Anyone who knows me, or my writing, is familiar with how proud I am of my mom. Well, it’s hard to remember a moment when I have ever been more proud than last weekend when I attended the 20th anniversary of the Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival—a shindig she started from scratch along with lady friends that is now the longest running film festival in the world.
First a word on its founding, because the story is just so damn cool. Basically my mom and her friend, Donna Guthrie, were headed home to culturally starving Colorado Springs from the Telluride Film Festival one year and said, “Hey, wouldn’t it be awesome if we could bring films made by women, films that showed varied perspective and dealt with all kinds of social justice issues to Colorado Springs?� And then the other was like, “Hey, that would be cool. Let’s do it.� (Or something like that. I’m taking artistic daughter liberty, obviously.) Keep in mind that neither of these women knew a lick about film, film production, festival coordination, or the industry. They were skilled in all kinds of amazing ways—Donna is an award winning author and my mom is a badass clinical psychiatric social worker—but none directly related to film or festivals.
And they just did it.
They followed their guts, and drew on their community, and believed that it was possible to create social change out of pure intentions and hard frickin’ work. Twenty years later, so many lives have been changed by this festival in innumerable ways. Teenagers have admitted to being sexually abused because of films shown at the festival. People have gotten out of abusive relationships or unsatisfying marriages because of films shown at the festival. People have become galvanized to change the way they spend money, the way they treat others, even the way they see themselves. All because my mom and a few friends trusted their gut and believed in their own power.
Okay, done gushing. Now to the films at this year’s festival:
Friday night led off with an absolute baller—out the eyes that is—called Hear and Now. In it, filmmaker Taylor Brodsky documents how her 65-year-old parents, both deaf since birth, decide to get cochlear implants. The journey is so raw and so painful and so overwhelming beautiful, especially because the parents are probably two of the cutest human beings on the planet earth. They ooze humanity and it makes it all the more moving and heartbreaking.
The other movie I saw that is just sticking with me like glue is called The Cats of Mirikitani and it is about a Japanese homeless painter that the filmmaker befriends and eventually invites into her home on September 11th. What starts as a very slow, small film about a slow-developing friendship between a young woman filmmaker and a homeless artist becomes about Japanese internment camps, art, family, memory, and renewal. This film was one of those pieces of art that just sneaks right up on you. All the sudden the credits are rolling and your life is never the same.
Finally, I gotta shout out Beauty Mark, a film made by a couple of new friends of mine—Diane Israel and Carla Precht—because it so bravely deals with the complexities of body image, perfectionism, eating disorders, and family identity in this culture. The absolute thrills of this film are the ways it puts athleticism and dedicated to sports under a critical and compassionate lens (I never knew a spin class could look so maniacal), and secondly, how it delves into the influence of family history and emotional legacy on the way we interact with our own bodies. Really powerful stuff.
And a quick shout out to Brooklyn gal Cynthia Wade’s Freeheld about a veteran New Jersey police officer trying to give her pension benefits to her life partner before she dies of lung cancer. Another 20 Kleenex flick.
Oh and other must sees: Jessica Yu’s Protagonist (I missed it, but heard it was amazing and had an awesome time meeting her and watching her five-year-old daughter, who is going through a cowgirl phase, run around in boots, vest, and hat the entire time), Allie Light and Irving Saraf’s The Sermons of Sister Jane (nuns so f-ing awesome sometimes), Linda Booker’s Love Lived On Death Row (bring 1,000 Kleenex), and Mary Olive Smith’s A Walk to Beautiful (another one I missed but heard was AMAZING, about fistula sufferers in Ethiopia.)
To check out lots of other awesome films, go to the Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival website. There’s just too much to cover.
Next week: Ms. Magazine’s 35th anniversary issue.
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I really like when you write about films so I know what to look out for! I like to closely skim all the special films and film festival screenings that are playing here (Chicago). I tried to see that film 4 months...about Romania when it was at our international film festival last month, but both screenings sold out before the festival opened! I think it is going to be widely released in the new year.
Thanks for your overview and, indeed, your mom sounds fabulous!
Courtney, glad you could make it to the RMWFF--you should be proud of your mom and Donna (two very cool ladies!). The festival they started is just one of the many, many fantastic cultural happenings that are taking place here in Colorado Springs. I know you grew up here, but things are changing here in a pretty major way (you were inside the new Fine Arts Center!), so it breaks my heart to see you describe this beautiful city as culturally starving. We're movin' on up.
Courtney, glad you could make it to the RMWFF--you should be proud of your mom and Donna (two very cool ladies!). The festival they started is just one of the many, many fantastic cultural happenings that are taking place here in Colorado Springs. I know you grew up here, but things are changing here in a pretty major way (you were inside the new Fine Arts Center!), so it breaks my heart to see you describe this beautiful city as culturally starving. We're movin' on up.
There are far too few women behind the camera, keep getting the word out. Thanks for this post.