14th Film Festival Women´s Worlds
International Day "NO to violence against women"
November 19-26, 2014, in Tuebingen, Germany


 

Film Festival Highlights

One highlight of this year’s festival is the presence of Meaza Ashenafi, woman attorney from Ethiopia who accompanies the feature film Difret, winner of the Berlinale Audience Award in February. The plot is based on her story: The young attorney Meaza does everything in her power to save the life of a 14-year-old girl sentenced to death. The opening feature is the heartwarming tragicomedy Schweizer Helden (Swiss Heroes) about a woman in her fifties looking for something to do who begins rehearsing Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell with a group of asylum seekers, speech barriers and cultural misunderstandings included.

 

Film Festival Guests

Old friends are expected: our companion of many years, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, will introduce his film The Gardener, a reflection on peace, religion and women’s rights. And Luna Mijovic, who visited the festival as a 15 year-old in 2007 and was fascinated by our university town, has come of age and returns with her current film Traumland (Dreamland): shortly before Christmas Eve in the center of the solid, middle-class innocence of Zürich, the cold depths of a pitiless society are revealed in the treatment of a young, Bulgarian prostitute (Mijovic). The director, Petra Volpe, also a guest in Tübingen, did extensive research in the Zürich red light district. Christina Schiewe brings her taboo-breaking comedy Be My Baby to Tübingen, a film about a young woman with Down’s Syndrome who wants above all else to have a baby.

 

Focus on “Fighters for Social Rights“

Stories about courageous women who fight for their rights, the survival of their families and a peaceful society come from Kyrgistan, Guatemala, Columbia, Poland, Germany, Africa, Egypt and Italy. In Flowers of Freedom a group of activists make a women’s blockade in front of giant trucks of a gold mine. The Keepers of the Tundra (Die Hüter der Tundra), in which the women of the Sami, the last original people of Europe, become active to fight against the threat of losing their livelihood and their culture, is also especially impressive visually.

 

Focus on „Women in Precarious Working Conditions“

Situations of women workers in various countries will be the focus in films and in a roundtable conversation: the fate of the „Schlecker Women“ in our region, whether they will not give in and risk a fresh start; the odyssey of a single mother through Turkey, living from badly paid jobs in textile factories between the threat of forced prostitution or organ trade (Zerre); or the difficult life circumstances of women from Moldavia, who work illegally year after year as cleaning women in western Europe, separated from their children and husbands (Mama Illegal) – all of these women struggle to find a dignified way out of their dilemmas.

 

Special Activities

Varied special activities complete our film program: The exhibition Augenblicke (Moments) will open with a presentation on Thursday, November 20, 2014. Eight women from different countries under the direction of Natalia Zumaran have photographically captured their world and their place in German society.

Also on November 20, an open performance of the theater project Mein Leben. Meine Liebe. Meine Ehre? (My life. My love. My honor?) will take place in the Stuttgart Theaterhaus, a TERRE DES FEMMES prevention project for schools. The actors/actresses present everyday scenes of youth which reveal the way they view traditional roles, virginity, or forced marriage , to be discussed with the audience.
A round table discussion with women experts, activists and a director will take place on Sunday, November 23, in the Museum Cinema in connection with the focus theme „Women in Precarious Working Conditions“.

 

Women’s Worlds conquers the surrounding region

To the great pleasure of all involved, Women’s Worlds is expanding their area of presentation beyond Tübingen. The Waldhorn Cinema in Rottenburg has already accompanied loyally the film festival for many years, where the guests are always enthusiastic about its charm. The Municipal Cinema of Herrenberg has hosted chosen Women’s World films since 2012 in co-operation with the city’s equal opportunity commissioner. For 2014, another partner has joined us, the Cultural Center franz.k in Reutlingen, where two films will be shown. And in Stuttgart the TERRE DES FEMMES-activist group is organizing another film screening.

 

We wish our audiences exciting, humorous and motivating moments in Women’s Worlds, and we thank everyone who has supported us.

Irene Jung, Film Festival Director

 
 

In co-operation with

Cinemas Museum und Waldhorn and the University City of Tuebingen.

 

We would like to thank for the financial support:

 
Gefördert von Engagement Global im Auftrag des

 
 
 
 

We thank for more support and cooperation:

 
 
Heike Hänsel, MdB
 
 
 
 
 


 

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