Season of Films by Woman Directors

This year saw the first groundbreaking UK Women’s film festival The Birds Eye View Film Festival. Inspired by this the Electric Palace is holding a season of films, discussion and exhibition by Women Directors, and we are proud to launch this season with an evening of rich and varied short films from the Birds Eye View Festival, from the wonderfully comic, to the dark and disturbing.

In the UK only 7% of directors are women and this season celebrates women's vision in film and in doing so inspires innovation and creativity, challenges perceptions of cinema, and entertains audiences with the work of women filmmakers. The season includes 7 diverse feature films and work introduced by directors and writers including Billie Elringham, Kate Adams and Nichola Bruce. Link to Events

Events:

Season of Films by Woman Directors

Thur 15 Sept
8pm
Coastal Currents

Birds Eye View – Short Tour
A rich and varied programme, featuring the Academy Award® winning WASP the deserving winner of 28 international film awards, a poverty-stricken young mother is guilty of neglecting her children, but whose desperation and neediness make this a deeply involving, poignant short film. The programme also includes BAFTA nominated Nits, about a seven year old boy's struggle to fully understand and to deal with family tragedy and Tra La La, an innovative dance film from one of the UK's leading dance filmmakers.

BIRDS EYE VIEW TRAILER

THE BANKER Dir: Hattie Dalton UK 2004 12mins

CITY PARADISE Dir: Gaelle Denis UK 2004 6mins

NITS Dir: Harry Wootliff. UK 2004. 10mins.

LUREX Dir: Marinella Setti UK 2004 6mins

TRA LA LA - introduced by director Magali Charrier. UK, 2004. 4mins.

WASP Dir: Andrea Arnold UK 2003 23mins

Fri 16 Sept
8pm
Coastal Currents

I Could Read the Sky
Introduced by Director Nichola Bruce
Adapted by Nichola Bruce from the acclaimed photographic novel by Timothy O'Grady and Steve Pyke, I COULD READ THE SKY is a haunting and lyrical film about identity, love, loss, and the isolation and loneliness of the immigrant. Dermot Healy movingly portrays a man reflecting upon his life, from his rural upbringing in the West Coast of Ireland to his journey to London and experiences in the vividly modern metropolis. Driven by a dynamic soundtrack the film is a labyrinthine, visually extraordinary journey into the textures, fragments, details and layers of one man's life and memories.

Sat 17 Sept
8pm
Coastal Currents

Monster, 18
Patty Jenkins - 2003 - 109mins, USA
Monster burrows beneath the tabloid headlines to unearth the human story behind America’s first female serial killer, and amidst the horror, unearths an love story between two misfits. Wuornos, the victim of a tragic, abusive upbringing, is a drifter and hooker. Selby Wall is a young woman sent by her parents to live with an aunt in Florida to 'cure' her homosexuality. Unable to find a legitimate job, and desperate to sustain her relationship with Selby, Wuornos works as a hooker, when one of her johns turns violent, Wuornos shoots the man in self-defence, the first in her tragic string of killings. Monster, features a truly extraordinary Osar winning performance by Charlize Theron.

Sun 18 Sept
11 – 4pm & 8pm
Coastal Currents

Kate Adams
Kate Adams is a visual artist. Her work explores the edges of experience and extreme psychological states through installation, video and still frame ‘drawing’ composits. Determining the context in which the videos are shown is crucial to their impact and reading; spatial relationships between viewer and object, the material nature of the installation and the interplay between private and public consumption.

Kate will be showing an installation of work at her studio (11am to 4pm) followed by a presentation and discussion at Electric Palace in the evening.

11am – 4pm: Studio installation @ Arch 1, Braybrooke Terrace, Hastings 8pm – 9.30pm @ Electric Palace

Thur 22 Sept
8pm
Coastal Currents

In Your Hands , 15
Annette K Olesen - 2004 - 101 - Denmark - Subtitles
Annette K Olesen's powerful new film about personal and religious faith. Anna is a newly qualified and quietly hip thirty something theology graduate. She's married and desperate to have a baby. Her first posting is as a chaplain at a women's prison, there she encounters inmate Kate a reformed junkie with a reputation as a healer. Unprompted, Kate tells Anna she's pregnant. Anna is astonished to discover that Kate's right. Then it transpires that Anna's baby may be born with an rare chromosome defect. Anna's dilemma: should she place her faith in God and keep the child; submit to science and abort; or trust Kate’s healing powers.

Fri 23 Sept
8pm
Coastal Currents

This is Not a Love Song , 18
Bille Eltringham 2002 - 94mins UK
Introduced by Director Bille Eltringham
A lean, compelling thriller, "This is Not a Love Song" explores themes of friendship, loyalty and revenge through a story torn from today's headlines. Released from clink after a four-month stretch, Spike is picked up by his pal Heaton. Hitting the road in a stolen motor, they soon run out of juice, and seek help on a local farm, whose gun-toting tenant is less than hospitable. Tragedy strikes and they go on the run: trekking through woods, over desolate moor, tracked by Bellamy and a posse of vengeance-bent farmers. Refreshingly humane and ambiguous, criminal and country boy alike are treated as people, not stereotypes.

Sat 24 Sept
8pm
Coastal Currents

The Day I Became a Woman
Subtiltes
The Day I Became a Women continues the upsurge, following years of cultural control, of films to have come out of Iran. Marziyeh Meshkini's poignant and uninhibited feature weaves a tale of the second class status assumed by woman in Iran, three stories about woman at different stages of their lives and how they cope day to day. These stories present an engaging study of the position of women in Eastern societies, facing up to often harsh realities with not a little courage.

Sun 25 Sept 3pm Coastal Currents

Minor Mishaps , 15
Annette K Olesen - 2001 - 104 - Denmark
Annette K Olesen's entertaining comedy drama combines filmmaking elements from the Dogme manifesto with Mike Leigh's improvisational method. Following the unexpected death of matriarch Ulla, her family is reunited for her funeral. Assembling at the family's home are widower John, his brother Soren and John's three children, workaholic Tom, kooky would-be artist Eva, and the shy introverted Marianne. As their various eccentricities, hopes, frustrations and misunderstandings come to the surface, each find their lives taking an unexpected turn. Diffused with gentle wry humour 'Minor Mishaps' is marvellously acted, warm and engaging.

Sun 25 Sept
8pm
Coastal Currents

Morvern Callar
Lynne Ramsay
Introduced by co-screen writer Liana
On Christmas day in Oban, Scotland, supermarket worker Morvern Callar (Samantha Morton) discovers that her partner has committed suicide, leaving her a small amount of money and the completed manuscript of his novel. Despite her disorientation and grief, Morvern sees a way to get away from her past, spending the money on a holiday in Spain for herself and her friend Lanna and submitting the manuscript as her own novel. What starts as a simple, hedonistic escape turns into a more profound retreat into seclusion, silence and self-negotiation, as Morvern, like her boyfriend before her, disappears to another country and refuses to go back.