Reel Women Fanzine

A new monthly short film night devoted to female filmmakers.

Thursday 25th June 9-11pm in the Arts Picturehouse Bar Alice Guy BlachĂŠ 1873 - 1968

Issue

interview

REEL WOMEN FOUNDER SARAH MCINTOSH INTERVIEWS

GABI NORLAND Gabi Norland is a freelance DOP based in London. She has worked on a range of music videos, commercials, short films and feature films. She’s also a member of Women in Film and TV (WFTV), the leading membership organisation for women working in creative media in the UK. Sarah McIntosh: What made you get involved with WFTV? Gabi Norland: Well, I shot a short film won “Best Cinematography” at Underwire film festival, and part of the prize was a year’s membership. Towards the end of the year I went to a networking event and discovered that networking wasn’t as scary as I thought it was. When it’s a group of all women, it’s actually friendlier than you think it would be.

Then I saw about their mentoring scheme and I thought that as I was making the step from being a focus puller to a cinematographer, the mentoring scheme might be very helpful to me. I’ve found WFTV really brilliant. They offer

loads of great training schemes and useful educational things all for women working in the industry.

SM: Why do you think it’s important to have women-specific inititatives like this?

GN: Well, one of my fellow mentees made the comment that if there was a “Men in Film and Television” organisation it could just be called “film and television”. At the moment only 5% of fiction directors are women, 4% of cinematographers are women and 2% sound recordists are women so the industry, particularly the technical side, is still very male dominated.

So, it’s very important to support women, women have a different perspective on storytelling and after all, story-telling is what filmmaking is all about, whether it be documentary or drama. It’s important to have balanced male and female viewpoints throughout the industry. (cont’d)

“… if there was a ‘Men in Film and Television’ organisation it could just be called ‘Film and Television’…”

SM: Why do you think the numbers are so low? Do you think it’s sexism or do you think that women don’t feel they can do these kinds of jobs?

GN: I think quite often, men have more confidence when they’re younger to go out and do these jobs or to give it a go. I certainly noticed that amongst the other people who I was an assistant at the same time as, the men in that group who wanted to be cinematographers moved up a more quickly than women. I think that they were more confident or more impatient. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, that’s just how it was.

SM: Does gender become a non-issue once you’re in and people know who you are?

GN: You’d hope and expect that you’re judged on the quality of your work, not on whether you are male or female. Everyone is an individual and has a different response to a story or a challenge. The key for me is the relationship with the director, so whether that director is male or female, whether I am male or female, it’s just a relationship between two people. It’s the quality of that relationship that’s really, really important.

“You’d hope and expect that you’re judged on the quality of your work, not on whether you are male or female.”

SM: So do you think that attitudes have changed?

GN: I think when I started, it was reasonably easy for women to start out in film. From a camera department point of view there is almost an equal number of 2nd camera assistants who are female, then slightly less 1st camera assistants who are female, then considerably less camera operators who are female and then hardly any directors of photography who are female. So, there seem to be less women as you go up the ranks. That is, I believe, the same in business too though, that as you get to the top levels, there are less women so that’s probably something that needs to be addressed across all industries, not just across film.

SM: What is the one piece of advice you would give to young women hoping to get into the industry?

GN: I’d say take advantage of every opportunity you’re given and don’t be afraid to try things and to push yourself forward. Though there has been a lot of talk about there being a celluloid ceiling, all I can say to women who are just starting out in film is, ‘don’t stop, just keep going, keep going and break through that ceiling’.

Featured on our cover this month and pictured left is Alice Guy Blaché, who at 23 was the first female director and became a powerful figure in film.

Our cover artist is Mollie Andrews (18). Mollie studied BTEC Art In Cambridge before moving on to study BA Illustration at Norwich University of the Arts. Her work is inspired by artists such as Aubrey Beardsley, Leonor Fini, Elenore Abbot and those involved in the Aesthetic Movement. Mollie’s fascination with fairytales, folklore, and nature can be seen in her work, with pieces ranging from intricate drawings of flowers to detailed depictions of taxidermy. She hopes to become a freelance illustrator, but if all else fails she plans on living in an attic with cats and cacti, drinking gin and collecting mystical treasures.

See more of Mollie’s work at http://dew-pearls.tumblr.com/

“Sciamma reveals the epic in the ordinary.”

Jessica Palmarozza reviews

GIRLHOOD

GIRLHOOD is the new film from Céline Sciamma, a director famous for her moving depictions of adolescence. Sciamma’s previous film, TOMBOY is set in a Parisian suburb. A ten year old girl moves into a new home with her family and over the course of a summer, transitions to a boy. Laid bare is everything that is brutal and painful about puberty and that desperate urge to belong. And yet, there is such lyricism in the French writer-director’s style that the experience of watching is overwhelmingly uplifting. Simple domestic scenes become defiant victories: the child cutting his hair, his mother throwing away his dresses. Sciamma reveals the epic in the ordinary.

Like TOMBOY, GIRLHOOD is a story of transition: Marieme, a shy 16 year old, reinvents herself as Vic. Marieme lives in one of the banlieue (estates) on the outskirts of Paris. The film opens with a slo-mo montage of a sports match. Both teams are made up of young women and they are playing American football. The soundtrack blares anthemic 80s synth pop.

After the match, the girls walk back to the estate, their voices indistinguishable amongst all the laughing, teasing, shouting. As they walk between the towers and ominous groups of men, they begin peeling off in silence. We are left with Marieme. The opening sequence shows Sciamma’s hand: in a group, the girls are confident and strong, but alone they are vulnerable.

At home, Marieme’s sisters have formed a gang to protect themselves against their violent older brother. The sisters sleep holding hands – a bittersweet moment of unity in the face of an ever present threat. When Marieme discovers that she cannot go to high school because of her grades, she decides to make some changes. She approaches three girls who are sitting outside her school, posturing, swearing and most importantly talking to the boy whom Marieme is obviously pining after. So begins her transition.

First, she undoes her braids and gets a weave. She dons a leather jacket. She starts mugging people. And yet, there is no sense that she is ‘getting involved with the wrong crowd’. Lady, Adiatou and Fily are loyal, loving, protective and fun. They stick up for Marieme when a white shop assistant accuses her of shoplifting. In one scene, the girls dance to music from their phone on the metro, and for the first time we see a tender smile on the face of Karidja Touré who plays Marieme. The other commuters (mostly white) are not in focus. (cont’d)

The only story Sciamma wants to tell is the lived experience of young black women; anyone else fades into the background.

It feels like the end of the film. Yet there is another, final act which totally muddies the trajectory of the narrative.

The apex of Marieme’s transition to Vic occurs when the girls go to a hotel in stolen dresses to get drunk and have fun. Lady gives Marieme a gold necklace which says Vic: ‘Vic for Victory’.

What follows is one of the most euphoric and moving three minutes of a film of recent cinema. The girls mime all of the words to ‘Diamonds’ by Rihanna, their faces glowing with happiness and vodka, arms round each other, heads thrown back. The rights for the song were not cleared until post-production.

However, when Rihanna saw the scene, she granted Sciamma with a slashed rate. And you can understand why.

GIRLHOOD becomes a kitchen sink drama.

Vic’s identity continues to shift as the hurdles are set higher and higher. It becomes less about the gang and more about her wider struggle through adolescence. If the French title ‘Bande de Filles’, or ‘Gang of Girls’, encapsulates the first four acts, ‘Girlhood’ fits the final act – although still compelling, it has none of the glorious celebration of friendship which elevates the first half out of it’s dismal social context. Maybe Sciamma is giving the audience a reality check. Teenage friendships fade, real life starts.

Sciamma delights in defying expectations...

Despite the final twist, GIRLHOOD is a masterpiece. It revels in everything that is brilliant about being a woman, in the face of repeated attacks. Sciamma’s stylistic delicacy protects the film from slipping into sentimentality. Her cuts are often playful and unexpected: in one scene, Lady applies lipstick in a bathroom with booming pop music in the background. Vic looks on lovingly and we fully expect that they will go back out into the club and continue their voyage of sexual exploration. As it turns out, they are in a café.

They’re ordering kebabs. Sciamma delights in defying expectations, and her portrayal of female friendship and black identity is a landmark for French cinema.

Once the gang is formed, the girls must undergo various challenges to assert their authority, the characters progressing on a journey to maturity. As in TOMBOY, there are public fights that act as important milestones.

Vic is eventually forced to leave home, and she must say goodbye to her friends and family.

The words of the local drug dealer, Abou – “strong and alone” – come back to haunt her, but her closeness with her gang keeps her resolutely defiant. Once more, the synth pop returns, indicating the end of the act.

Ann Linden reviews

A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT The heart of director and writer Ana Lily Amirpour’s A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT is the title: simple, deliberate, and evocative; a trope up-ended, with results at once gleeful and grisly.

Bordered by a gulch full of dead bodies, Bad City is home to the Girl (Sheila Vand), a vampire who lurks in the shadows, wearing a long black chador, her eyes impossibly wide in her pale face. We never learn her name or history. In fact, all of the characters in GIRL are near-templates: drastic, vivid sketches in black and white, with little background detail to support them. But the story doesn’t need background detail. Arash (Arash Marandi) is the son of Hossein (Marshall Manesh), who has become a junkie since the death of his wife. Hossein owes a great deal of money to the local pimp and drug dealer, Saeed, who takes Arash’s shining ’57 Thunderbird, product of his hard work as handyman to a wealthy family.

None of them know it until it’s too late, but they are watched by the Girl.

… a film from the future, or some parallel misandrist world …

For all the stark rendering, every shadow has nuance. The film’s sense of style is timeless: beneath her chador, the Girl wears drainpipe trousers and a loose striped shirt that would have suited Audrey Hepburn or Jean Seberg. Arash has a glossy fifties pompadour to match his beloved car, and no sense of self-preservation when it comes to strange women on dark streets.

Where she slaughters others, the Girl protects Arash from his folly. Against the backdrop of Bad City’s sparsely populated streets and its industrial landscape of the power station, trains, and oil pumps, a shy, halting, sweetly absurd romance begins.

The Girl wields a punk-ass disregard for rules and shoulds, which is easy for her, because she can kill and consume those who displease her. She frightens a young boy and takes his skateboard, which becomes her primary method of transportation around town. We see her choosing only to prey on men; she has a candid conversation with prostitute Atti (Mozhan Marno), but does not hurt her. I would have liked to see Atti treated as a narrative parallel to the Girl, but the film shows their differences more than what they have in common, and only one of them has any power. Amirpour has said in interviews that a feminist reading of the film is more indicative of the viewer than of her intentions, but the lack of overt politics makes GIRL what it is: a film from the future, or some parallel misandrist world.

The characters for whom the film has empathy may be weaker than the Girl, but they have rebel hearts. Atti keys Arash’s car, thinking it belongs to Saeed. Arash steals diamond earrings from the home of his employers to get his car back, but the Girl kills Saeed and Arash offers the earrings to her as a gift. The Girl is no bringer of moral justice; she is simply more dangerous than the men she kills. In a world where some people (mostly men) do bad things, she sometimes does very bad things to those people.

You know how it’s going to end because of the cat. I won’t say more, but the cat is everything.

GUERRILLA FILMMAKING WITH WIDOWS Providing exposure – of people, organisations, places – is at the essence of documentary making. It’s assumed that documentaries provide a more candid and accurate exposure than other kinds of filmmaking, although obviously the act of focusing a camera on anything is by nature subjective.

Nocem Collado, Spanish director of CARTOGRAPHY OF LONELINESS, a study of the plight of widows in India, Afghanistan and Nepal, took a particularly brave step in how she documented the stories she wished to expose. Collado describes herself as a Guerrilla filmmaker, which she defines as using a very low budget and working intimately with the subjects of one’s documentary.

“I believe most documentaries are fiction”, she argues. “Most have a minimum of five people working on an interview with one person. How can that person be close and free? You are asking for that person to be like an actor or actress.”

Collado countered this by immersing herself in her subjects’ living conditions and their emotional state. She travelled and filmed the whole documentary alone and in India lived for one month in a sheltered community with around 100 widows.

“It is a paradox to film a documentary about loneliness, being alone” she says.

“I wanted to know the real situation of women there. Living with them, sleeping with them, cleaning rice, peeling potatoes; after this they see me as someone alone like them and after they see me in an equal state they open up very easily.”

Among her many brave acts for the film, such as hiding her camera inside her burqa through Afghanistan’s streets, and fighting off pimps while interviewing women forced into prostitution, perhaps her bravest (and most daring!) act was to travel and film without a translator.

Relying on the most basic visual communication to enter communities or gain introductions in each country, Collado simply acted as a vessel for the women’s voices until she returned to a larger city to have her recordings translated.

“I never understood what they wanted to tell me, so their spirit was very free” she explains. “The translation was a surprise!” The widows’ stories told within CARTOGRAPHY OF LONELINESS are earnest, without self pity, and very compelling. In her approach Collado perhaps becomes as objective a documenter as it is possible to be.

- Fiona Scoble

the voices

Alison Hicks spoke to Marjane Satrapi about her film THE VOICES, a change in direction from CHICKEN WITH PLUMS and PERSEPOLIS. The Voices come from talking pets but this is no BABE: PIG IN THE CITY follow up, it is a film altogether darker and more macabre. Yet the horror is carefully balanced with humour, and THE VOICES is surprisingly funny for a film featuring an abundance of dismembered body parts stacked in Tupperware.

It’s difficult to put THE VOICES into a box. At times you feel for this simple guy, trying to woo the office hottie with an invite to a naff Chinese karaoke buffet. Then you are shocked by his delusion and extreme violence. However, after the first killing scene where there is a lot of blood and guts, the rest is imagined and perpetuated by the constant reminder of body parts carefully stacked around Jerry’s apartment.

Satrapi said that this expression of sinister brutality came to her a few months before they started shooting: “I tried to understand what I would do if I was a psychopath, and I was looking at the handwriting of the psychopath and it’s always very small and contained. I thought this guy, he comes from packing and shipping, and so what he going to do as a murderer, he’s going to pack up. I only show the first murder, then you don’t see it anymore as I thought let’s show that really well then I don’t need

show it anymore. Otherwise it loses its effect.”

So was it difficult crossing over to this distinctly different film? Satrapi admitted that it was.

“Fear is the motor of my life. It gives me chills. I don’t know how to do something and I have to give it a try. To make this psychopath likeable and for people to feel for him, it was a challenge. So immoral and so fucked up! But he doesn’t see the world like everybody else, he is not happy. He wants to be an upstanding member of the community, then something happens and it’s a turning point. One thing leads to another, it becomes worse and worse.”

This sense of good intentions and rationalisation helps THE VOICES to retain an air of realism, despite the heavy dose of insanity it delivers.

Working within the Hollywood star system with agents and big production teams was also new to Satrapi but she found the experience beneficial to her personal and professional growth.

“I learned lots of things I didn’t know before about myself. You have twenty people talking and you don’t know what they are talking about. I had to explain so much why I made my choices. And it made me understand why I make my choices, because when I make them it’s normally instinctive – I don’t know why I make them. I understand now how to defend myself better.”

©TAKE ONE ©HACKED OFF FILMS REEL WOMEN 2015