BY KAREN BOSSICK
Looking for some films to round out your weekend now that days are getting shorter?
The Family of Woman Film Festival has presented DVDs of the films shown at the 2018 Family of Woman Film Festival to Ketchum’s Community Library.
In addition, Festival Founder Peggy Elliott Goldwyn replaced 14 films in the collection that were checked out and never returned.
That’s not as easy as going online or running to a video store and purchasing a new copy.
“Some of our films come from countries where it is difficult to find facilities to duplicate the films,” said Goldwyn. “It has taken over a year to replace the missing copies.”
The 11th annual festival included:
- “Mama Colonel,” which tells of a Congolese policewoman in charge of stopping sexual violence and physical abuse against women and children in her country, which has been devastated by a long civil war.
- “Tocando La Luz,” or “Touch the Sky,” which focuses on three blind women in Havana as they deal with their blindness.
- “Sami Blood,” a Swedish drama that follows a young girl who is taken from her reindeer-herding family and put in a state school where she is told that the Sami are inferior to Swedes.
- “In Syria,” a feature drama shot in Lebanon that recreates the life of a family trapped in their apartment by the raging civil war in Damascus.
- “Girls’ War,” a feature documentary that showcases Kurdish female soldiers proving themselves in the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Community Library Executive Director Jenny Emery Davidson said it is a privilege to have the films available in the library.
“Many of these films are not easily accessed, otherwise. They are gems of the library’s film collection,” she said. “The Family of Woman Film Festival continues to impact and inspire people well beyond the festival dates with this collection that lives at The Community Library.”
The 2019 Family of Woman Film Festival will be held Feb. 26 through March 3 in a new location at the Magic Lantern Cinemas in Ketchum. The theme is “Women Still Waiting for Change.” The lineup of five feature documentaries and dramatic films from around the world will be announced in December.
The film festival was founded in 2008 by Friends of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund and its Board member Peggy Elliott Goldwyn to bring attention to the work of UNFPA.
UNFPA works for access to reproductive health care, education and basic human rights for women and girls in more than 150 countries. It also works to prevent gender-based violence and female genital mutilation.
During the past two years UNFPA has supported 8.2 million pregnancies and deliveries attended by 23,500 UNFPA-supported midwives. It’s also provided modern contraceptives to 20 million women each year, along with HIV/AIDS education and prevention.
Friends of UNFPA will return as the Festival sponsor in 2019.
“Since the Family of Woman Film Festival began, awareness has grown in the United States about the obstacles women face in their lives, including in our own country, and movement toward removing many of these obstacles has also continued to grow,” said Goldwyn. “For some women, however, change has been slow to come. We recognize this with this year’s festival theme, and our films for 2019 will remind us that we must remain vigilant in the quest for equality for all.”