A.V. Club: Best of the Decade

Feast your eyes on Women With Vision

The Walker Art Center's annual series spotlights female filmmakers from around the globe.

"Noodle" "Noodle"
by Stephanie Wilbur Ash March 5, 2009

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The Walker Art Center’s Women With Vision film festival has always reached to be more than just a collection of movies made by women from around the world, though it is that. Most of the filmmakers selected also double as social activists, and their work, on the whole, focuses on the personal side of world events—on love, children, and family persevering in the face of tremendous oppression, obstacle, and change. The festival kicks off on March 5 with Treeless Mountain, an intimate film from Korean-American filmmaker So Yong Kim, who will be on hand to introduce it. Told from the perspective of two abandoned sisters ages 3 and 6, the film follows the wrenching changes in store for the children with tight shots of the subtle acceptance or reticence on their faces. Such attention typifies the quiet dignity and agony explored by the festival’s lineup of women filmmakers, culled from Nepal, Korea, and Israel, among others. (Plus two from the Twin Cities: 3D Sun, a 20-minute film of NASA images co-directed by Melissa Butts; and Ann Follett’s Stop The Re-Route: Taking A Stand On Sacred Land.)
The festival closes on March 21 with Aida Begiç’s Snow, which focuses on women trying to survive in their Bosnian village after their husbands, fathers, and children have gone missing in the carnage following the breakup of Yugoslavia. Like Treeless Mountain, it lingers often and close on the face, but explores the dignity of work with brilliant strokes of magical realism—such as a young boy who defensively grows long hair that disguises him as a girl to protect himself from the ethnic cleansers who typically took the men and boys away first.
A related series, “Views From Iran,” runs through April 25 and crosses over with two films. In Manijeh Hekmat’s 3 Women, screening March 11, three disconnected generations of women reunite over a squabble involving a valuable Persian rug. March 18’s 7 Blind Women Filmmakers, is a compilation of documentary films made by sightless Iranian women as they go about their domestic lives, often with cameras attached to their bodies.
And for those who geek out on French New Wave, octogenarian Agnés Varda’s memory film, The Beaches of Agnès, adds wit to the festival and a memoirist’s perspective on the women’s filmmaking movement itself. Even in an aesthetic hell-bent on subverting narrative, watching Agnes walk around dressed as a potato to promote her famous photo of a heart shaped like a potato is political, funny, strong, touching, and strangely, wonderfully feminine. Here's a short clip from the movie:
Schedule:
(Unless otherwise noted, all films are $8 and are screened in the Walker Art Center Cinema.)
March 6, 7:30 pm: Treeless Mountain (introduced by director So Yong Kim)
March 6-8, every half hour during gallery hours: 3D Sun, Walker Art Center Lecture Room; director’s talk with Melissa Butts March 7, 4 pm, free
March 7, 7:30 pm: The Beaches of Agnès (Les plages d’Agnès)
March 8, 1 pm: WIFTI Short Film Showcase
March 10-31, continuously during gallery hours: Earth Body: Select Film Works By Ana Mendieta, Walker Art Center Lecture Room
March 11, 7:30 pm: 3 Women (Sé zan)
March 13, 7:30 pm: Examined Life (introduced by director Astra Taylor)
March 14, 2 pm: The Sari Soldiers
March 14, 7:30 pm: God’s Offices (Les bureaux de Dieu)
March 15, 1 pm: Noodle
March 18, 1 pm: Lecture/Screening: “Beyond Performance and Document: Unpacking Ana Mendieta’s Cross-Disciplinary Practice,” Minneapolis College Of Art And Design, 2501 Stevens Ave., free
March 18, 7:30 pm: 7 Blind Women Filmmakers (7 Filmsaze zan-e nabina)
March 19, 7:30 pm: Hair: Let The Sunshine In, free
March 20, 7:30 pm: Katia’s Sister (Het zusje van Katia)
March 21, 2 pm: Stop The Re-Route: Taking A Stand On Sacred Land (introduced by director Ann Follett)
March 21, 7:30 pm: Snow (Snijeg)

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