30th International Women’s Film Festival Award Winners

From March 14 to the 23rd this quite interesting festival will take place in Creteil, France and here are some highlights of the fest.

The special guest of this year festival is none other than Josiane Balasko that some of you remember from Gazon Maudit; here is the note that explains why she was chosen to be this year’s guest of honor.

To celebrate the 30 years of our Festival, we are happy to invite Josiane Balasko, a very important French actress of today, but also a director and a novelist, whose work and commitments we have always highly respected.

With her outspokenness, her unique way of being funny and attaching at the same time, Josiane Balasko has established herself as one of the leading figures, impossible to circumvent of the French cinema. She does not resemble anybody, and nobody resembles her. However she is source of a kind of modernity, which one could easily envy her, because as an actress, she is "gender" to the root of her wigs. Able to play an impressive pallet of roles, to change sex as one changes ones shirt, to get into the skin of a bush truck driver (Gazon Maudit) or of a non tamed spit-fire (the Ex-wife of my life)... she irradiates with funniness, but always in a benevolent way towards her fellow mankind.

The 30th International Women's Film Festival, in figures:
150 films from all over the world
1 invitée d’honneur
30 leçons de cinéma
30 audience's videos
50 unreleased films by young women filmmakers
10 international actresses

Special program-30th birthday edition: 30years/30 films
Vidéo femmes de Québec

30 leçons de cinéma: interviews of the most important international women directors (Mira Nair, Helma Sanders-Brahms, Agnès Varda, Catherine Breillat, Léa Pool, Xiaolu Guo etc…)

These are some of the films the fest will screen.

Feature Films In Competition

Dreaming Lhasa by Ritu Sarin et Sonam Tenzing, India and UK, 2005, 90’
Liu Lang Shen Gao Ren (God Man Dog) by Singing Chen, Taïwan, 2007, 119’
Khoon Bazi (Mainline) by Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Mohsen Abdolvahab, Iran, 2006, 78’ Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Fiction Film
Maati Maay (A Grave - Keeper’s Tale) by Chitra Palekar, India, 2006, 38’
Phantom Love by Nina Menkès, USA, 2007, 87’
Nichego Lichnogo (Nothing Personal) by Larisa Sadilova, Russia, 2007, 92’
Sakli Yüzler (Hidden Faces) by Handan Ipekçi, Turkey and Germany, 2007, 127’ Winner of Audience Award for Best Fiction Film
Tie a Yellow Ribbon by Joy Dietrich, USA 2007, 87’
Un Roman Policier (A Police Romance) by Stéphanie Duvivier, France, 2007, 96’

Graines de Cinephage Competition

Sonja by Kirsi Marie Liimatainen, Gemany, 2007, 73'
Naked on the Inside by Kim Farrant, Australia, 2006, 81’
Dreaming Lhasa by Ritu Sarin et Sonam Tenzing, India and UK, 2005, 90’
God Man Dog de Singing Chen, Taïwan, 2007, 119’
La Niña en la Piedra (The Girl on the Stone) by Maryse Sistach, 2006, Mexico
Maati Maay (A Grave - Keeper’s Tale) de Chitra Palekar, India, 2006, 38’ Winner of Jury Award

To check all the documentaries and shorts go here. The 30th anniversary Special Program has the list of all the 30 films which I suggest you check it here all films have summaries about the film and the director.

I suggest that if you read French check the site in the original language, as has a lot more information than in the English version.

To check all the winners go here.