4th Annual
FEMINIST BORDER ARTS FILM FESTIVAL
20 19
images from Récit de Soi, directed by Géraldine Charpentier
About the festival Welcome to the 4th annual Feminist Border Arts Film Festival. We are grateful to be sharing with our community the numerous voices in U.S. and international short film that this festival represents. This year we received over 2200 submissions and, as has been the trend with FBAFF, we keep growing. Beyond the number of submissions we receive, FBAFF has expanded, over the course of four years, from a single 90-minute screening to include a video art exhibition, five screening programs, and a showcase that features invited filmmakers speaking to the NMSU/Las Cruces community about their work. FBAFF has also grown through the recognition it receives from filmmakers throughout the world. Films including our “Official Selection of FBAFF” laurel have been featured in international film festivals. Films we selected in FBAFF18, such as Rosa Beiroa’s “In Our Skin” and Guen Murroni’s “Fee” were both screened at Cannes Film Festival bearing our laurel. In addition to this exciting news, this year the generous sponsorship of New Mexico Humanities Council, Devasthali Family Foundation, NMSU College of Arts & Sciences, and Southwest and Border Cultures Institute have allowed FBAFF to bring filmmakers as well as create these programs and other festival media. In 2019 we also collaborated with current and former students in the selection process, developing press kit materials, social media campaigns, and more. As FBAFF continues to grow, collaboration and support from the campus, local community, and state keeps us moving forward. We are deeply grateful for our partnerships with the Creative Media Institute and University Art Gallery at NMSU, and look forward to the directions FBAFF will grow in 2020. Film is more than entertainment. It is art. It is a laboratory of ideas. It is politics. It is representation. It is commerce and business. It is a complex apparatus where we reflect, dream, are challenged, or awaken from a slumber. Film is communitymaking. It shows us a reflection of what exists, who feels it most sharply, and offers the space to gather courage and step forward. M. Catherine Jonet & Laura Anh Williams FBAFF Co-Directors New Mexico State University
Friday, March 8 VIDEO ART EXHIBIT 10:00am - 5:00 pm
FILMMAKER SHOWCASE 6:00pm - 9:00 pm
Williams Annex 107 Free Refreshments CMI Digital Media The ate r Milton 171 Dessert Reception follows
Saturday, March 9 PROGRAM 1 10:00am - 12:00 pm
PROGRAM 2 12:00 - 2:00 pm
PROGRAM 3 2:00 - 4:00 pm
PROGRAM 4 4:00 - 6:00 pm
RECEPTION 6:00 - 6:30 pm
PROGRAM 5 6:30 - 9:00 pm
TIES THAT BIND: Family & Other Connections MASCULINE/FEMININE: Gndrs @ the Intersections QUEERLY CINEMA: LGBTQ+ Filmscapes CROSSINGS: Of Borders & Film Free Refreshments Milton Hall 185 J FINALE Award Finalists Screening & Audience Voting
These films have not yet been rated by the Motion Picture Association of America. We have made some content notes, but please use your own discretion.
Video Art Exhibition Experimental, Performance, Digital 10:00AM - 5:00 PM FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2019 D.W. WILLIAMS ANNEX 107
First Feature directed by Bentley Brown
Friday, March 8
Video Art Exhibition D.W. Williams Annex rm. 107 10:00am-5:00pm Program Length: Approximately 3h:00min Program will repeat throughout the day (Films Listed in Alphabetical Order) ALL FALLS DOW N USA/English CONTENT NOTE: Image of a Nude Baby, Images of Dead Animals
A digital hell-loop centering around the idea of the transgender antagonist coming to terms with the ideas of home, anxiety, intimacy, our inevitable death, longing, and the conversation between obsolete and current technologies. Experimental/ /Mixed Media
Director: oberon strong
and her namesake’s migration. The loss and recovery of her greatgrandmother’s Hebrew name allows the consideration of a doubling of identity, and the choices available to those who experience intergenerational assimilation. Jewish themes and traditions are present throughout the piece as an offering to my ancestors’ resilience, and as a key to understanding patterns and conventions in claiming identity. Experimental Documentary/Performance Elements
Director: Emily Packer COLONIES Egypt
Experimental/Essay Film
Director: Mena El Shazly THE DESIRE OF MERMAIDS USA/English
Plunge deep below the surface of the water to encounter women in the process of a transformation. Women turn to the pressure of the water to find reprieve from the expectation to be something other than what they are. Animation/Mixed Media/Live Action
AS SW EET USA/English
A poetic investigation of the filmmaker’s middle name,
aesthetically examined. Using sugaring as a weapon, the body is a war terrain that is controlled and continues to as-/resist change.
Sugaring is an ancient Egyptian method of depilatory made out of water, sugar, and lemon juice. Different densities of hair and the effect of sugaring on the surfaces are conceptually and
Director: Hannah Hamalian
EMERGENCE Haiti, Canada/French CONTENT NOTE: Discussion of sexual violence against a girl/woman
offers a metaphor for our collective predicament.
FIRST FEATURE Saudi Arabia/Arabic
Essay Film
Director: Alexandria Searls EXPŌNĒRE/EXPOSURE Portugal/English
Katiana emerges. Her life is her story and her story is one of survival. Experimental/Expressionistic Documentary/Essay Film
Directors: Clarissa Rebouças & Julie Bernier THE ETIQUETTE OF MASSACRES USA/English CONTENT NOTE: Frank discussion of public trauma due to gun violence and mass shootings in U.S.
“Expōnēre/Exposure” is to live in a system. Exposure to vibrations. Exposure to vibrating particles. We expose our atmosphere to increased emissions, and it thins and thickens in all the wrong ways, exposing us in turn. We peel back systems and expose. It connotes something missing, a lack of protection. It alludes to a burning a radiation, a fire. A structure crumbles. A structure returns. Experimental/Sound-guided, Ecocinema
Director: Maile Costa Colbert
Shot through a lens of our past (the filmmakers first video camera from childhood) yet focusing on the future of filmmaking. “First Feature” introduces us to the challenges faced by a team of mostly women working on the set of their first feature film in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The narration, contributed by members of the crew, asks questions of confidence, belonging, and of the future of cinema in a country where it is only a budding industry. Experimental Documentary
Director: Bentley Brown FROMATT Germany, Switzerland/German
FACE VALUE Mass shootings in the United States have become so common that they impact the way we live, the way we see ourselves, and the way we experience grief, almost on a daily basis. We forget some and not others. We grieve more and less at different times. We adapt to the onslaughts. But what adaptations allow us to keep our souls? Filmmaker Alexandria Searls documents her reactions to the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre. A painted bridge
Russia, Georgia/English
The market place of desire starts with this face. Further reflections on money and skin. Video Art/Essay Film
Director: Alena Koroleva
Contrary to the organic forms of the nature human beings mostly create constructed geometry. This is being symbolized in “Fromatt” primarily through pixilation of nude performers in the raw nature of the Swiss Alps. Animation/Mixed Media
Director: Filip Dippel
HABITUAL USA
IRAQ BANS FARMING SUMMER CROPS AS WATER CRISIS GROWS DIRE
MOM UNDRESSED Germany/English CONTENT NOTE: Nudity
USA, Iraq This animated vignette explores the doldrums of office labor by using rotoscope footage of the filmmaker to illustrate the monotony of administrative work in frame-by-frame detail. Animation/Mixed Media
Director: Hallie Bahn HER VOICE Belgium/English
An enigmatic stream of consciousness that resists conventional narrative expectations, “Her Voice” echoes the #MeToo era. Somewhere between the desperate Boop-Oop-aDoop’s of a vintage Betty Boop and the film experiments of Maya Deren. “Her Voice” reflects a woman's subjectivity and her sometimes problematic relation to the external world. Experimental/Essay Film/Performance Elements
Director: Silvia Defrance
During the summer of 2018 the Iraqi Government banned farmers from planting certain cereal crops due to water shortages. Resources once taken for granted such as fertile soil and clean water are becoming increasingly commodified. It's common to look to the historical region of Mesopotamia as the origin of modern civilization. If we look east for origins, shouldn’t we also look in that same direction for the future? Experimental Documentary
Director: Emma PiperBurket METAMORPHOSIS Greece, Germany/Modern Greek
By rewriting the myth into historical reality, it ceases to function as a myth: it becomes history. Experimental/Essay Film
Director: Aspa Siokou
Meet a Jewish artist, living in Berlin, who redefines the relationship with her mom through nudity. Documentary
Directors: Romina Schade & Jana Stalle NO SON BALAS Mexico/Spanish
The overlapping of images allows viewers to make connections between the Mexican Revolution, state repression against the Mexican people in 1968 in the Tlatelolco massacre of students and civilians by military and police, and the disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students in 2014. Digital Art/Experimental Documentary
Director: M. Dianela Torres
OSTARBEITER Ukraine, USA/English
REPLICA
TENSITY
Canada/English
Poland/English
Family photos and cultural artifacts, archival footage, and field video collected since 1939 stitch together a story of trauma and its generational impacts.
A woman is turned into a mannequin. “Replica” expresses a woman’s anxiety of representation caused by the way the media and society objectify and commodify her.
Mixed Media/Essay Film
Experimental/Essay Film
Director: Lukia Costello RAZZLE-DAZZLE DISCO Canada/English
Director: Han Pham SOMA & LIL Denmark/English
An experimental artistic documentary about dance and contemporary theater. The story is led by Helena Ganjalyan—actress, dancer, and choreographer. The dance based on the figure of Ophelia from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" raises issues such as independence, autonomy, freedom, the right to determine oneself, and express physicality. Documentary
A handmade Super 8mm film based on the director’s mother’s nail technician career and the nail salon industry’s affect on Vietnamese immigrants. The film was made using nail polish painted directly on Super 8mm film using nail art techniques assisted by the director’s mother, then digitally scanned in 4k and transferred back to film. Animation/Mixed Media/Experimental
A music documentary on the art of improvisation, Soma & Lil follows a cello improvisation duo based in Denmark as they rethink and deconstruct the traditional written music for cello. Documentary
Director: Sylvia Nicolaides & Nicolas Iordanou SPEAKER Iran/ Azerbaijani
Director: Anh Dao
Director: Konrad Kultys Dancer: Helena Ganjalyan VD01.6 Spain
“VD01" Video-dance project is the search for knowledge and a practice of art without the possibility of conclusion. Experimental/Performance/ Dance
Director: Kepa Landa Dancer: Marta Bota A public bath and an intercom announcement. Slice of life/slice of art. Experimental/ Live Action
Director: Behnam Asadolahi
FILMMAKER SHOWCASE 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2019 CMI DIGITAL THEATER MILTON 171
FILMMAKER SHOWCASE Welcome remarks by NMSU President JOHN FLOROS TRINA MICHELLE ROBINSON
The Call
Trina Michelle Robinson is interested in exploring memory through video, archival materials and text. Her video essay The Call has been exhibited in galleries and film festivals throughout the country. She has also told the story of exploring her ancestry on The Moth Mainstage at theaters in New York, Portland, OR and Westport, CT. NICOLE ANTEBI
100 Partially Obscured Views of the Border of El Paso and Juárez
Nicole Antebi makes things that move, loop, and sometimes hold. She is currently at work on a forthcoming film about the border landscapes of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez and the river with two names that connect them. MARIA ALTAMIRANO
Soñadora (Dreamer)
Maria Altamirano is a Peruvian-American writer, director and producer, whose work has been featured at festivals such as Cannes, SXSW and Slamdance. She completed NYU’s MBA/MFA program, a conjunction of Stern School of Business and Tisch School of the Arts, where she was selected Producer of the Year in 2017. She recently produced her first feature film Son of Monarchs, currently in post-production. DARINE HOTAIT I Say Dust Darine Hotait is an Arab American writer, film director and the founder of the incubator project Cinephilia Productions in New York. Her award-winning films can be seen at international film festivals, on SundanceTV, BBC, AMC Networks and more. She is the recipient of NYSCA Award, NYFA IAP Fellowship, AFAC and Cimetta Grant. Discussion moderated by AIMÉE SCHAEFER
Dessert Reception immediately follows in Milton Hall 185J
Program 1 Ties that Bind: Family & Other Connections 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2019 CMI DIGITAL THEATER MILTON 171
Investigating relationships and connections between family, location, environment, and social forces that tear individuals apart. This program depicts the vulnerabilities that emerge through the connections we have with one another.
Wagon 21 directed by Gustavo Pera
10:00-12:00 Ties that bind: Family & Other connections
Program Length: Approximately 1h:45min (Films Are Listed Here in Alphabetical Order)
AMAL
FRIED TARO
LPPIE aka SHEFFA
Morocco, USA/Arabic, English, French Content Note: Violence
Taiwan/Chinese
Egypt/Arabic
A little girl wants to try grandma’s fried taro, but anger and a misdeed complicate everything.
A young boy called Sheffa lives with his mother who directs him to sell drugs to keep them afloat. However, all is not as it seems.
A young matriarch living in Brooklyn with her younger siblings tries to keep her family and her life together. Narrative Short
Directed: Taha Aziz THE CRACK: AN ORIGIN MYTH
Animation
Director: An-Wu Li
Narrative Short
HUMAN GEOGRAPHY Spain, Indonesia
NATURALEZA MUERTA
Exploring the topography of human bodies that evoke landscapes.
The transition to rot, from solids to particles.
Live Action
Animation/Mixed Media
Director: Omneya Okasha
Argentina/Spanish
USA/English
An origin myth explains that everything was born from a crack in her wall. A girl meets the crack in a dream and asks it what she's always wanted to know.
Director: Anna Estellés
Director: Valentina Rocío
LIFE IS NOT A JOURNEY
NO REAL DISTANCE USA/English
Australia/English
Live Action/Mixed Media
Director: Soraya Perry Alan Watts speech that ponders the meaning of life. Animation
Director: Oliver Marsden
A culture that thrives on drama and conflict imposes ideologies onto the animals and the environment around us. Documentary/Essay Film
Director: Tiffany Deater
ÒSÙN’S ÒPÁRÁ: W HEN EVERYTHING IS BORN
SOFA_R
VOLE
Taiwan Loss is a process of endless missing.
Lebanon/French
Animation
Director: Yu-An Jao SPACE Stop-motion animation tells the story of the Orixá of the sweet waters, the goddess of fertility that makes everything grow and fertilize in the strength of Axé.
USA/English
Narrative Short
Director: Cynthia Tannous W AGON21
Mixed Media
Brazil/Portuguese
Director: Pâmela Peregrino ROSA Mexico/Spanish
Yasmin uses photography to grapple with absence. But, do photographs ease the pain of loneliness?
A young man journeys to what lies beyond our world. Narrative Short
Director: Jason Gonzalez
TALE OF TW O MOTHERS USA/English A stroke forever changes Rosa’s and her daughters’ lives. Documentary/Essay Film
Director: Larissa Rojas SALAM
USA/ Arabic, English
A female Lyft driver navigates the night shift in New York City while waiting to hear news from her family in Syria. Narrative Short
Director: Claire Fowler
When she bought a discarded German family photo album from 1938, she did not expect to make art with it. But upon bringing a child into Trump's America, she began to notice uncanny parallels, and set out to recreate the original snapshots with her own son. Documentary/Essay Film
Director: Sam Vladimirsky
Maura is a Black woman, a mother of 7 children, and a recyclable material collector in one of the largest cities in Latin America. While she works hard to maintain herself, she has to deal with prejudice, invisibility, and the ignorance of those who do not recognize the value and important role of the recyclable material collector. Documentary
Director: Gustavo Pera
Program 2 Masculine/Feminine: GNDRS @ the Intersections 12:00 - 2:00 PM SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2019 CMI DIGITAL THEATER MILTON 171
Journeys of gendered identity are complex. The films of Masculine/ Feminine push against gender stereotypes. From a tooth growing inside a woman’s body to an action figure in a dollhouse, the program will allow you to reimagine the intersecting dimensions of gender.
Dollhouse directed by Ezgi Temel
12:00-2:00 Masculine/Feminine: Gndrs @ the Intersections
Program Length: Approximately 1h:45min (Films Are Listed Here in Alphabetical Order)
24-HOUR W ORKDAY
DINOSAUR
FIRST KISS
USA/ Chinese, English, Spanish
France/French
U.K./English CONTENT NOTE: Sexual Assault
24-hour workday exposes the long hours and wage theft that working people currently face. In New York, many home attendants are forced to work 24-hour shifts taking care of seriously-ill patients, with only half of the pay. These workers come together and unite with patients to mount a challenge against this state-sponsored sweatshop.
In a park, a tiny girl inflates a huge balloon. A boy watches her and is about to burst this balloon while the little girl’s mother tries to dissuade him. Narrative Short
Director: Pierre Dugowson DOLLHOUSE Turkey/Turkish
One night at the beach. A reflection on the complex trauma of being a teenage girl. Animation/Mixed Media
Director: Ali Aschman THE GREY AREA U.K./English CONTENT NOTE: Sexual Assault
Documentary
Director: Zishun Ning A DIFFERENT CATEGORY U.K./English
A family goes shopping to buy a Batman toy for their son, but the boy has different ideas.
Narrative Short Director: Ezgi Temel EMARRI Three young women reflect on the loss of 'voice' and the struggle between competing desires for autonomy and connection. Mixed Media/Documentary
Director: LinnĂŠa Haviland
Spain/Basque
Emarri: not only a sport. EMARRI is a feminist construction; a lifestyle. Documentary/Essay Film
Director: Ander Alvarez
An animated exploration of manipulated consent. Drawing from personal experiences the filmmaker uses animation and voiceover to process her sexual assault and pose questions, about what led to the events of that night and to interrogate the idea of a grey area of consent. Animation/Mixed Media
Director: Katie Clark
LAS DEL DIENTE Spain, U.S.A./Spanish
THE NAMELESS BODY Mexico Content Note: Nudity, Sexual Situations
UNSEEN Nambia, Germany/ Afrikaans, English, French, German, Swedish
Animation/Mixed Media
MACHOS Mexico/Spanish
A young woman starts her morning routine searching for her day’s outfit. In the mirror, she faces parts of herself that at times, she struggles to forget. Animation/Mixed Media
Director: Jimena Medina Utilizing testimonies and personal discoveries, “Machos” explores the contrasts that exist in masculinity and how machismo resists new ways of living. Documentary/Essay Film
Director: César Chiquito Chávez MY FATHER Australia/English Content Note: Suicide & Mental Health Issues
A PALE HORSE NAMED MEXICO Mexico/Spanish
The Mexican Institute of Death helps souls passing through to the other side. When Alma’s body is identified, she can finally schedule a date with Death herself, but what occurs is not what anyone expected.
Director: Daniela Cuapio
Documentary/Essay Film
Director: Yanina Salerno
A conversation to which most everyone can relate, but rarely feel open enough to talk about. Animation/Mixed Media/Documentary
Director: Neige Moongo W ICKED GIRL
Narrative Short
This documentary centers on Daniela C, who lost her father to suicide when she was 14 years old. This film examines the effects of suicide on a young person and how these are carried into adulthood.
Animation
Director: Juli Tudisco
Bodies are weird. “Las del diente” celebrates anomalies in the reproductive system.
Director: Ana Pérez López
happy, free girls singing and building a boat, care-free and full of wonderment, ignoring the pressures of society.
SIRENS Hungary Content Note: Brief nudity
Turkey/Turkish Content Note: Explores a child processing the trauma from sexual abuse
An 8 year-old Turkish girl with an overflowing imagination is keen on nature and animals. As she mends from injuries in a hospital, she looks back on the recent summer she spent with her grandparents in their village, but dark and terrifying memories emerge for her and, little by little, begin to make sense. Animation
Director: Ayce Karta A sad bride-to-be sits thinking about her looming wedding. She observes
Program 3 Queerly Cinema: LGBTQ+ Filmscapes 2:00 - 4:00 PM SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2019 CMI DIGITAL THEATER MILTON 171
What do hyenas, drag queens, and superheroes have in common? Find out in Queerly Cinema: LGBTQ+ Filmscapes. Ranging from short documentaries to film essays, these films highlight and explore queer bodies, identities, and realities. Â Category is: subversive existence.
Suicidrag directed by Andrea Perez Su & Arturo Campos Nieto
2:00 - 4: 00 Queerly Cinema: LGBTQ+ Filmscapes
Program Length: Approximately 1h:50min (Films Are Listed Here in Alphabetical Order)
125/HR U.K./English Content Note: Frank discussion of sex acts
This short documentary explores the everyday life of a young man from Poland working as a prostitute in London. Documentary/Essay Film
Director: James Mileham BRTHR Portugal, Spain/Galician, Portuguese Content Note: Brief Nudity
“Brthr” is about the search for identity and selfacceptance, narrated with honesty, familial issues, and complex affections that only siblings can offer. Documentary/Essay Film
Director: Inma Veiga
CARLITO LEAVES FOREVER
DID YOU KNOW ? USA/English
Peru
A short poetic film following Carlito, a young man living in a village at the heart of the Amazonian jungle, who makes the unthinkable decision to leave in order to be closer to another. Narrative Short
Director: Quentin Lazzarotto
An exploration in shared sites of queerness and sexuality between the spotted hyena and the filmmaker. Animation/Mixed Media
Director: Lynn Kim GODDESS/DEVI India/Hindi, English Film Courtesy: KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival
DAY AT THE TEXTILE FACTORY USA/Chinese
A 13-year-old Chinese American girl accompanies her mom for the day at the textile factory where the woman works. There, the young girl develops an unexpected crush on a 30year-old female textile factory worker, Weiwei. Narrative Short/Live Action
Director: Mei Liu
A spirited teenager coming to terms with her sexual identity is discovered pursuing her attraction for the household maid in her mother’s home in New Delhi. She must decide who she really is in a classist and homophobic society. Narrative Short/Live Action
Director: Karishma Dube
GYEOL France
SELMA AFTER THE RAIN Brazil/Portuguese
routine until the lever is pulled and adventure begins. Animation/Mixed Media
Director: Rebecca Bloecher A grey ball rolls on a rail, dives into pink liquid, orbits around flowers. What seems normal quickly reveals a universe that follows a different law of physics. Live-Action
Director: Jin Angdoo INVERSE Mexico/Spanish
Selma, a trans woman who built her life away from the family, gets a call to go to her elderly mother, who suffers from Alzheimer's and needs treatment. Lost in confused memories, the two remember forgotten pains and desires, and revisit lost guilt and affection. Narrative Short
Director: Loli Menezes SUICIDRAG A surreal jaunt into drag, gender, clothes, performance, and love. Live Action/Documentary, Essay Film
Director: Aarón Álvarez OF ORIGINS, PART 1: HANNAH Germany, USA/English
Mexico/Spanish
Animation/Mixed Media/Documentary
Director: Irit Reinheimer
France/English
A queer odyssey of Afrofuturism and social justice, “WOMXN” features super hero Jane Dark (Jeanne D'Arc, i.e. Joan of Arc) a young person who lives in the allegorical Noir-Et-Cher (that is, contemporary Paris). Whenever police harasses her community, she becomes WOMXN. WOMXN is the nightmare of you-know-who and it’s go time. Live Action/Mixed Media
The Mexican drag queen collective, Suicidrag, takes to the streets and nightclubs of Mexico City to raise awareness about gender stereotypes imposed by consumer society. Documentary/Essay Film
Hannah describes a love rooted in it's own time and place, neither apocalyptic nor nostalgic. The film uses archival footage, home movies, and rotoscoping to orient the viewer in a queer bond forged across time.
W OMXN
Directors: Andrea Perez Su & Arturo Campos Nieto TOO TAME! Germany
Seven protagonists are trapped in clichés and daily
Directors: Eden Tinto Collins & Adrien Gystere Peskine
Program 4 Crossings: Of Borders & Film 4:00 - 6:00 PM SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2019 CMI DIGITAL THEATER MILTON 171
Encompassing a range of film genre, from animation to live-action narrative, Crossings reflects on migration, political and metaphysical boundaries, refugees from state violence, and the human responses to survival, as both the will to live as well as a challenge to oppressive structures.
Hazy Lines directed by Evdokiya Mazhurina
4:00 - 6:00pm Crossings: Of Borders & Film
Program Length: Approximately 1h:35min (Films Are Listed Here in Alphabetical Order)
ABEO
CROSSED
Canada/Spanish Content Note: Violence, Racially-Motivated/AntiImmigrant Murder
USA/English, Spanish
Documentary/Essay Film
Director: Noor Khan HAZY LINES Canada
This mixed media animated short depicts the journey of Nadia and Lupe, two immigrants who risk their lives to cross the Arizona desert in search for a better life.
Liz Magallanes is a Dreamer. Thrust in a tangle of immigration laws and new presidential policies, she tries to make sense of her life while also working to make change.
Animation/Mixed Media
Documentary/Essay Film
Director: Brenda Lopez
Director: Arnila Guha
THE CHILDREN OF CONCRETE
DEAR ENGLAND
An interrogation of borders. Live-Action
Director: Evdokiya Mazhurina HOLD Venezuela/Spanish
U.K./English
France/French
Am I French or Chinese? In a world of competing discourses set to explain difference and nationality, I wonder through, trying to see more clearly. What is Frenchness? What is France, my France?
Dear England, I want to break up. A film about being an immigrant in post-Brexit UK. Animation/Mixed Media
Director: Marta Lemos EAST: A RELATIONSHIP Canada/English, Arabic
A ten year old girl refuses to say goodbye to her older brother, who leaves in order to seek opportunities that will allow him to financially support her upbringing. Narrative Short/Live Action
Director: MarĂa Laura Reina I WAS THERE TOO
Animation/Documentary
Sweden/Swedish
Director: Jonathan Phanhsay-Chamson An immigrant reflects on the crisis of having been robbed of a homeland while also settling and being complicit in the destruction of the home of indigenous peoples.
A protest banner rolled out at a rural train station is a snapshot of a different time.
I'm struck by how outlandish their political struggle seems today and also by how little I do, especially when our times demand personal action more then ever.
MI AMERICA
SIN TITULO
USA/Spanish
Mexico, USA/English
A young man torn by recent family news spends a night out with his group of friends before facing an all too familiar problem.
She works in a maquiladora in a northern Mexican border town. She remembers her papa’s stories and her mama’s hopes for a better life, all while wandering through a dream from which she cannot awake.
Documentary/Essay Film
Director: Astrid Askberger JOY USA/English
Narrative Short
Director: Marvin Diaz “Joy” juxtaposes the distresses of being an immigrant woman in America, against the façade of courteousness one feels obliged to present.
PAULA’S ETERNITY Venezuela/Spanish Content Note: Depiction of Violence Against an Animal
Animation/Mixed Media
Director: Jose Silva SORGE 87 Germany/German, Vietnamese
Narrative Short
Director: Lorena Lourenco MARGARITA OF THE RIVER USA/Spanish Content Note: Brief Nudity
A 5-year-old girl and her family are environmental migrants facing a fierce drought. While her mother prepares for their journey, Liana has an unexpected encounter that will change the destiny of all. Narrative Short
Director: Dayana Gauthier An animated documentary showcasing moments in the life of a woman from Honduras who immigrated to the United States in order to support her family back home. Animation/Mixed Media/Documentary
Director: Pilar GarciaFernandezsesma
SHIPW RECKED Brazil/Portuguese
A shipwrecked woman discharges her memories in the sea. Essay Film
Director: Juh Almeida
Clattering sewing machines, and memories. In 1987, the Saxon city of Werdau needed workers for its textile industry. The jobs were advertised in Vietnam, as was usual in the GDR (East Germany) at the time. Many came – some stayed. Delicate fabric prints tell of this economically still prosperous period just before German reunification. A Vietnamese and a German couple cheerfully remember initial difficulties and cultural misunderstandings. Animation/Mixed Media/Documentary
Director: Thanh Nguyen Phuong
Program 5 FINALE: Awards Finalists & Audience Voting 6:30 - 9:00 PM SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2019 CMI DIGITAL THEATER MILTON 171
Selected from 2204 submissions, these 12 short films present the most innovative and best of this year's Feminist Border Arts Film Festival.
Ashmina directed by Dekel Berenson
6:30 - 9:00 Award Finalists
Program Length: Approximately 1h:55min There will also be a 10 minute intermission. (Films Are Listed Here in Alphabetical Order)
AL GHORBA Canada/Arabic, English
Documentary/Essay Film
Director: Fernanda Galindo
Australia/Chinese
USA/English CONTENT NOTE: Film explores the psychological processing of sexual/abuse trauma by a child
A young pianist is forced to confront her plans about motherhood after she and her new husband visit his family’s remote island community.
GYRL paints a portrait of a pre-teen African American girl struggling with an abusive father. Narrative Short
DRUM W AVE Through a series of dreams, a Syrian woman living far from home tries to deal with being unsettled and displaced from her war-torn country. Animation/Mixed Media
Director: Alia Hijaab ASHMINA Nepal/Nepali, English
A young woman is torn between family obligations and the life she wants to lead.
GYRL
Narrative Short
Director: Natalie Erika James
Director: Anaiis Cisco ONESELF STORY Belgium/French
FUEGO EN EL SÓTANO/ FIRE IN THE BASEMENT Mexico/Spanish
Narrative Short
Director: Dekel Berenson BAJO EL AGUA Mexico/Spanish
After 8 years, I returned to the desert to meet again with my father and I discovered that he told stories of worlds gone under water.
Elisa, Leo, and Ramos are students at Mexico City University. They grapple with student protests and army retaliation during the Mexican student movement of 1968 Narrative Short
Director: Eva Vázquez de Reoyo
Lou tells their story, the way they feel about gender. Girl or boy, he/she, chose not to choose, for now. Animation/Documentary
Director: Géraldine Charpentier
PATCHW ORK
SW ÊDÎ
Spain/Spanish
Sweden/Swedish
“Patchwork” is the story of Loly, a woman who needs a new liver because hers is broken. Animation/Mixed Media
Director: Dora Martí PIRAÑA India/ English, Gujarati, Hindi
A woman trying to buy menstrual pads is surveilled by a clerk who won’t leave her alone. Narrative Short
Director: Sosi Chamoun YELLOW STARRED COURTYARDS Hungary/English *Preview Screening*
This short film merges readings of testimonies from the past with observational images of the present taken inside former Yellow Starred Buildings, blurring the line between where history ends and the present day begins. Their haunting historical accounts are read by people from Iran, Brazil, Indonesia, Georgia, and Ghana as a way to unite voices of the present with those of the past. Documentary/Essay Film
Director: Christina Agatha Zachariades W ATERMARKS
The journey of waste, where it comes from and where exactly it goes after it’s tossed in the bin. Humans have implemented ways to get rid of waste and yet every piece of plastic ever created still exists in some form or the other. It lives within us, by us, and all around us affecting the planet, human communities, and all life on earth. Documentary/Essay Film
Director: Nainisha Dedhia
USA/English In 1944, the 7th district of Budapest was transformed into a Jewish ghetto. It was a walled-off district where Jews were forced out of their homes and crammed into Yellow Starred Buildings before being deported to concentration camps and forced labor camps. By the time the ghetto was liberated on January 16, 1945 - nearly 50% of the city's Jewish population had died during the Holocaust. When the surviving victims returned, the staff of the Hungarian Jewish relief organization, National Committee for Attending Deportees (DEGOB), recorded the personal stories of approximately 5000 Hungarian Holocaust survivors in 1945-1946.
A portrait of Richmond, Virginia: a place where Confederate monuments obscure the deep trauma of slavery along the James River – a painful history that remains largely unrecorded. As a narrator offers to guide us through contemporary landscapes, impressions of this buried sin rise to the surface through handdeveloped 16mm film and unconventional sound design, questioning how the past is recorded or suppressed. Documentary/Essay Film
Director: Sara Suarez
online showcase MARCH 11-MAY 15, 2019 genders.nmsu.edu/film-festival
Récit de Soi directed by Géraldine Charpentier
Online Showcase Program Length: Approximately 1h:06min (Films Are Listed Here in Alphabetical Order) BATTERY REMAINING USA
A young woman is faced with confronting the duality within herself. How much life remains in your battery? Animation
Director: Yige Yang BREAKING THE SHACKLES
Animation
Director: Chantal Johnston DID YOU KNOW ? USA/English
Documentary
Director: Aftab Abbasi DICHOTOMY Canada
Documentary/Essay Film
Director: Noor Khan ENTRETANTOS/ AMONG MANY Brazil/Portuguese
Pakistan/Urdu
Coach Younas Qambrani was running a small boxing club for boys in Lyari, an area infamous for its unrest and gang warfare in Karachi. One day a girl asks him to teach her boxing so that she can “protect myself, and be independent.” That girl convinced coach Qambrani to train her with her will and dedication. In a matter of a few years many talented female boxers have emerged from the humble gym and now eye the world stage.
realized that her responsibility as a settler was critical, since there was no return home for herself and her community. EAST is a letter to her South Asian community to try to part from the past, and look at our current lives, where we need to learn to share the land.
An exploration in shared sites of queerness and sexuality between the spotted hyena and myself. Animation/Mixed Media
Director: Lynn Kim EAST: A RELATIONSHIP Canada/English, Arabic
A body that speaks, that shouts, that scratches on the asphalt is its manifesto Experimental/Performance Art
Director: Sue Durden FIRST KISS USA
An immigrant reflects on the crisis of having been robbed of a homeland, while also settling and being complicit in the destruction of the home of Indigenous peoples. Imagery of graveyards depicts the loss of family members. While burying them in the ground, she
Two guys’ first date. Animation
Director: Yong Jun Sui
GIRLFRIENDS Chile/Spanish
by Muslim caretakers, a fit that's more natural than people in their communities might assume. Documentary
Director: Ana Gonzalez
After an unfortunate event at a party, two friends decide to take action on the matter. Narrative Short Director: Camila Rodó Carvallo HYPNAGOGIC REGRESSION USA
Simulating flashbacks of specific traumas from the filmmaker’s past.
NATURALEZA MUERTA
Animation
Director: ChenZhong Liu THE MUSLIMS PRESERVING KOLKATA’S LAST JEWISH SYNAGOGUES Spain, India/English, Hebrew, Hindi The last Jewish synagogues in Kolkata, India are maintained
Documentary
Director: Natalie Harris TALE OF TW O MOTHERS USA/English
Argentina/Spanish (no subs)
The transition to rot, from solids to particles. Animation/Mixed Media
Director: Valentina Rocío #PRAYFOR USA/ English, Spanish
Experimental/ Video Art Director: Katina Bitsicas THE MIND OF AN ARTIST: DON MCCULLIN UK/English Legendary photographer Don McCullin's talks about his work as a war photographer.
enlightenment, and cultural connectivity.
Life and death. They are all in the hashtags. Dance/Digital Art Film
Director: Aeryn Williams
SANKOFA: THE STORY OF OSHUN USA/English
On the brink of a new project, Niambe and Thandiwe of OSHUN use music as a tool for social change, spiritual
When Jamie Diamond bought a discarded German family photo album from 1938, she did not expect to make art with it. But upon bringing a child into Trump's America, she began to notice uncanny parallels, and set out to recreate the original snapshots with her own son, collapsing space and time, merging pixels with the grain. Documentary/Essay Film
Director: Sam Vladimirsky W HITE NOISE USA
Concentration. Interruption. White noise. Narrative Short
Director: Lee Bader
FBAFF 2019 The 4th annual Feminist Border Arts Film Festival is sponsored by NMSU Gender & Sexuality Studies/Interdisciplinary Studies, Creative Media Institute, and University Art Gallery. This year's programming was supported by funding provided by the New Mexico Humanities Council, Devasthali Family Foundation, Community Foundation of Southern New Mexico, NMSU College of Arts & Sciences, and Southwest and Border Cultures Institute. We would like to thank the following individuals, without whom this festival would not have been possible: Ricky Araiza Cynthia Bejarano Raphael Benero Lucille Casas Jorge Hernandez Camacho Kat Chudy Maggie Day Ammu & Rama Devasthali Kefaya Diab Luis Gutierrez Manal Hamzeh Anne Hubbell Shiane Jacocks Amy Lanasa Allison Layfield
Isaiah McIntyre James Maupin Elisa Montoya Rob Pickett K. Michelle Quisenberry Charles Rodriguez Marisa Sage Aimée Schaefer Julia Smith Cheyenne Valdespino Lamaia Vaughn Terra Winter Patti Wojahn Jasmine Woodul & Students of WS 407/507: Gender & Graphic Narrative
GENDERS.NMSU.EDU/FILM-FESTIVAL