PARIS INTERNATIONAL
LESBIAN & FEMINIST FILM FESTIVAL
Quand les lesbiennes se font du cinéma
A long awaited debate that stimulated us all: Violence in the Lesbian Relationship, linked to the film Domestic Violence by Suzanne Newman. The large number of women attending the debate and the many contributions to the discussions prove just how important it is to talk about this difficult subject.
We greatly appreciated and learned from the meetings with the filmmakers from Brazil and Hong Kong.
The directors of the documentary Speaking for Themselves (Seven Women - Their Experiences with Cancer), who are also members of a cancer prevention group, will be present to answer questions on a subject which affects us all.
Your parents discover your homosexuality and it's the end of the world … for you and for them! What will people think of them? What should they do? What should they tell their colleagues? Should they make us leave home, recommend a therapist, ban the tofu from the fridge, melt our kd lang cds in the microwave? How to stop feeling guilty and find comfort in all this madness? Many important issues will be discussed in the company of the Contact organisation for parents of lesbians and gays.
Being an adolescent is bad enough, but being a lesbian as well really takes the cake! To come out or not to come out? Stand firm on your differences and suffer the slings and arrows of lesbophobia? And most difficult of all, admit to your best friend - who's in love with Ricky Martin (if she only knew!) - that you've got a crush on her. How to help those going through this precarious stage? Norah Salmon, director of Lesbian Teenagers in High School, will discuss her work helping gay and lesbian adolescents in the United States.
Physical or verbal violence in the lesbian couple is a subject shrouded in an impressive number of taboos and received ideas. How then to understand and refuse violence; how and where to get help? Together with Suzanne Newman, director of Domestic Violence, we will look at finding answers to these questions.
Web surfing: what do we expect, what do we find, what's contained in gay and lesbian sites, French and English sites? Do you surf a lot, a little? Do you have your own site? Come and share your experiences, problems and dreams.
"La Barbare" is a women-only, lesbian, autonomous and non-commercial bar/centre which aims to promote artistic, political and cultural activities by women and lesbians. The Barbare team has made a documentary included in the Festival this year and will talk about the centre's activities.
Caught between Chinese culture and British colonisation, passing from capitalism to neo-communism, Hong Kong is a world of its own. The three Hong Kong filmmakers present will help to unveil the mysteries contained in their films (iD, She Makes Me Wanna Die and Thin) and open a door on the lesbian world in this Pearl of the Orient.
In 1998, we presented 5 Brazilian films and this year we have 3 new films: Segredos de amor (Just Between Us), Carta aberta (Open Letter) and Uma valsa prá ela (A Waltz for Her). From political documentary to the pure poetry of the experimental film, these three films show different facets of lesbian life in Brazil. All of the directors will be present during the Festival – a first for us – to discuss lesbian cinema in Brazil and more generally, the situation for lesbians in that country.
After two decades of absence of lesbians from most AIDS prevention campaigns, you would think lesbians were immune to the virus. Lesbians thus tend to be mis- or under-informed about HIV and its prevention. Safe sex continues to be seen as a gay theme which doesn't concern lesbians. Suzanne Newman's film Safer Sex and STD's deals with this subject through interviews in the lesbian Latina community in the United States.
Meeting with Marie-Jo Bonnet whose book Two Female Friends, just released by Blanche Editions, looks at how each historical era, and each artist, displays a supposedly invisible feminine desire through a supposedly silent image.