroll painters' collaborative. The film follows their daily lives as they paint, sing, cook, tend to their children and meet with the cooperative. They discuss the problems and rewards of practicing their art, and speak freely about the social, religious, and political changes in the village and the world beyond. These stories attest to what it means to be a woman in Bengal and India today, demonstrating how a small group of determined women can empower themselves by adapting an ancient art to new conditions.