Insights into women´s worlds 2003

Roundtable Talk
„Human Rights of Women in Crisis Areas – a cineastic view“

Sunday 16.11.2003 um 11 Uhr
Schlatterhaus, Großer Saal, Tübingen, Germany

As part of the supporting acts a filmtaker’s talk took place on Sunday 16.11. 2003 on the topic „Human Rights of Women in Crisis Areas – a cineastic view“

The participants were:

• Ulrike Baur, Germany, "Moderne Sklavinnen –
  das Geschäft mit der Ware Frau“
• Anwar Jamal, India, "The Little Republic“
• Elke Jonigkeit, Germany, "Die Frauen von Kabul“
• Beate Neuhaus, Germany, "Alcemos la voz“
• Shira Richter, Israel, "Two States of Mind“
• Sabiha Sumar, Pakistan, "Silent Waters“

Introduction

Human rights of women are particularly affected in regions of conflict, comprising both - regions of war and of economic crisis. The films screened at TERRE DES FEMMES’ third film festival “Insights into women’s worlds” reveal these threats to women’s rights. But they also show various solutions developed by women in order to protect themselves and others and to fight against violations of human rights. Especially films are able to move the audience and to motivate them to stand up for human rights of women.

This round table gives the directors the possibility to tell about their initial motivation for shooting a particular film. Moreover, they are able to explain the perspectives or messages they want to transmit with their works, to reflect on the solutions developed by women for these conflicts, and how the filmmakers intent to support them with respect to these solutions.

First the participants were asked to express their motivation.

Elke Jonigkeit, director of “Frauen von Kabul” (“Women of Kabul”), documentary about Afghanistan
“ To me it was important to meet the people in their country, women who had not left their country, and to live together with them. Women who, despite their hard fate, don’t give up, but feel responsible to help other women, who had been victims.”

Anwar Jamal, director of “The Little Republic”, feature film, India
„Under British colonialism in India women were not allowed to vote. It was until 40 years later, that women could begin to go massively into politics. Nevertheless, the cast system still is a source of conflict. Although the constitution guarantees fundamental rights for women, in the name of tradition and religion there are still violations being committed like child marriage, and this leads to a series of conflicts.

When I as a filmmaker try to intervene in my country and my time, I have to look for violence and intimidation in the name of religion and tradition committed against women, children and also men. In my film I wanted to show the present situation - India in the year 2002. Our constitution guarantees since 1993 that in the community councils there should be 33% of women as representatives, that means 1 Million women representatives in India. In their first term the fathers, brothers and husbands made politics for the elected women, but since 1998, the second term, things are changing and there is a lot of empowerment”

Shira Richter, director of “Two States of Mind”, documentary, Israel
“I stress much the psychological process of women, the relationship between women and the dynamic of the conflict in my country. First: there are similar dynamics, both women (the Israeli and the Palestinian woman, who are friends, participating in a jeep rallye) talk about women being “victims” in the political sense, but they have different perspectives. Second: I waged a personal struggle to make my film in a feminine, a human way. Films are often done in an inhuman context, with unrespectable relations. I had this experience often as a directors assistant. So, the atmosphere during the filming is often a mirror of conflicts. As I made a film about a relationship (the two women), for me the relations among the crew was also important. And I have to say, there were many elements conspiring to divide, this made it very difficult”

Ulrike Baur, director of “Moderne Sklavinnen”, documentary on trafficking in women in Balkan countries
“I wanted to show how well-organised women trafficking is and how women come together to fight against it. I also wanted to show what is actually done against it. I wanted to present a woman who is able to tell her own story, who does not only talk as a victim, as an object, but as a subject. In many films I have tried to find persons who convey a perspective and vitality.”

Beate Neuhaus, director of “Alcemos la Voz”, documentary about violence in Guatemala
“My film was shot because the human rights commission in Guatemala asked us to do it. The idea was to screen the film in Amerindian communities to help the people there to talk about their experiences. So the people’s terrible experiences had to come up, but rudimentary also their hopes. There were two challenges in this respect: First, the people did not want to show their faces, but their personalities should be expressed. So I decided to film their hands, mouths, and eyes. I did not want to impersonalise them by digitally blurred faces. Secondly, the film should be presented to the Amerindian communities, so I had to find a way of expressing the communities’ traditions without making an issue out of them. That's why I found the mouths especially important referring to the oral tradition, which is of enormous importance in Amerindian communities. In ritual celebrations names and historical events from centuries ago - until back to the time before the "Conquista", the Spanish colonisation - are recited and passed on."

Franziska Müller, representative of Christlicher Friedensdienst (Christian Peace Service), an organisation working on feminist approaches to peace policies
"I work with empowerment projects on the Gaza Strip, among them a video project in which women have the opportunity to present their environment on their own. For us this is part of the feminist peace policy, because during conflicts women's range of roles and as well their ability of representation change. What do these women document in their films? E.g. on the subject of security: they filmed open sewage canals, and security is definitely connected to peace. Moreover, we want to support films, which present images of women different from those in the mass media. It is very difficult to get financial support for these films. A reason for this is that in situations of conflicts we are used to see women only from one perspective. An example: Women do no longer appear as active, thinking, or mourning persons, but are exploited as symbols.

Then, we also try to organise film events such as this film festival, not as big and good as TERRE DES FEMMES. About this film festival I find particularly interesting that the participants share some common aims, but at the same time represent a huge variety of different perspectives. That's also a policy of peace, as war to me means simplification and unification of opinion."

Shira on the question about stereotypes of women in the mass media:
„I want to initiate as well a film festival like this one in Israel. These stereotypes are to be confronted, and this leads as well to the discussion in my film. My intention to impact with my film has to do with the representation of the conflict. Everyone was tired of seeing the same pictures again about the conflict. So I wanted to make a film, which had humour, could make people laugh, and which would kind of being assimilated through the body, which would be perceived on the level of emotions. I resisted to integrate in my film media reports about the conflict, although everybody told me that I had to do it. Because these show women that are beaten, that are victims, that are mourning, but I wanted to show the strength of these women.“

Question: “What was the implication of taking the conflict out of the conflict zone?”

Shira:
"That was a fascinating question, as well for me: how would the relationship of the women function - out of the conflict zone? But to my astonishment I left a country where flags and maps are a central issue, to get into a situation, which was full of flags and maps. But I found, that the conflict is so big, that it enters your body, your blood. It is so awful the implication of war: it’s never finished with the war, it takes generations and generations to overcome it. So obviously it is more easy to destroy than to build. And women communicate on an emotional level, emotions are very central in their lives and they are allowed to, men are not allowed to. So I fight for the emotional part being acknowledged as the most important part.”

Ulrike:
"For 15 years I've been working for television, so I'm not doing classical documentaries. But I stand by this, producing films for the masses. And I had long-ranging contacts with the program editors who were supporting my aims. They offered me a vote of confidence, to be able to start to make a film without the main character, that still had to be found in Italy. Today this kind of vote of confidence is not usual any more. In general we have to make us the idea, that classical documentaries are getting less and less space for transmission, as well the TV-documentaries of 30 and 60 minutes. There is less money and less transmission spaces available. My film was transmitted in summer, when the famous Kerner-Show has vacations. So I am enormously grateful to him for his vacations.

But, it is not true, that nobody is interested in the issue of women trafficking any more. There is much interest in the issue, for films about it, and my film was shown as well on 3sat and on ARTE, with good results of numbers of spectators. But, we have to decide for ourselves, how we want to make a film, as often the mass media are representing the issue in a voyeuristic way. But it is true, that I don’t have a feed-back by spectators through TV."

Anwar:
„When we want to provoke a certain reaction by the public, it depends on the theme and the design we elaborate for the theme, what reactions we get. I try to design my film and the theme in a way, that the spectators receive images, develop imagination and awareness. In the classical TV or news documentaries people talk, talk, talk. So do you have a concept for a different kind of documentary?”

Ulrike:
"That is exactly what we did not do: show talking heads; but we told the story of a woman with parts in the style of a report, about what is being done, what are the difficulties, who are the victimizers. I only can reaffirm what Anwar says: that a good film is going from the womb through the heart to the head.
And there I don’t see any big difference between documentary and fiction or classical documentary and TV-documentary: a film, to be efficient, has to tell a good story, in a good technical and emotional manner. They should be films and not head articles of a newspaper."

Elke:
„Yet, with TV it is difficult, to get reactions from the public, the films are being SENT. I have another background for this. I startde in 1972 to brake the limitations imposed by TV on the making of documentaries. I wanted to reach with my documentaries spectarors that exist besides the TV public, I wanted to go beyond TV. So I started early to reflect: TV is good, but as well the feed-back is important, to get to know, what people think about these issues. The result of this rowing against the river are then these kind of festivals, which have an inflation these days. Not, that I want to critisize them – I think, that these small, intimate festivals are marvelous: as well with the events around: expositions, discussions, that functions well."

Beate:
„Now I had a totally different surrounding: I have made films in Nicaragua and Guatemala, and I have shown them to the ones with whom and about whom I had made the films. Also in the villages, because this had been the aim, also later it was shown here also. My observation was, that these media have such a strength, to show the people their own lives, what they normally only register unconsciously, or where they don’t have the words to communicate among themselves. Then suddenly they come to see it in a compact and esthetically atractive form, and this provokes different processes. And I think, that it is not the same if we are sitting alone in front of the TV or the screen, or on groups. I think that the collective screening is important."

Ulrike:
„Sure that for me feed-back matters as well, although I work within the mass media. But I was many times invited by women’s groups to show my films, and that was important. But as well it matters to me, not to give up on the mass media, not to retreat and only work for festivals. I do mind the three transmissions for two and a half million spectators who have seen my film on TV".

Elke:
„I think that this should not be polarised to one OR the other alternative.“

Beate:
„I don’t want to question that, but I come from a different background, where people don’t have any TV.“

Anwar:
„In India the government says that 97% of the population has access to TV, but the minister of energy says that only 50% of the population has access to electricity. So we have a difficult situation here. My experience of 15 years of making documentaries, especially about women in the countryside, with local bodies who organize screenings in the evenings tell about another difficulty: 70% of women live in the countryside, they work 14 hours a day, and in the evenings they have to work or they are terribly tired. So, there are realities of the 1. world, the 2., 3. and even 4. worlds – therefore the decentralization of power is enormously important. So, I may come from Dehli to the countryside to make a film, but at least as important is, that in India there are many organizations of women that give digital cameras and training to women, so they can represent themselves in their situation.”

Shira:
“One problem is the consciousness. Here everybody agrees that TERRE DES FEMMES is important. But many of my friends don´t think that there is even an issue."

Elke:
“But this was not so 20 years ago!“

Shira:
„I am doing what I can for this: I organize house-meetings with friends and professionals to raise the level of consciousness. But the consciousness should not only be raised on a grassroot level, that would take 200 – 300 years. I stress that women should go into politics, they need to be where the decisions are made, where the cookie is cut, and second: voting for a woman is important; and if we are 50% of the population and we choose women who care for women’s issues and priorities, we change the world - fast. I want to organize a festival, but first I have to create an audience. My friends ask: why do you need a festival especially dedicated to women?”

The discussion is now opened to the public...

Audience:
„I have taught at the University of Freiburg Literature and Film, and I have come to Tübingen especially for this filmfest. Because the films being shown here, are extremely important. And for this discussion I want to remind, that a fact, for example that we are sitting here, has to have a media, a media like film or literature, to be transported, if not, it ceases to exist. So facts are transformed into fiction, and in this sense a documentary is for me as well fiction, as it does not represent reality as it is. The films we see at this festival present another factional-fictional perspective. That is important, I as a professor always wanted to show especially alternative perspectives.“

Franziska:
„As a reaction to some things said here before: Shira thinks, that it is not sufficient to work on a grass-root level. But, we have to add, that it is not enough either to trust in „Realpolitik“: the access of women to ressources, income, money, participation, power, that is only one part. We always try in the Christian Peace Service to analyze the level of the dominating discourses. And those discourses play an important role in the production and legitimation of exclusion. One example from our work in the migration project: often we get telephone calls: „Hallo, could you send us such a poor, uneducated, illiterate woman, we want to organize a solidarity event with her“- this is exclusion through the production of images. And with respect to this, fiction films have an important function, because they talk on a level of „what could be“. We can work with humour, with fairy tales, with stories, that is very efficient.

With respect to the question of security, the definition of security: that is an example for a dominant discourse. What for instance means in Kosovo the presence of the United Nations? Does that mean more security for women, or just more instrumentalization? Or in Anwar“s film: what means development for women: the road, or the water? It is not the road, it is the water.“

Anwar:
„The film begins with what has to be first: the road? Because the women have to fetch the water, the priority is first the water. The film was shown all over India, and when the women saw it, they said: “when you build a road between the village and the city, usually they come from the city to take our resources, cutting the forest, building dams in the name of democracy. So – their priority was water.”

Participante from the audience:
“In Anwars film I liked very much this confrontation of the road and male thinking and water which is life-supporting.“

Anwar:
„The confrontation of city and countryside is a challenge, and in terms of the images I don´t have a final answer. While filming “The Little Republic” there were moving moments: the women from the village criticized harshly, that the actresses from the city were wearing jewelry or make-up that did not comply with tradition. But, when the actresses had to bathe, as they were full of mud, they all fetched water so the actresses could bathe, and when one of the actresses was weeping during the filming, there were 30 of these women from the village weeping with her. These were for example such important images for me.”

Shira:
“This issue of weakness and strength is important. In my film, only when both women (who have the burden of representing a state) become “strong” enough to reveal their weakness, then you have transformation: better communication Between each woman and herself, better communication amongst the two of them as team, and better communication with the external rally reality. Notice that transformation occurs on three levels: - personal, interpersonal and local.”

Elke:
„Shiras taking side for emotions should not be misunderstood as something absolute – emotions and reason should make a good combination. Just we as Germans remember, how emotions can be maniputlated. So there has to be a connection between analysis and emotions.“

Ulrikes beautiful image was left floating at the end of the discussion which will be continued by others means: a good film should go from the womb, place of our most instictive emotions, through the heart, site of our more concious feelings, to the head, to our concious reasoning.

You can obtain further information about the Film Festival
by e-mail: filmfest@frauenrechte.de