Award winning films

This year as in past years, many award winning films will be shown. Among them are the winner of the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, "4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days" from Romania which deals with an abortion in the era of Ceaucescu. The audience award winner of San Sebastian, "Caramel", a comedy from Libanon, will celebrate it's German premiere at Women's Worlds in Tuebingen, just as 11 more films of the programm will be seen first time in Germany. The Locarno Film Festival prize-winner "Half Nelson", also nominated for an Oscar tells the story of a young African -American girl in the United States, taking responsibility for her drug-addicted teacher. Two other featured films will be "Away from her" about an Alzheimer's patient in Canada and "Vanaja" about a rebellious girl in rural-feudalistic India, which won several prizes at the Berlin International Film Festival. "Das Fräulein", a film about the friendship of two Serbian women in Switzerland, awarded the Golden Leopard among three more awards in Locarno, will also be shown.

Guests

Numerous guests will accompany the wide range of complex issues and central themes. Actress Nina Hoss, winner of the Silver Bear at Berlinale Film Festival this year, will present the feature film "Yella", about a young women from Eastern Germany in the jungle of the New Economy.

Marilyn Waring comes to us from the other end of the world, from New Zealand, to present the documentary on her personal adventurous journey: from a very young parliamentarian in the 70's -alone among men - on to the Presidency of New Zealand's Public Expenditures Committee, and from there to become a researcher, critical thinker and author, who has designed a feminist economy. She will also participate in the discussion on the International Day of "NO to violence against Women" in which parliamentarians will discuss their chances of defending the human rights of women within the global economy.

Maria Carlshamre from Sweden is another fascinating participant. The feature film "When Darkness Falls" depicts her equally remarkable life - the story of a woman herself affected by domestic violence, who has to run, with success, for a seat in the European Parliament in order to go public with her case. She will talk about her current key issues in the European Parliament - trafficking in women and forced prostitution. On the occasion of this round table on 25th of November, the feminicides, the systematic assassination of women, in Mexico and Central America will be discussed. TERRE DES FEMMES has been active in this issue in recent weeks, especially with regard to the new resolution which is being discussed with considerable heat in the European Parliament. As a parallel event to the discussion, "Bordertown" will be screened, a very courageous and realistic feature film about the Mafia-State entanglements in the cases of feminicides on the border between Mexico and the United States, produced by its lead actress Jennifer Lopez.

We are also looking forward to the visit of Luna Mijovic - the adolescent leading actress of "Grbavica" from Bosnia and winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. She will present the film in schools and have conversations with students in five cities. Because she prepared intensively for her role and has formed close friendships with children victims of the former Kosovo War who live in SOS Children's Villages, she is an extremely competent advocate to communicate about them with the German students.

On the international day of „NO to violence against women“, Sabatina James will talk about her autobiography. She is a Pakistan woman, whose family declared a death sentence against her to rescue the family”honour”. Since then, Sabatina has lived hidden in the south of Germany.

Regional Focuses

This year the film festival focuses on independent productions from North America, the so-called "Indies", as well as on films on the situation of Arab women. For the latter we will show "Caramel", a very successfull ironic-fresh comedy about women in a beauty parlor in Libanon, "Dunia" about a critical young student and prospective belly dancer from Egypt, and "After the last Sky" from Palestine about the friendship and joint peace work of two women from a kibbutz and a Palestinian woman whose family originally lived on the land of the kibbutz. Equally fascinating is "Salata Baladi" about the complex origins of a militant old lady in Egypt, who has Christian, Jewish and Muslim roots.

Main Topics

Next to "Women's Rights and Solidarity in the Global Economy", "Domestic Violence" remains a main topic and represents our two-year long campaign on this issue. The comedy "Waitress", an Indie awarded at the Sundance Film Festival, deals satirically but nonetheless profoundly with the origins of domestic violence and how women might deal with it. "La capture" from Canada has a young theater student kidnap her father and hammer dramatically on his psyche for weeks, so that he would no longer torment his family. The drama "When Darkness Falls" offers a new perspective into the issue of the relation between "honor" and violence. The festival's only documentary on this same theme is "One Minute to Nine", about a North American mother of three sons who is awaiting imprisonment because she killed her husband who abused her for almost two decades.

"Nina's Heavenly Delights", a film about a curry-cooking competition, is sensual and light-hearted despite all the problems of a lesbian relationship in an Indian immigrant family in Great Britain. It comes to us from film-maker Pratibha Parmar, whom we learned to hold in high esteem for her sensitive documentary "Warrior Marks" (a TERRE DES FEMMES classic on female genital mutilation).

Documentaries

This year's documentaries provide at least as thrilling and interesting insights as the feature films. They offer a cross-section of the issues which TERRE DES FEMMES focuses upon in our human rights work. "Maimouna" is about a girl affected by female genital mutilationin Burkina Faso. "Dialogues in the Dark" deals with honor killings in Turkey and women who fight against them, and under the heading of "patriarchal fundamentalism" it is contrasted or rather completed by "Himmelsstürmerinnen" about female rebels inside and outside the Catholic Church in Germany.

"Estrellas de la linea - the Railroad All Stars" is about a team of prostitutes in Guatemala who, "kicking", fight discrimination through football games. Further fearless women are the almost 80-year-old Shoshone sisters Mary and Carrie from Nevada in "Our Land - Our Lives". The two horse breeders have to defend their ranch against attacks of the US-government - all the way to the International Court of Justice of the United Nations.

The Thai pharmacist Krisana Kraisintu in "A Right to Live" produces inexpensive AIDS drugs for thousands of African patients in Tanzania and has to be extremely courageous: her solidarity in action has earned her death threats. Support activities by and for women in South Africa and in Afghanistan place further emphasis on the issue of a solidarity economy as an alternative to the currently dominating global economy.

Co-operation

The festival events will take place in the cities of Tuebingen and Rottenburg in cooperation with the Women's Representative of the university city of Tuebingen, the Arab Student Association, the German American Institute d.a.i., and the cinemas Museum, Arsenal and Waldhorn.

Once again in our festival theatres we anticipate many exciting , varied and complex stimuli for both our audiences and our guests as we examine together the human rights of women throughout the world.