Brooklyn Heights

2nd annual St. Francis College Women’s Film Festival set for March 28, 29

58 Bold, Expressive, Thought-Provoking Films by Women

March 22, 2017 Brooklyn Daily Eagle
St. Francis College professor and filmmaker Augusta Palmer. Photo courtesy of St. Francis College
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After reviewing more than 1,000 submissions, the judges of the 2nd Annual St. Francis College Women’s Film Festival selected the 58 films that will be screened on March 28 and 29 in the college’s Founders Hall. The festival offers two days of thought-provoking panels and workshops with industry professionals as well as bold and expressive films created by women from 27 countries.

“The outpouring of talent, creativity and meaning in the films that were submitted was almost overwhelming,” said festival co-founder and St. Francis Professor Augusta Palmer, a director of multiple documentaries including her forthcoming film, “The Blues Society,” about the historical Memphis Country Blues Festivals of the late ’60s. “By bringing together all these works and the female college and professional filmmakers who made them, we are building a bridge that will become a real pipeline for talent moving into the film industry.”

This mission is also being made possible through the support of several partners of the festival, including The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP); Cinematcher, a new app that brings together producers and the people looking for jobs in film, TV and digital media; Screening Room.org, a platform for filmmakers to showcase and get feedback on their work; The Alamo Drafthouse in Downtown Brooklyn’s City Point; and Seed and Spark, an innovative crowdfunding platform for female filmmakers.

The festival is a cross-disciplinary collaboration between the Communication Arts Department, the Women’s Studies Center and the Center for Entrepreneurship. “It really takes a village to create a film festival,” added Palmer. “Faculty from many disciplines helped us in reviewing the submissions.”

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“One of our other goals of the festival is to inspire discourse among women regarding the expression of women’s image in film, as well as to explore the role of women in the history and evolving art of filmmaking,” said Professor Magaly Colimon-Christopher, co-founder of the festival and also a communication arts faculty member at St. Francis. “This year, in order to facilitate this discussion, the festival will include panel discussions examining the historic and the emerging contributions of women in the film, filmmaking as entrepreneurship, as well as a crowdfunding workshop.”

The festival begins Tuesday, March 28 at 9:30 a.m. with an opening address and continues with screenings of the first round of short films.

The first panel discussion at 11 a.m. explores the topic of why women’s media making matters and features Ally Acker (author, “Reel Women”), Debra Zimmerman (executive director of Women Make Movies), as well as filmmaker Isabel Sandoval. At 2 p.m., Christina Raia of “Seed and Spark” will lead a crowdfunding workshop.

Film screenings begin at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, March 29 and run until a panel discussion on filmmaking as entrepreneurship. This panel will feature Stacey Holman (Producer of “Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities” and “Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band”)Lauren Magura (“Cinematcher”) and Lisa Russell (Governess Films, StoryShifter).

Awards and prizes will be presented at 5:30 p.m.

 


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