The Brattleboro Women's Film festival takes place this weekend in Vermont. The settings for the films cover a lot of ground, from the hills of Vermont to the fields of Kenya to the ladies room on at the Staten Island Ferry.
The Vermont Standard's Kevin Forrest reports.
(sound of igniting torch)
In a large barn in Norwich, Vt., a woman applies a torch to a pile of different size metal pipes, all connected at odd angles. Heat, metal and air combine to summon an unearthly sound.
(Fire organ fades up and down)
This bizarre instrument�the fire organ--plays a central role in the movie �Nothing Like Dreaming.� In the film by Nora Jacobson, the fire organ helps forge an unlikely bond between two characters. Emma is an over-achieving teenager distraught over the death of a friend. Sonny suffers from an undefined mental illness and is thoroughly mistrusted by everyone in his small Vermont town.
Together Emma and Sonny build and play the bizarre instrument. Through the experience they both heal from their traumas.
Jacobson uses the friendship between Emma and Sonny to explore the transition from adolescence to adulthood and boundaries between sanity and madness.
For Jacobson, it's refreshing to be part of the Brattleboro event.
Nora - I mean I�ve been to a lot of film festivals where I�m in the company of�of�well.. I hate to put it this way, but 25-year old males making films about drugs, and guns and girlfriends. And that�s not what my film is. My film really has a couple of messages in it. And so I really like when I get to go to a film festival that really thinks about what kinds of films they show.
Jacobson has produced both documentaries and short feature films and likes to use film to raise big issues. Nothing Like Dreaming is filled with people who don't fit in. In addition to Sonny and Emma�s struggles for identity, the film takes place against the backdrop of Vermont�s contentious Civil Unions debate.
Nora - So there are all these different populations that are struggling with being understood. And so I�m hoping that the film creates this community in a way of all these people and issues coming together and so through the experience of watching the film you leave it being feeling a sense that tolerance that compassion for people that are different is a good thing.
(Ambient sound � women preparing fliers for mailing)
Women gather around a table in the community room at the Brattleboro Food Coop. They prepare fliers for the upcoming film festival.
Barbara - It originated as a memorial to a woman who was killed by a stalker in downtown Brattleboro
That�s Barbara Charkey, chair of this year�s 14th annual festival. She also sits on the board of the Women�s Crisis Center of Windham County. Last year the festival raised about $15,000 for the center.
Arlene Distler selects films for the festival. Some relate directly to the role of the crisis center.
Arlene - This year we have a film called �The Man Who Stole My mother�s Face� which is an incredible film about a woman in South Africa who was raped. The film is made by her daughter and kind of investigates what this did to her and ultimately seeks to find justice and healing.
The festival embraces lighter themes. Distler feels lucky to have landed the Italian box office hit �Caterina In The Big City� for the festival. Caterina is a 13-year-old girl who moves with her family from Tuscany to Rome. She finds herself caught at school between social factions. The Brattleboro screening is a pre-USA-release sneak preview.
Arlene - I went on their website and they list venues and there was �Beverly Hills� and �Brattleboro.�
Distler was also pleased to land an off-beat film that catches women with their stereotypes down.
Arlene - Our opening film is Ferry Tales, which was nominated last year for an academy award. It is a hysterical film, filmed completely in the ladies room of the Staten Island Ferry. These women talk about life and love and Sept. 11, even.
A film festival such as this also offers the unique opportunity to examine a work in progress. Lisa Mertens and Alan Dater of Marlboro, Vt., started �Roots of Change� a year and a half ago. It�s about Kenyan activist Wangari Maathai who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. It won�t be done until fall. They face the daunting task of reducing dozens of hours of footage into an hour-long documentary. Lisa says this is the most difficult�and thrilling�part of the process.
Lisa � It�s exciting and frustrating and it�s where it really happens. It�s where the film comes together. I mean if you don�t have good raw footage to begin with of course you have a problem. But that�s usually not a problem. It�s where you see the themes and it�s where you see how the themes originated and it�s where you look for the pieces that are really going to touch people and change them and make them think.
(Film clip audio of Wangari Maathai speaking ��The tree is a wonderful symbol that we can use the trees to reclaim the land. But we could also use the tree to reclaim our spirit�)
(Fade film clip audio below narration)
Lisa and Alan thought they would introduce Maathai to the world with their film. Such a shining star wouldn�t wait, however.
Lisa - In the beginning we wanted to bring her to the world through this film. Well, she did that all on her own and the Nobel Committee in Oslo recognized her brilliance and her wholistic approach to sustainable development and the connection to peace.
The film will show that Maathai�s Green Belt movement goes much deeper than the roots of the thousands of trees she has planted.
Lisa - From there, it�s about empowerment, it�s about justice, it�s about women�s rights, it�s about healing the environment and it�s about healing a country from the huge wound of colonialism and subsequent bad governance. So, her approach is brilliant.
The Brattleboro Film Festival opens this weekend. It continues for two weekends after that.
For NHPR news, this is Kevin Forrest in Brattleboro, Vt.
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