In a perfect world, says Canadian director Michka Saal, she wouldn't have to bother talking about women's films -- only about good films or bad films.
"And I want myself to be recognized as a director, not as a woman filmmaker," she says. But she knows that could be awhile in coming, so with little resignation she chats on about her feature film, The Snail Position which is screening at this year's Women Make Waves film and video festival in Taipei.
For Saal and many women filmmakers, this kind of festival is a stepping stone to being recognized as "a director" without a gender tag. It is a way for them to get attention by promoting female films and female film crews, showing that there really are few gender-based differences, that talent is what counts. For Saal, a flair for film earned her five awards at the 1989 Montreal Film Festival for her first short film Loin d'ou. Since then, she has released two fiction short films and two documentaries in the French-speaking market before taking on The Snail Position, her debut feature film.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Presented like lyrical prose full of jazz music, The Snail Position depicts a Tunisian-Canadian woman's journey to find peace within herself, with her father and with her love for two men. Although Saal is a Tunisian immigrant in Quebec, she says the film isn't autobiographical. Instead, it draws from imagination a scenario in which she wonders what would happen if she met her father, whom she has not seen in real life for 20 years.
True to her desire to not have to laden her films with gender-specific messages, Saal says feminism is only a subtlety of The Snail Position. Feminism, she believes, is "the way you live," therefore it seems redundant to add in banner-like messages.
This point rings true for another young Canadian director at this year's fest, Louise Archambault. "My personality is shown in my works. And I am a woman who wants all women ... to be strong," she says, but that doesn't mean feminist messages have to play a prominent role in her works.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Relationship barriers
At the WMW, Archambault presents her latest work, Atomic Sake. The short fiction won Best Fiction Short Film in last year's Montreal Film Festival and also won accolades in Italy. The film portrays the reactions of three women who discover some uncomfortable truths about one another after a few bottles of sake loosen their tongues during dinner.
One of the salient themes is clearly the higher degree of fragility in friendships among women. "We have big mouths sometimes, and we exchange more secrets within each other," says Archambault. "So if something shocking shows up, the relationship seems to break more easily." Nevertheless, the director prefers fact to fiction and doubts people who believe cruel truths will always destroy a relationship.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Tension and communication between women seems to be a common subject in women's filmmaking. Ladies Room, the premiere film of the festival, also focuses on this theme. In the film, two pairs of women -- enemies in career and in love -- find themselves trapped in a ladies room, a situation that naturally leads to confrontation as they are forced to wait for freedom.
It was also a good opportunity for women to interact with each other, to deal with problems, to make changes and find a new code of communication, says director Gabriella Christiani.
Before this debut feature film, Gabriela Christiani was known as an Oscar-winning editor for The Last Emperor. She has also directed three documentaries. Surviving in the men's world of the film industry is not a question for Christiani. "I know women have incredible sensitivity and they are faster, but in terms of difficulty in making films, I don't think there is much difference between men and women," she said.
What worries the three directors more is that the label of "women filmmakers" might prevent men from seeing their works. "I want my films to be seen by men," says Saal," because women understand what I am talking about, and men don't."
For details about venues and times for the remaining WMW films, call 2395-1965 or 2327-8751 or go to www.wmw.com.tw
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