Imagery from new honest perspectives.

       Women and minorities in the media industry have much to offer in new perspectives and edgier fresh points of view that break from Hollywood’s formulaic stories lines, subjects and characters. You can see in the film career of Catherine Saalfield she relies heavily on public funding and grants to produce films that offer new perspectives that lie outside these social norms. She illustrates that changing the perspective interests of general audiences and the openness of experiment alternative film for women and minorities can prove very difficult. Producing these films rely heavily on voluntary work and a limited amount of funding. As she says, “It hurts to see a production that would be great on film be shot on video because the funding isn't available.'' Fortunately she is able to help produce the difficult task of films about important minority issues because “Often, you have to work for nothing, especially if you're doing something about AIDS or about being lesbian."(Redding & Brownworth, 68)

       When funding is already low government cuts mean drastic changes for film companies that support women. When Studio D, a division of the National Film board of Canada was shut down it in 1996 due to changes in government funding NFB was affected as a whole. Even though their funding was minimal, to say the least, they were able to push forward and produce 125 films before it’s closing.

Studio D

“Studio D was an important landmark in the history of women’s film making in Canada. It offered film making opportunities previously unheard of for women, provided crucial training for first-time women filmmakers, and used films as social tools to develop important relationships with audiences and generate dialogue about key social issues, thus empowering women and encouraging change. The Studio also bravely examined risky and previously taboo issues, such as lesbian relationships, sexual abuse, pornography and abortion”(tiff.net)

Zimmerman describes how film makers often have to pursue the prestige and exposure needed to fund these projects and sometimes at the expense of their original vision. Keeping with their vision is difficult because “many experimental and cutting-edge filmmakers are dismissed by the film critics who don’t seem to understand what the filmmakers are trying to do…..When they go through all the struggle to make films that really represent their vision, they are not received by the general public.” She also states that lesbian audiences don’t typically receive lesbian film especially the experimental kind. As Zimmerman discovers the audience reactions, “We want the old formula with girls in it. And we want sex, we want love. “(Zimmerman,263)

These days productions and distribution of film are increasingly accessible for rising minority run film companies. Coupling the internet with less expensive film equipment are allowing these creators to make distributable dynamic new stories with visually striking cinematography. These advantages have given life to organizations like the The African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement Ava DuVernay is the founder of.

Ava DuVernay



“The African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement, a new theatrical distribution entity that releases quality independent African-American films through simultaneous screenings in select cities.”(clutchmagazineonline.com)

"Movies do not merely offer us the opportunity to re-imagine the culture we most intimately know on the screen, they make culture."(hooks,9).  This statement in incredibly true especially when you consider the power to make or break stereotypes and offer other perspectives that don’t originate from the same establishment stereotypes of women and minorities.

"Changing how we see images is clearly one way to change the world"(hooks, 6)

     Haifaa al-Mansour understood this and began to make films about women. She realized the importance of making movies about women by women. "Women realized that they were in double jeopardy -- of having Westerners speak for them, and men speak for them ... so they got behind the cameras," says Mona Eltahawy, a New York-based Egyptian commentator and lecturer on Arab and Muslim issues.(alternet.org)

 Haifaa al-Mansour

“Saudi Arabia’s first female film director in a country where cinemas are illegal”(lovehabibi.com)

Breaking from societal norms she has received hate male, offensive texts and even death threats for what many considered criticizing Islam. Her film Women without shadows  talks about the strict rules in Saudi Arabia about how women should dress.

     The importance illustrated here is the need for supporting women and minorities who don’t have a voice in the ever changing and growing media world. These stories need to be created and produced by the people they are about, not only to offer new imagery outside of stereotypical images of main stream media but to offer honest and accurate perspectives of and by minorities and women.

Women empowered film organizations.

http://www.wif.org/
http://www.birds-eye-view.co.uk/
http://www.frejafilm.dk/html/body_about_freja_film.html
http://www.powerupfilms.org/
http://wfcc.wordpress.com/
http://www.wiftichapters.org/

Bibliography

Agata Smoluch Del Sorbo. Studio D. Production Company National Film Board of Canada . Retrieved April 18, 2012, from http://tiff.net/CANADIANFILMENCYCLOPEDIA/Browse/bysubject/studio-d

Arielle Loren. 10 Black Women Making Moves In Film Retreived April 18, 2012. http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2011/08/10-black-women-making-moves-in-film/

Danna Harman. Middle Eastern Female Filmmakers Give Glimpse of Once-Veiled Worlds. Retrieved April 20, 2012, from http://www.blogger.com/goog_65585301http://www.alternet.org/movies/78653/?page=1

Anisa Benmoktar. Haifaa Al-Mansour: Saudi Arabia’s First Female Film Director. Retrieved April 18, 2012, from http://www.lovehabibi.com/blog/2010/03/30/haifaa-al-mansour-saudi-arabia%E2%80%99s-first-female-film-director/

Assigned readings:

Hooks, Bell. Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies. New York: Routledge, 1996. Print.

Humm, Maggie "Author/Autor: Feminist Literary Theory and Feminist Film." Print. Redith ,Juddith. Beyond the Directors Chair, Debra Zimmerman and Woman Make Movies,article