Seattle, Film Festival
Friday, December 12/107pm, 911 Media Arts Center
THE MAN WHO STOLE MY MOTHER'S FACE
Director: Cathy Henkel
Documentary. 2003. Australia. 58 mins. English
SEATTLE PREMIERE
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Two days before Christmas in 1988, Cathy Henkel's 59 years old mother was sexually assaulted and brutally bashed in her home in Johannesburg, South Africa by a local white teenager. Although Laura identified her aggressor from a school photograph, he was never charged. For fourteen years, unable to recover, Laura retreated from her family and rejected contact with the outside world. In an attempt to help her mother heal, filmmaker Cathy Henkel took matters into her own hands, returned to Johannesburg and confronted her mother's attacker. What begins as a powerful exploration about the unsolved case of Laura Henkel's rape becomes a gripping revelation about the healing process. Winner for Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, this film is an intimate look at violence toward women and a moving account of a family's quest for the truth.
Filmmakers/Distributors Contact Information:
Women Make Movies
464 Broadway, 5th Floor, new York, NY, 10013
Marta Sanchez
Tel 212.925.0606 x320
ms@wmm.com
www.wmm.com
9pm, 911 Media Arts Center
Director: Sabiha Sumar
Documentary. 2003. Pakistan/France. 53 mins. English and Urdu, subtitled
SEATTLE PREMIERE
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Beginning with the creation of Pakistan in 1947, Sabiha Sumar traces the relationship of Islam to the state in an effort to understand how women are coping with and surviving the increasing religiosity of civil and political life in her country. Raised in a more secular time, she struggles to comprehend how religious schools have expanded at once unthinkable rates and presents chilling footage of a mother encouraging her toddler to be a martyr when he grows up. Mixing political analysis with interviews with activist colleagues, noted Islamic scholars and Pakistani women who have chosen to embrace fundamentalism, Sumar's provocative questions dramatically capture the tension between liberal and fundamentalist forces that are shaping life in contemporary Pakistan.
Filmmakers/Distributors Contact Information:
Women Make Movies
464 Broadway, 5th Floor, new York, NY, 10013
Marta Sanchez
Tel 212.925.0606 x320
ms@wmm.com
www.wmm.com
Director: Shilpi Gupta
Documentary. 2003. USA. 24 min. English and Kashmiri, subtitled
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The women of Kunnan Pushpora, in the foothills of the Himalayas, live in a militarized valley. Their lives seem relatively simple, yet the women cannot forget the horror of one night in 1991. WHEN THE STORM CAME brings to light a long-buried story of mass rape committed by India's security forces. Rape is used as a weapon of war with appalling frequency, but victims are all too commonly treated as mere numbers. Director Shilpi Gupta thoughtfully interviews and films the men and women of the village, illuminating their faces and emotions, rather than relegating their scars to abstract figures. Co-winner of the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.
Filmmakers/Distributors Contact Information:
Shilpi
shilpi@kashmirfilm.com