Join Oxfam India at Asian Women’s Film Festival this International Women's Day

By NA
04 Mar, 2019

Oxfam India campaigns for Ending Violence Against Women and Girls and aims to change patriarchal mindsets that influence violence against women. We have partnered with the International Association of Women in Radio & Television IAWRT to mount the 15th edition of Asian Women’s Film Festival because we believe films can bring about positive gender norms.

The 15th IAWRT Asian Women's Film Festival will be held at the India International Centre (IIC), New Delhi on March 5, 6 and 7, 2019.

This year's festival will showcase over 50 films from 20 countries directed by Asian women filmmakers from Armenia, Bangladesh, Estonia, India, Iran, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkey and other countries.

Besides the general category, the film selections include curated segments on Female Gaze, Childhood, Seven Sisters (films from North East of India) by IAWRT's pool of talented filmmakers - Bina Paul, Samina Mishra, Iffat Fatima, Jerro Mulla, Anandana Kapur, Supriya Suri. One of the festival highlights is a special country focus on Georgia curated by Smriti Nevatia and Soundphile by Shikha Jhingan.

Filmmakers of India

"The 15th edition of the IAWRT Asian Women's Film Festival is being held at a time when women in cinema are central to world discourse in many ways. Discussions about women's participation in cinema and the Me Too Campaigns in the film industry from Hollywood to the 900-film-a year Indian film industry - has put women in cinema at the heart of several critical discussions. It is not surprising therefore that Female Gaze organically became the theme of our festival's 15th edition" observes Nupur Basu, Managing Trustee, IAWRT Chapter India.

What is the Female Gaze
The Asian Women's Film Festival (AWFF) was first held in New Delhi in the year 2005. The festival has grown in strength and popularity over the years with increasing participation of filmmakers. This year the festival organisers received over 700 entries to the festival from 37 countries, the highest ever till date.

'The AWFF showcases extraordinary narratives from Asian woman from around the world...curating the festival was a personal journey of rediscovering the essence of cinema", says Gauri D Chakraborty, the festival director.

Women in filmmaking and gender equality in cinema

Besides the film screenings the festival includes the following programmes:

On March 4 - A Roundtable on Me Too in the Indian media and film industry anchored by Paromita Vohra and Nupur Basu.

On March 5 and 6 - A two-day workshop with school girls titled Little Directors conducted by Nina Sabnani and Samina Mishra.

On March 5,6 and 7- an art installation titled Bioscopewalli mounted by design students and artists conceived by the festival director.

All events are from March 4 to 7 at the India International Centre (IIC) in New Delhi. The screenings begin every morning at 9.15 and finish by 9pm. There will be Q and A sessions with visiting filmmakers after the screenings.

Gender Justice

We campaign to change patriarchal mindsets that influence violence against women  

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