This contest, which honors submissions to Femspec, is conducted every five years. We had two celebrations already, including one party at PCA in San Antonio which was attended by the two SF/F Area Chairs, two award winners, the Editor in Chief, two prospective interns who had just been interviewed and successfully came onboard, participants and audience members of Batya's Tarot panel, a mythologist with a book she had asked us to review, and various attendees walking by or who had noticed us in the program. The second was held at WisCon, a regular Sunday night party from 9 to 2 am with refreshments from Willie's, and readings aloud from prior issues especially most of the creative writing in the award-winning 6.1, of African America Women's Speculative Works. We will have our third event, a wine and cheese, in the book exhibit hall at NWSA in Atlanta, so come by! We will be the ones with balloons and party hats....
Judges: Annis Pratt, Janice Bogstad, Florence Howe, Gloria Orenstein, Laurel Lampella, Philipa Kafka, Rick Collier, and Robert Von Der Osten.
Nominees for fiction:
1: 7.1: Debra Schleef, "From the Archives of Drs. Pacek and Arriola"
2: 8.1/2: Fina Wisker, "New Blood"
3: 8.1/2: K.A. Laity, "Eating the Dream"
4: 9.2: Gina Wisker, "Recruitment"
5: 10.1: Finesia Fideli "The Resurrection of Lazarus"
And the winners are:
First Place: K.A. Laity, "Eating the Dream"
Second Place: Gina Wisker, "Recruitment"
Third Place: Debra Schleef, "From the Archives of Drs. Placek and Arriola"
Fourth Place Tie: Gina Wisker, "New Blood," And Finesia Fideli, "The Resurrection of Lazarus"
Nominees for criticism:
1: 10.2: Ritch Calvin, "'This Shapeless Book': Reception in Joana Russ's The Female Man"
2: 8.1: Eric M. Drown, "Business Girls and Beset Men in Pulp Science Fiction and Science Fiction Fandom"
3: 6.2: C.S'Thembile West, "The Competing Demands of Community Survival and Self-Preservation in Octavia Butler's Kindred"
4 : 9.2: Cristy Dwyer, "Queen Lili'uokalani's Imprisonment Quilt: Indomitable Spirits in Protest Cloth"
5: 10.1: Rebekah Sheldon. "Reproductive Futurism and Feminist Rhetoric: Joanna Russ's We Who Are About To. . . "
6: 6.2: J. Andrew Deman. "Taking Out the Trash: Octavia E. Butler's Wild Seed and the Feminist Voice in American SF"
7: 7.1: R.C. Dorozario, "The Consequences of Disney Anthropomorphism"
8: 7.1: Debra Bonita Shaw, "Sex and the Single Starship Captain: Compulsory Heterosexuality and Star Trek: Voyager"
And the winners are:
First Place: Debra Bonita Shaw, "Sex and the Single Starship Captain: Compulsory Heterosexuality and Star Trek: Voyager"
Second Place: R.C. Dorozario, "The Consequences of Disney Anthropomorphism"
Third Place: C.S'Thembile West, "The Competing Demands of Community Survival and Self-Preservation in Octavia Butler's Kindred"
Fourth Place Tie: Cristy Dwyer, "Queen Lili'uokalani's Imprisonment Quilt: Indomitable Spirits in Protest Cloth"; Rebekah Sheldon. "Reproductive Futurism and Feminist Rhetoric: Joanna Russ's We Who Are About To. . . "; Eric M. Drown, "business Girls and Beset Men in Pulp Science Fiction and Science Fiction Fandom"
Honorable Mention: Ritch Calvin, "'This Shapeless Book': Reception in Joana Russ's The Female Man"
Nominees and winners for memoirs:
1: 8.1/2: Jane Davis, "The Value of Stupidity: Negative Values in Academia"
2: 8.1/2: Batya Weinbaum, "Memoirs of an Academic Career"
3: 8.1/2: Tina Andres, "Growing Thick Skin"
Poetry:
First place: Susan McLean, "Siren," 7.1, 2006.
Second place: Phebe Beiser, "Celebrating Holi," 10.1, 2009.
Third place: Glennis Redmond, "Scripted Hope," 7.1, 2006
Art: Cover Nominations:
1: 10.2: Kartika Affandi, Vinity or Aragon, 2006
2: 9.1: Helen Klebassadel, "Regeneration"
3: 7.1: Menoukha Case, "Ascent: Yes!"
4: 7.2: Jenna Weston, "The Grain Goddess"
5: 6.2: Diane B. Lekovic, "Burning City"
And the winners are:
First place: Helen Klebasadel, Regeneration; created 1999
Second place: Kartika Affandi, Vinity or Aragon, created 2006
Third place: Jenna Weston, The Grain Goddess, created 2001
Best special issue or themed section:
6.1: "Speculative Black Women: Magic, Fantasy and the Supernatural," Ed. Gwendolyn Pough and Yolanda Hood.
Reviews:
First: "Having a Good Cry by Robyn Warhol," Reviewed by Erin Smith, 6.2
Second: "Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies, eds. Rhonda Wilcox and David Lavery," Reviewed by Tanya Cochran, 6.2
Third: "The Rat Laughs by Nava Semel," Reviewed by Lank Ravin, 9.1
Other short-listed reviews:
"Demeter and Persephone: Lessons from a Myth by Tamara Agha-Jaffar," Reviewed by Simone Roberts, 6.2
"Women Write Pulp (Dorothy B. Hughes, In a Lonely Place, Faith Baldwin, Skyscraper, Valerie Taylor, The Girls in 3-B, from the Series, Femmes Fatales)," Reviewed by Erin Smith 6.1
"Crafting the Witch: Engendering Magic in Medieval and Early Modern England by Heidi Breuer," Reviewed by Emily Auger, 10.2
"An Introduction to Western Esotericism by Nadya Q. Chishty-Mujahid," Reviewed by Emily Auger, 10.2
"Dearest Anne by Juduth Katzier," Reviewed by Lani Ravin, 9.1
We thank everyone involved. Look forward to a publication of The Best of Femspec: The First Ten Years, a forthcoming anthology of Femspec Books, and to further contests.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Calls for papers and special issues
We have calls for papers currently operating for Divination as Speculative Literature (previously Tarot in Culture but modified to be more culturally inclusive); Motherhood in SF (formerly Kick Ass Mothers in SF but this got no submissions so we expanded); and Myth, Women and Art.
If you are interested in any of these please scroll through the archives or email us at femspec@aol.com.
Calls for papers when developed with an individual usually continue even if the individual working on the issue or themed section has moved on for some reason or decided not to complete the project. As this happens often due to discovery of the workload, illness, job loss, break-ups, needing to move or to defend a disseration, or a tenure struggle, over the years we have decided to pick up on and continue many special issues so as not to be drained of our resources going into the issues that otherwise would have been advertised by us and fizzled out. We will continue to do this to the best of our abilities, but since special issues notoriously take more time and energy than general queues, we are also not committed to coninuing all special issues if none of the edtors is particularly interested in doing the work.
Having said that, one of our interns who since moved on developed a call for a special issue about Halloween and related holidays which was circulated.So if anyone wants to come forward to pick up on that, since we are currently letting that one go, please let us know.
The two special issues edited by others are now Paula Gunn Allen, in its second stage of review but awaiting complete subscription payment, and Elisabeth Vonarburg in its first stage of reviw and all paid up. At this point, either of these could be issue 11.2 depending on receipt of completely revised manuscripts and funding. Or, as has happened in the past, if the PGA special issue is not completely subscribed and completed to our satisfaction we may pursue the ability to use sections of it as part of a general queue.
We are also interested in doing a Joanna Russ Tribute if anyone wants to coordinate it. Currently interviews with board members and others are planned.
We appeciate your respect for our scarce time and energy and any interest in keeping this fantastic though fragile journal afloat...which miraculously has continued to occur for a number of years.
If you are interested in any of these please scroll through the archives or email us at femspec@aol.com.
Calls for papers when developed with an individual usually continue even if the individual working on the issue or themed section has moved on for some reason or decided not to complete the project. As this happens often due to discovery of the workload, illness, job loss, break-ups, needing to move or to defend a disseration, or a tenure struggle, over the years we have decided to pick up on and continue many special issues so as not to be drained of our resources going into the issues that otherwise would have been advertised by us and fizzled out. We will continue to do this to the best of our abilities, but since special issues notoriously take more time and energy than general queues, we are also not committed to coninuing all special issues if none of the edtors is particularly interested in doing the work.
Having said that, one of our interns who since moved on developed a call for a special issue about Halloween and related holidays which was circulated.So if anyone wants to come forward to pick up on that, since we are currently letting that one go, please let us know.
The two special issues edited by others are now Paula Gunn Allen, in its second stage of review but awaiting complete subscription payment, and Elisabeth Vonarburg in its first stage of reviw and all paid up. At this point, either of these could be issue 11.2 depending on receipt of completely revised manuscripts and funding. Or, as has happened in the past, if the PGA special issue is not completely subscribed and completed to our satisfaction we may pursue the ability to use sections of it as part of a general queue.
We are also interested in doing a Joanna Russ Tribute if anyone wants to coordinate it. Currently interviews with board members and others are planned.
We appeciate your respect for our scarce time and energy and any interest in keeping this fantastic though fragile journal afloat...which miraculously has continued to occur for a number of years.
Anonymous peer review process: read if you are editing for us
http://www.publicationethics.org/
Above is the link that is mandatory for all new editors and special issue or themed sections editors to read.
In the past it has occurred that special issue editors do not understand the importance of anonymous peer review, or the importance of removing themselves from the review procss if there is a conflct of interest in expressed opinion.
Femspec prizes itself on being a peer reviewed journal as this helps with legitimacy for those in academe getting tenured.
Even if you are a specialist in the field editing a special issue for us or with us you must peer review, rather than review yourself knowing the names of the submitters, in order toprotect the standards of the journal.
Thnk you very much.
Above is the link that is mandatory for all new editors and special issue or themed sections editors to read.
In the past it has occurred that special issue editors do not understand the importance of anonymous peer review, or the importance of removing themselves from the review procss if there is a conflct of interest in expressed opinion.
Femspec prizes itself on being a peer reviewed journal as this helps with legitimacy for those in academe getting tenured.
Even if you are a specialist in the field editing a special issue for us or with us you must peer review, rather than review yourself knowing the names of the submitters, in order toprotect the standards of the journal.
Thnk you very much.
WisCon and other recent adventures
Femspec offered its products for sale at a table at WisCon Memorial Day weekend, and made many new connections with future people interested in working on the journal and submitting materials for future issues such as women, myth and art, motherhood in sf, and divination.
We also had our awards party and celebration of the Best of Femspec's Second Five Years, on Sunday night. From 9 pm til 2 am the next morning, we read aloud from previous Femspecs with whomever came in, thus publicizing our winners as well as other authors.
All were amazed at the high quality of work we have been publishing, particular the fiction. Gina Wisker's "Recruitment" was a winner at about 1 am. We also read aloud most of the creative writing in the winning Special Issue, 6.2, African American Women's Speculative Works. By the next day, we had sold out of the entire issue.
Another awards party was also organized at the Popular Culture Association in San Antonio, at which two of the winners were present to behonored.
Look for us in the Exhibit Hall at National Women's Studies in Atlanta, in Nov., where we will have our final and third awards party for the second five years winners.
Good news--although we had decided to publish The Best of Femspec: Creative Writing from the First Ten Years ourselves, and launch it at the next PCA, the editor of Aqueduct Press said she would also like to work on it. So if anyone wants to help get it together, let me know.
I only went to two sessions, besides the one where I read from my novel. One was a Remembering Joanna Russ, at which I recruited contributors to the Joanna Russ Memorial Tribute. Still open...
And another was one on reproductive justice, which left me open to doing a special issue on the topic if anyone is interested.
Happy summer,
Batya
We also had our awards party and celebration of the Best of Femspec's Second Five Years, on Sunday night. From 9 pm til 2 am the next morning, we read aloud from previous Femspecs with whomever came in, thus publicizing our winners as well as other authors.
All were amazed at the high quality of work we have been publishing, particular the fiction. Gina Wisker's "Recruitment" was a winner at about 1 am. We also read aloud most of the creative writing in the winning Special Issue, 6.2, African American Women's Speculative Works. By the next day, we had sold out of the entire issue.
Another awards party was also organized at the Popular Culture Association in San Antonio, at which two of the winners were present to behonored.
Look for us in the Exhibit Hall at National Women's Studies in Atlanta, in Nov., where we will have our final and third awards party for the second five years winners.
Good news--although we had decided to publish The Best of Femspec: Creative Writing from the First Ten Years ourselves, and launch it at the next PCA, the editor of Aqueduct Press said she would also like to work on it. So if anyone wants to help get it together, let me know.
I only went to two sessions, besides the one where I read from my novel. One was a Remembering Joanna Russ, at which I recruited contributors to the Joanna Russ Memorial Tribute. Still open...
And another was one on reproductive justice, which left me open to doing a special issue on the topic if anyone is interested.
Happy summer,
Batya
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Available Positions in Femspec
Femspec is an interdisciplinary journal dedicated to challenging gender through science fiction, magical realism, myth, the supernatural, and other speculative works. Currently, we are looking for people to fill a variety of positions, which are listed below. All positions require three years of volunteer work as well as logging hours and tasks and participating in femspeceditorial wiki and SKYPES on a regular basis. All require and assume current subscriptions to the journal, professional demeanor, consistent communication, ability to take direction, responsible follow-through, love of the subject matter, and embracing our vision. This may lead to recommendations or future gainful employment.
If interested, send bio, vita, letter of interest, and two references to femspec@aol.com. If you are interested in more than one position, please indicate in separate paragraphs your suitability for each in your letter of interest. All applicants for positions must be current subscribers. (We have a special circumstances, household companion, retiree, differently abled, underemployed, unemployed, and student rate of $30. This is not currently posted on our website, www.femspec.org.) Interviews will be conducted through telephone or SKYPE.
Accountant: Someone to help us keep and prepare sound books.
Kickstart Campaign Project Manager: Kickstart has approved a campaign to raise money to print an anthology; the campaign project manager will make a video, explain the process and what feminist sf is on their webpage, make post cards, and set up the links.
Web Person: Updates website as each issue is released – which involves posting the cover, table of contents, abstracts, and showcasing any special features – and makes any changes requested by the editorial board, the editor, or direct supervisor.
Set-up Person: Puts each issue (two a year, between 80 and 280 pages) into the correct format to send to the printer. Sends material back to editor and proofreaders. Makes input into final document to send to printer. Responsible for maintaining electronic archive. Sometimes resizes graphics, designs covers, and works with advertisers to get acceptable files for use. Work may expand as we continue to produce anthologies and books.
Advertising Manager: Solicits and receives exchange ads from other publications such as scholarly journals or feminist media. Keeps a file of all the participating advertisers. Develops new ads on a regular basis and sends them to each publication in the format requested.
Arts Editor: Solicits art in the speculative vein and coordinates review of submissions of articles and cover art.
Drama Editor: Solicits drama submissions in the speculative vein, responsible for reviewing submitted materials, and encourages coverage of drama productions or festivals.
Contract Manager: Submits contracts to accepted authors, archives signed copies, amends contract language as necessary, and consults re-issues.
Manuscript Review Editor: Circulates initial manuscripts to at least two anonymous reviewers, gives feedback to author, ensures author incorporates feedback, re-distributes revised manuscript to one of the initial reviewers and to one new reviewer, and then either accepts or rejects the article. Writes rejection letter or submits completed article to wiki in general queue to be picked up for copyediting. Posts bio and abstract provided by the author.
Public Relations: Gets each book reviewed in significant publications and blogs. Collects such reviews and sends them to the web person to post in press coverage area. Plans and carries out promotional events for each new release (e.g. parties at cons or conferences, signings at bookstores, readings at universities, etc.).
Research and Development: Researches potential funders to determine time line and possible ways to breakdown the large grant we have developed to send to different agencies. Contacts the agencies to discuss the projects and to determine possible interest. Looks at previous funds received by other feminist media by agencies. Once a plan has been developed, works with editors to produce and disseminate a series of grants.
Donor Development: Contact current donors individually and inform them of the journal’s progress to solicit continuing support. Find new donors by gathering a list of women’s studies programs and popular culture programs and developing a campaign to approach the programs for support. Initiates the mutual fund so that donations to the fund may be solicited. Works with a lawyer to complete non profit status so that donors may receive a tax-deductible from Femspec.
Publishing Practicum Intern Coordination: Develops a policy to recruit and interact with interns who seek marketable skills. Teaches interns basic skills such as copyediting, press release writing, proofreading, manuscript submission and processing, writing calls for papers, etc. Helps interns assess jobs performed and become familiar with what skills they can list on their resumes. Writes intern reviews to help with placement.
Femspec Books and Production Associate Editor: Femspec is in the process of expanding into a publishing house. The associate editor will spearhead this project by talking to other feminist and independent publishers, developing a review process for manuscripts, researching what other publishing houses have done during their start ups, developing a timeline and process including guidelines for authors, etc.
Special Issue Editor: Develops calls for special issues. Works with the editors of the special issues throughout the process. Distributes the proposed call to ed board; makes moderations, gets final improvement, distributes widely. Develops a policy statement on the process and structure of special issues to post and utilize with all special issue editors. Ensures all submitters of each special issue are subscribes and keeps a subscription current throughout the submission, review and publication process. Trouble shoots the process and keeps all special issues moving at a timely basis. Can be two to four special issues being proposed or handled a year.
Contest manager: Announces and conducts poetry and fiction contests through vehicles such as Poets and Writers. In charge of the "Best of" contest, which occurs every five years.
Blogger: Encourages other bloggers, promotes the blog, makes blog updates (including ideas sent in by editors, updates about Femspec events, developments, or content) and posts announcement about our books and events.
Retreat Manager: Organizes Femspec annual retreat. This includes determining a time and place when key players gather for organizational planning, organizing the retreat’s agenda, keeping records, arranging catering, and organizing transportation.
If interested, send bio, vita, letter of interest, and two references to femspec@aol.com. If you are interested in more than one position, please indicate in separate paragraphs your suitability for each in your letter of interest. All applicants for positions must be current subscribers. (We have a special circumstances, household companion, retiree, differently abled, underemployed, unemployed, and student rate of $30. This is not currently posted on our website, www.femspec.org.) Interviews will be conducted through telephone or SKYPE.
Accountant: Someone to help us keep and prepare sound books.
Kickstart Campaign Project Manager: Kickstart has approved a campaign to raise money to print an anthology; the campaign project manager will make a video, explain the process and what feminist sf is on their webpage, make post cards, and set up the links.
Web Person: Updates website as each issue is released – which involves posting the cover, table of contents, abstracts, and showcasing any special features – and makes any changes requested by the editorial board, the editor, or direct supervisor.
Set-up Person: Puts each issue (two a year, between 80 and 280 pages) into the correct format to send to the printer. Sends material back to editor and proofreaders. Makes input into final document to send to printer. Responsible for maintaining electronic archive. Sometimes resizes graphics, designs covers, and works with advertisers to get acceptable files for use. Work may expand as we continue to produce anthologies and books.
Advertising Manager: Solicits and receives exchange ads from other publications such as scholarly journals or feminist media. Keeps a file of all the participating advertisers. Develops new ads on a regular basis and sends them to each publication in the format requested.
Arts Editor: Solicits art in the speculative vein and coordinates review of submissions of articles and cover art.
Drama Editor: Solicits drama submissions in the speculative vein, responsible for reviewing submitted materials, and encourages coverage of drama productions or festivals.
Contract Manager: Submits contracts to accepted authors, archives signed copies, amends contract language as necessary, and consults re-issues.
Manuscript Review Editor: Circulates initial manuscripts to at least two anonymous reviewers, gives feedback to author, ensures author incorporates feedback, re-distributes revised manuscript to one of the initial reviewers and to one new reviewer, and then either accepts or rejects the article. Writes rejection letter or submits completed article to wiki in general queue to be picked up for copyediting. Posts bio and abstract provided by the author.
Public Relations: Gets each book reviewed in significant publications and blogs. Collects such reviews and sends them to the web person to post in press coverage area. Plans and carries out promotional events for each new release (e.g. parties at cons or conferences, signings at bookstores, readings at universities, etc.).
Research and Development: Researches potential funders to determine time line and possible ways to breakdown the large grant we have developed to send to different agencies. Contacts the agencies to discuss the projects and to determine possible interest. Looks at previous funds received by other feminist media by agencies. Once a plan has been developed, works with editors to produce and disseminate a series of grants.
Donor Development: Contact current donors individually and inform them of the journal’s progress to solicit continuing support. Find new donors by gathering a list of women’s studies programs and popular culture programs and developing a campaign to approach the programs for support. Initiates the mutual fund so that donations to the fund may be solicited. Works with a lawyer to complete non profit status so that donors may receive a tax-deductible from Femspec.
Publishing Practicum Intern Coordination: Develops a policy to recruit and interact with interns who seek marketable skills. Teaches interns basic skills such as copyediting, press release writing, proofreading, manuscript submission and processing, writing calls for papers, etc. Helps interns assess jobs performed and become familiar with what skills they can list on their resumes. Writes intern reviews to help with placement.
Femspec Books and Production Associate Editor: Femspec is in the process of expanding into a publishing house. The associate editor will spearhead this project by talking to other feminist and independent publishers, developing a review process for manuscripts, researching what other publishing houses have done during their start ups, developing a timeline and process including guidelines for authors, etc.
Special Issue Editor: Develops calls for special issues. Works with the editors of the special issues throughout the process. Distributes the proposed call to ed board; makes moderations, gets final improvement, distributes widely. Develops a policy statement on the process and structure of special issues to post and utilize with all special issue editors. Ensures all submitters of each special issue are subscribes and keeps a subscription current throughout the submission, review and publication process. Trouble shoots the process and keeps all special issues moving at a timely basis. Can be two to four special issues being proposed or handled a year.
Contest manager: Announces and conducts poetry and fiction contests through vehicles such as Poets and Writers. In charge of the "Best of" contest, which occurs every five years.
Blogger: Encourages other bloggers, promotes the blog, makes blog updates (including ideas sent in by editors, updates about Femspec events, developments, or content) and posts announcement about our books and events.
Retreat Manager: Organizes Femspec annual retreat. This includes determining a time and place when key players gather for organizational planning, organizing the retreat’s agenda, keeping records, arranging catering, and organizing transportation.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
CIFF Take Two
Independent Shorts Program 11
This was the Saturday 11 am feature, which I picked because of the mention of a woman going to the moon in one film, and the mention of flying books in another. Also, Emmy Levine, our primary CIFF coverage from last year, mentioned that the shorts was a category more likely to be a repository of women directors. This Saturday morning visit was full of surprises and worth the time as well as the voucher.
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg, USA, 17 minutes) while not specifically challenging gender, illustrated in a delightful way the process of an author writing and creating a book in a library with an attendant audience of books eagerly helping him, and then flying off to author heaven led by a clutch of balloon-like books on a handful of strings as he regains his youth. Meanwhile, on the steps of the library, a youthful reader checks out the book he leaves behind.
The Spaceship (Emil Mkrttchian, Sweden, 25 minutes) was the one about the woman who wants to go to the moon. Turns out this is not science fiction at all, but the science fiction impacted imagination of a mentally challenged young woman who has a talking red rabbit to keep her company as she imagines her goal of getting there in imaginary spaceships. Abandoned by her mother who checks into a mental hospital when abandoned by her father, who is disturbed by having a child who is different, she cycles around town bearing the insult of “retard” by those who consider her different. She befriends the owner of a pizza parlor who refuses to hire her, although he too, as she eventually points out, harbors a fantasy: of going on a safari. She eventually does get him to give her a job, and cooks for other borderline, homeless, strange, and different people who dance in the streets enjoying her obviously innovative pizzas they are willing to take a chance on. There is a fantasy section when she goes to the moon, however; as she pops out, she sees an electrical being who turns out to be a vehicle for the flashback to her originally diagnosing psychiatrist who had thrown her father into a tizzy about how she would have a hard life, labeled for being so different.
Last Rain (Tony Sanchez and David Sanz, Spain, 20 minutes) doesn’t really challenge gender, but it could be about time travelling and past or future lives; go see it. It won a Oaxaca Film Festival.
Interview (Sebastian Marka, Germany, 20 minutes) seems, for a brief minute, to be a challenge of gender as a woman takes out an ad to send an actor to pose as a serial killer of women that her husband, a journalist, is interviewing; except, the killer answers the ad and actually kills her.
As the Rain Was Falling (Charlotte Joulia, France, 9 minutes) tricks the viewer into believing that a man and a woman caught in the rain start to have an affair. The bell rings interrupting their start of a kiss, and the viewer discovers the two are a separated couple passing off things and a kid at school. Doesn’t fit our category, but it’s still good.
Another good film is Heirlooms (Wendy Chandler and Susan Danta, Australia, 10 minutes), which is a series of short animations about precious objects of a series of children around the world.
This was the Saturday 11 am feature, which I picked because of the mention of a woman going to the moon in one film, and the mention of flying books in another. Also, Emmy Levine, our primary CIFF coverage from last year, mentioned that the shorts was a category more likely to be a repository of women directors. This Saturday morning visit was full of surprises and worth the time as well as the voucher.
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg, USA, 17 minutes) while not specifically challenging gender, illustrated in a delightful way the process of an author writing and creating a book in a library with an attendant audience of books eagerly helping him, and then flying off to author heaven led by a clutch of balloon-like books on a handful of strings as he regains his youth. Meanwhile, on the steps of the library, a youthful reader checks out the book he leaves behind.
The Spaceship (Emil Mkrttchian, Sweden, 25 minutes) was the one about the woman who wants to go to the moon. Turns out this is not science fiction at all, but the science fiction impacted imagination of a mentally challenged young woman who has a talking red rabbit to keep her company as she imagines her goal of getting there in imaginary spaceships. Abandoned by her mother who checks into a mental hospital when abandoned by her father, who is disturbed by having a child who is different, she cycles around town bearing the insult of “retard” by those who consider her different. She befriends the owner of a pizza parlor who refuses to hire her, although he too, as she eventually points out, harbors a fantasy: of going on a safari. She eventually does get him to give her a job, and cooks for other borderline, homeless, strange, and different people who dance in the streets enjoying her obviously innovative pizzas they are willing to take a chance on. There is a fantasy section when she goes to the moon, however; as she pops out, she sees an electrical being who turns out to be a vehicle for the flashback to her originally diagnosing psychiatrist who had thrown her father into a tizzy about how she would have a hard life, labeled for being so different.
Last Rain (Tony Sanchez and David Sanz, Spain, 20 minutes) doesn’t really challenge gender, but it could be about time travelling and past or future lives; go see it. It won a Oaxaca Film Festival.
Interview (Sebastian Marka, Germany, 20 minutes) seems, for a brief minute, to be a challenge of gender as a woman takes out an ad to send an actor to pose as a serial killer of women that her husband, a journalist, is interviewing; except, the killer answers the ad and actually kills her.
As the Rain Was Falling (Charlotte Joulia, France, 9 minutes) tricks the viewer into believing that a man and a woman caught in the rain start to have an affair. The bell rings interrupting their start of a kiss, and the viewer discovers the two are a separated couple passing off things and a kid at school. Doesn’t fit our category, but it’s still good.
Another good film is Heirlooms (Wendy Chandler and Susan Danta, Australia, 10 minutes), which is a series of short animations about precious objects of a series of children around the world.
Friday, April 1, 2011
35th Cleveland International Film Festival: Take One
Bibliotheque Pascal
Szaboics Hadju, Dir.
Hungary, Germany 2010
111 minutes
Having nearly walked out of this film by a young male Hungarian director (b.1972) three times, in the end, I was glad that I stayed at this first film I have had time to sit and write up thanks to a reprieve at the Hospitality Suite next to the Ritz. The cinematography was beautiful, for one thing. Originally I picked the film off the program of the 35th Cleveland International Film Festival program due to the description that emphasized the interplay of fantasy and reality in the life of a young mother “called into question by child protection services after leaving her young daughter with a fortune-telling aunt” (44). Since I have been working on reclaiming the image of “the fortune-teller” in Western culture, both in film and in life, this drew me in.
We did not even get to meet the fortune teller until about a third of the way through the film. She was portrayed sympathetically and realistically—talking about the mortgage and the competition of the Gypsy who only told the customers good things who had moved into the neighborhood and cut into her business. After showing her reading cards for her niece, she merely looked at a palm or two and made dire predictions rather than using her powers to be transformative, feeding into the image of the palm reader that most have. And although she confesses on a grave that she does not believe in tarot or coffee grounds, she does read cards with which her clients expect her to be predictive. In fact, she makes a prediction that turns out to be false and is expected to raise a large sum of money to pay off a client. Hence the plot.
She takes tickets to have the crowd watch her grandniece dream; apparently, this brought on the action of Child Protective Serives. During the dream, the child sees her grandfather lead a brass marching band to liberate her mother from a house of prostitution in far off Liverpool, where her mother was about to be gassed to death and then raped to lines of Shakespeare’s Othello, after playing lines of George Bernard Shaw’s Joan of Arc. There she had been raped by a john for wearing men’s clothing.
All the other prostitutes, also victims of the sex slavery system from Eastern Europe, play other characters in literature; after the marching band comes through from the power of the daughter’s active dream, they all stand bewildered on the street looking rather vulnerable in their variety of fantasy costumes.
The scene flashes back to the office of the social worker at Child Welfare who makes it clear to the sad but colorful Mona that if she really wants her daughter back, they cannot possibly put this rendition of the mother’s truth into the report—nor that the father jumped out of her from the sand at the beach. Nor that he ran out to the bathhouse the next morning. Nor that he convinced the soldiers after him for beating a gay guy to death to put all their guns down, ran, and then got shot. Nor that it was her own father who asked her to accompany him to Germany for his surgery and then sold her into sexual slavery, only to be shot himself and have the money he had paid for her be taken back.
After watching nearly the whole movie of the fantasy plot, the natural audience reaction is to feel quite disturbed and perturbed that the young mother is forced to create a mundane story of meeting a guy in the street in the city, being given a false name and place that he worked, that she couldn’t find him the next day that she chose to go into prostitution for the money and hated it….until we realize the longer she talks that this is indeed the truth, and the fantasy of the rest of the story had been made up.
The child welfare worker signs the papers with the toned down story after modifying a few items such as the man she met forced her to go into prostitution and that the young mother herself returned having decided to mend her ways. Ominously saying he is not quite sure what he will put in the report for the benefit of the child, after the mother leaves to the satisfaction of the typing secretary, the social worker indeed gives the recommendation to return the child to the biological mother.
In the last scene, we see the mother serving four scoops of pure air to the daughter from an empty bowl of soup, and pouring invisible milk from an empty pitcher, all the while saying how good the meal is. Playfully, the daughter demonstrates actively agreeing. We are brought to wonder if indeed the social worker’s hesitation to give the child back to the mother had not been correct after all. Then the camera pans out to show that the two of them are playing on sets of kitchens and bedrooms in a fancy goods department store. Recognition clicks. Goods are displayed for consumers in an economy where the cash to purchase them is not there.
The film does challenge gender through speculative means, surrealism, and magical realism. However, my urge to walk out was to avoid watch a rape, and I took no pleasure in the glorification of women’s victimization and female objectification. I also did not enjoy a pattern in my mind forming as I was remembering that the audience award at this festival a couple of years ago had also been about prostitution, and that the Jewish Film Festival in Cleveland has similarly had a film a couple of years ago about the Eastern European sex traffic trade, also focusing on a woman who had chosen to leave the country to go into prostitution to send her money to her daughter.
But where are the images of strong women fighting in Israel against the Occupation, or the ways women have been organizing in Eastern Europe, and all the ways women have been against this and other issues? I wondered this to myself, as I saw the man who had purchased Mona from a sexual slave parade introduce her to the habit of shooting up and encouraging her to contact him if she ever wanted to try it again. I had to force myself to remember that there were other films at the festival that I had not seen, or had not seen yet—such as the film about the women’s art movement of the 1960s and 70s (!Women Art Revolution 122) and the film about the woman who translated five Dostoevsky novels into German because she believes literacy can be spiritually uplifting (The Woman with the 5 Elephants 122).
So I stayed and watched the blood spurt from the man as his sexual slave bit his tongue. In the fantasy she almost got away, and it was the power of her daughter’s dream of liberation, even though she must have felt abandoned, that saved her.
35th Cleveland International Film Festival BE PART OF THE STORY; Tower City Cinemas March 24-April 3 2011. Cleveland, OH. Program Book.
Szaboics Hadju, Dir.
Hungary, Germany 2010
111 minutes
Having nearly walked out of this film by a young male Hungarian director (b.1972) three times, in the end, I was glad that I stayed at this first film I have had time to sit and write up thanks to a reprieve at the Hospitality Suite next to the Ritz. The cinematography was beautiful, for one thing. Originally I picked the film off the program of the 35th Cleveland International Film Festival program due to the description that emphasized the interplay of fantasy and reality in the life of a young mother “called into question by child protection services after leaving her young daughter with a fortune-telling aunt” (44). Since I have been working on reclaiming the image of “the fortune-teller” in Western culture, both in film and in life, this drew me in.
We did not even get to meet the fortune teller until about a third of the way through the film. She was portrayed sympathetically and realistically—talking about the mortgage and the competition of the Gypsy who only told the customers good things who had moved into the neighborhood and cut into her business. After showing her reading cards for her niece, she merely looked at a palm or two and made dire predictions rather than using her powers to be transformative, feeding into the image of the palm reader that most have. And although she confesses on a grave that she does not believe in tarot or coffee grounds, she does read cards with which her clients expect her to be predictive. In fact, she makes a prediction that turns out to be false and is expected to raise a large sum of money to pay off a client. Hence the plot.
She takes tickets to have the crowd watch her grandniece dream; apparently, this brought on the action of Child Protective Serives. During the dream, the child sees her grandfather lead a brass marching band to liberate her mother from a house of prostitution in far off Liverpool, where her mother was about to be gassed to death and then raped to lines of Shakespeare’s Othello, after playing lines of George Bernard Shaw’s Joan of Arc. There she had been raped by a john for wearing men’s clothing.
All the other prostitutes, also victims of the sex slavery system from Eastern Europe, play other characters in literature; after the marching band comes through from the power of the daughter’s active dream, they all stand bewildered on the street looking rather vulnerable in their variety of fantasy costumes.
The scene flashes back to the office of the social worker at Child Welfare who makes it clear to the sad but colorful Mona that if she really wants her daughter back, they cannot possibly put this rendition of the mother’s truth into the report—nor that the father jumped out of her from the sand at the beach. Nor that he ran out to the bathhouse the next morning. Nor that he convinced the soldiers after him for beating a gay guy to death to put all their guns down, ran, and then got shot. Nor that it was her own father who asked her to accompany him to Germany for his surgery and then sold her into sexual slavery, only to be shot himself and have the money he had paid for her be taken back.
After watching nearly the whole movie of the fantasy plot, the natural audience reaction is to feel quite disturbed and perturbed that the young mother is forced to create a mundane story of meeting a guy in the street in the city, being given a false name and place that he worked, that she couldn’t find him the next day that she chose to go into prostitution for the money and hated it….until we realize the longer she talks that this is indeed the truth, and the fantasy of the rest of the story had been made up.
The child welfare worker signs the papers with the toned down story after modifying a few items such as the man she met forced her to go into prostitution and that the young mother herself returned having decided to mend her ways. Ominously saying he is not quite sure what he will put in the report for the benefit of the child, after the mother leaves to the satisfaction of the typing secretary, the social worker indeed gives the recommendation to return the child to the biological mother.
In the last scene, we see the mother serving four scoops of pure air to the daughter from an empty bowl of soup, and pouring invisible milk from an empty pitcher, all the while saying how good the meal is. Playfully, the daughter demonstrates actively agreeing. We are brought to wonder if indeed the social worker’s hesitation to give the child back to the mother had not been correct after all. Then the camera pans out to show that the two of them are playing on sets of kitchens and bedrooms in a fancy goods department store. Recognition clicks. Goods are displayed for consumers in an economy where the cash to purchase them is not there.
The film does challenge gender through speculative means, surrealism, and magical realism. However, my urge to walk out was to avoid watch a rape, and I took no pleasure in the glorification of women’s victimization and female objectification. I also did not enjoy a pattern in my mind forming as I was remembering that the audience award at this festival a couple of years ago had also been about prostitution, and that the Jewish Film Festival in Cleveland has similarly had a film a couple of years ago about the Eastern European sex traffic trade, also focusing on a woman who had chosen to leave the country to go into prostitution to send her money to her daughter.
But where are the images of strong women fighting in Israel against the Occupation, or the ways women have been organizing in Eastern Europe, and all the ways women have been against this and other issues? I wondered this to myself, as I saw the man who had purchased Mona from a sexual slave parade introduce her to the habit of shooting up and encouraging her to contact him if she ever wanted to try it again. I had to force myself to remember that there were other films at the festival that I had not seen, or had not seen yet—such as the film about the women’s art movement of the 1960s and 70s (!Women Art Revolution 122) and the film about the woman who translated five Dostoevsky novels into German because she believes literacy can be spiritually uplifting (The Woman with the 5 Elephants 122).
So I stayed and watched the blood spurt from the man as his sexual slave bit his tongue. In the fantasy she almost got away, and it was the power of her daughter’s dream of liberation, even though she must have felt abandoned, that saved her.
35th Cleveland International Film Festival BE PART OF THE STORY; Tower City Cinemas March 24-April 3 2011. Cleveland, OH. Program Book.
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