Friday, April 27, 2012

Women filmmaker

 I Was Worth 50 Sheep

See this film beginning September 2, 2012 on Global Voices


Official Selection
1- 30-09-2011 IDFA 2010
2- Göteborg Filmfestival 2011, Winner of the Best swidish Documentary
3- Tessaloniki Filmfestival 2011
4- One world film Festival 2011(Human rights Filmfestival) Czeck republic. Audiences Best Film
5- 13. Ljubljana Doc Film Festival 2011, Slovania The winner of amnesty International filmfestival i Slovania
 6-LIDF, London International documentary filmfestival 2011 Best Film, Special mentioned
7- HUMAN RIGHTS ARTS & FILM FESTIVAL
8-One Country One Film Apchat International Film Festival www.onecountryonefilm.com
9-Sole Luna Festival, Sixth Edition (Palermo, 04-10 July 2011). Italy
10--Golden Apricote, Armenia,2011
11- Tri Continental Film Festival (TCFF),2011, South Africa
12- 2011 Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA).
13-Iranian Filmfestival, San Fransisco, USA, 2011
14-"Bir Duino" human rights documentary film festival in Kyrgyzstan (27 September - 2 October, 2011).
15- Asian Pacific Award, 2011, Australia
16- International Documentary Film Festival of Mexico City: DOCSDF(29 sep 2011-9 oct 2011)
17- 54th INTERNATIONAL LEIPZIG FESTIVAL FOR DOCUMENTARY AND ANIMATED FILM DOK LEIPZIG 17-23 october 2011
18- Inconvenient Films , Lithuanian Centre For Human Rights Film festival
19_ Film Southasia 2011, Nepal, 29 september- 2 october
20- Freedom to Create Art and Filmfestival , 14-19November 2011, Cape town Singapore (Maryam Ebrahimi)
Awards
1- 30-09-2011 -The Best Swedish Documentary in Göteborg international filmfestival
2- 2011-05-10The winner of the Amnesty international Filmfestival , Ljubljana Doc film festfestival 2011, Slovania
3-Chosen by the audience for the initiative called „Get Your Audience!“ In One world Filmfestival, 2011 Czech Republic.
4-Best film special mentioned , LIDF 2011
5-Best feature of "Through the land" section, Sole Luna 2011
6-Awarded for Best Submission of the 2011 Human Rights Arts and Film Festival, Melbourn.
7-Nominated for Asian Pacific Award, Australia, November 2011
8- Public award, Apchat International Film Festival /France (One Country One Film ) (Maryam Ebrahimi)

Synopsis
Sabere, now 16, was only 7 years old when her father died in war. Her cousin inherited her, and following a long-practiced tradition in Afghanistan, he sold her when she was 10 years old to Golmohammad, a man in his 50s and a member of the Taliban. During the next six years she was both a slave and wife of Golmohammad. She became pregnant four times, miscarrying each time. The cause may have been her youth, or the abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband. While they were on a trip to Mazar-e sharif, Sabere managed to escape and after much effort, she made her way to a women's shelter.
Meanwhile, Sabere's mother needed to remarry quickly to avoid bringing shame on the family with her widowhood. According to tradition, ownership and betrothal of a widow transfers to the deceased's cousin. So Sabere's mother marries the cousin, and gives birth to a daughter named Farzane (Sabere's half-sister). The family struggles to make ends meet, so when Farzane is 10 years old, her father sells her to a man in western Afghanistan. Her price: 50 sheep and a piece of dry-farming land. As a kind of installment plan, the buyer pays Farzane's father 10 sheep per year, and will take possession of her when she is 15 and the full amount has been paid.
After six months of searching, the women's shelter tracks down Sabere's mother and her stepfather and invites them to the shelter for a meeting. When they discover the deal to sell Farzane, the shelter's managers realize they not only need to help Sabere but Farzane as well.
Sabere has applied for a divorce with the shelter's assistance, but she knows that her husband will find her and kill her — as he had his two previous wives — if she is not protected well. Golmohammad, who is over sixty, refuses to attend the domestic court proceedings because he refuses to accept the divorce, but also because he is wanted by the police on a charge of kidnapping. The court cannot force him to appear, because he lives in a part of the country controlled by the Taliban. So Sabere, with help from the shelter and police, embarks on a ruse to lure Golmohammad to Mazar-e sharif so he can be arrested.
I Was Worth 50 Sheep is the tale of these two sisters and their struggle for human dignity and freedom in a war-torn country caught between ancient traditions and a modern world.
By webside: I Was Worth 50 Sheep - ITVS

No Burqas Behind Bars



 Synopsis

A film that takes viewers inside one of the world's most restricted environments: Afghan women's prison. We explore how "moral crimes" are used to control women in Afghanistan. Social-issue docu "I Was Worth 50 Sheep" uses one family's story to draw attention to the plight of young girls sold as brides by their impoverished relatives in return for livestock or land, a traditional Afghan tribal practice. Eschewing contextual information on this culturally entrenched custom or statistics about how widespread it is, Swedish helmer Nima Sarvestani lets his subjects speak for themselves as he follows them over the course of a year. Supported by a consortium of broadcasters including ITVS Intl., pic nabbed the Swedish docu award in Gothenburg and will air on some American public television stations.
In the city of Mazar-e Sharif, lively, illiterate, 16-year-old Sabere relates how, after the death of her father, her cousins let an elderly Talib buy her. The man, a wanted criminal, was reputed to have killed his previous wives, and abused Sabere badly before she eventually managed to flee to a women's shelter.
Through the shelter, Sabere reunites with her mother and grandmother; her stepfather, Abdol Khalegh; and her 10-year-old half-sister, Farzaneh. In spite of Abdol Khalegh's professed willingness to help Sabere obtain a divorce, he has already accepted a down payment for Farzaneh's bride price. Although Abdol Khalegh claims to have arranged to keep Farzeneh at home until she turns 16, the purchasing clan is pushing to have her immediately, and he seems likely to cave in to their demands. A dutiful daughter, Farzaneh (who has never been to school) says she accepts her fate because of tradition.
Filmed primarily in cramped indoor spaces in an earnest, artless style, the pic benefits from the contrast provided when the camera follows Abdol Khalegh onto the crowded streets where even less fortunate burqa-covered women look like bundles of cloth, begging in the dust next to their crippled offspring. Testimony from the social workers at the shelter provides perspective on the difficulties and dangers faced by educated Afghan working women.
Best part of the merely serviceable tech package is the lightly used traditional music score by Mehrdad Hoveida. Pic is also available in 52-minute and 58-minute versions for broadcast.
Helmer is the brother of better-known documentarian Nahid Persson Sarvestani "("The Queen and I").
By Alissa Simon on Veriety.com
Variety Reviews Posted: Fri., Feb. 11, 2011, 10:17pm PT

m.screendaily.com/5035054.article


Maryam Ebrahimi, Filmmaker/Producer




Maryam Ebrahimi, Iranian-born Swedish filmmaker. Maryam Ebrahimi was born in Tehran 1976. She lives and works in Sweden. She studied art and art theory at a university in Tehran. She is studying Art in the Public Realm in Sweden. She has produced a number of videos with political and social themes, especially focusing on the Middle East and women's issues. I Was Worth 50 Sheep is her first documentary production.

As a filmmaker, Maryam Ebrahimiis incredibly important, because she is an influence to other women film-makers, and presents life and issues of women in the eastern Muslim society, to the westerns, and the rest of world, not as the world of "others", but from the perspective of humanity. As a woman from the middle east, she was able to tell her story from inside, and by living and growing in Europe, opportunity provided her an advantage to raise her voice and present her story internationally. A Muslim woman is a live of taboo, and we know scantly about it, that’s what makes her documentary volubility rise. Because of this, critics and viewers alike, appreciate her work, accept these movies, and are delighted to nominate it.
Just as we discussed in class, women in films have a horrific situation in modern cinema. As Debra Zimmerman states in "A major problem, even today, is convincing men that films by and about women are important, At the screening of Trinh T.Minh-ha’s Surname Viet given name nam (1989), a man in the audience asked the filmmaker, ‘There are so many things to make a film about, why did you make a film about women?’ The question didn’t surprise Zimmerman. ‘That to me is exactly what goes through men’s minds’ She said. People who have seen this film don’t get it. They don’t understand- why is she focusing on women? Why is she focusing on the look on woman’s face? That is incredibly feminist to look at all the small things, all the parts that make up the whole. I know there are lots of men who are not going to like this film. When we go around trying to get people to show it, I guarantee you that eighty percent of people we are going to be talking to are men, not women, and they’re the ones that are the gatekeepers, they’re the ones who decides whether the film (shows for) two nights or three nights a week'" (Woman Make Movies, Page 265).

Works cited




























Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)