CinéFemme - Annakarinaland

Its time again for a new Créteil report! Here's the 2007 edition direct from Paris! The 29th Créteil Films de Femmes , International Women's Film Festival (March 23 through April 1), threw its spotlight on films directed by women from Great Britain, featuring, for example, a retrospective of the work of Sally Potter . Among the highlights were Yes , with Joan Allen and Sam Neill , and the brilliant and luscious Orlando , starring Tilda Swinton based on the novel by Virginia Woolf . The charismatic Scottish filmmaker's Mary Miles Thomas 's One Life Stand , a remake of Pasolini 's Mama Roma , tells the story of a single mother who works as a tarot card reader over the telephone and struggles to raise her 18-year-old son, John Paul, who is employed by an escort service for women. The outstanding digital feature has already won several awards at various festivals. The first feature from festival veteran Pratibha Parmar , Nina's Heavenly Delights , was ...

The work of Swedish lesbian vocalist Eva Dahlgren , part of an ensemble album produced by the Norwegian company Valley Entertainment entitled Lullabies from the Axis of Evil, has been blacklisted by the Bush administration. Women from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Palestine, North Korea, Cuba and Afghanistan sing duets with Western artists such as Nina Hagen, Rickie Lee Jones and the über- Swede Eva Dahlgren . The Norwegian producer Erik Hillestad was inspired to get to know the people from the "axis of evil", an expression he feels was used irresponsibly by Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address. Getting Western artists to lend their voice to the album was difficult since many of them were cautious to be involved with a project that was this politically charged. Dahlgren was not among them. For years Dahlgren has had a dedicated following, an esteemed soulful singer who writes her own lyrics with over 500,000 albums sales and fiver Swedish Grammies. She married the artist ...

Helen Mirren's triumphant Oscar win once again deferred kudos to The Queen, that is Queen Elizabeth of England. The film certainly brings out the royalist in almost everyone watching it, and certainly has brought it out in the 62 year old Mirren , whose Oscar win does not maker her anything close to a late bloomer. Watch her as a 22 year old in A Midsummer Nights Dream (1968) . The question is if Queen Elizabeth gives a hoot about any of this. She most definitely enjoyed a good night's sleep in her castle on Oscar night, telecast 1.30 in the morning GMT. Although since the Oscars, there may be the possibility for Mirren and Elizabeth to meet. The Queen has not seen the movie and probably will not. Anyone who has lived in Europe knows that the royals are drab, seldom make changes to their hairstyles, sport drab matronly clothing, and make drab official statements. Queen Silvia of Sweden is one example, and husband King Carl Gustav, moreso. His political speeches could be li...

I heard the 2007 Grammy Song of the Year live by The Dixie Chicks on one of my first nights back in San Francisco on November 17, 2006. In a half filled auditorium with my very special friends Steve and Monica, I relished the band that they spoke so passionately about. On May 28th this year, The Dixie Chicks were on the covers of several magazines including Time Magazine . The Time piece was about how a frivolous comment about our High Commander in a concert in London 2003, the eve of the controversial military intervention of the US military in Iraq, lead to a ridiculous malplaced ostracization of the women by some of their fans and even death threats. Let the cowards and hypocrites listen to what their music has to say. The Dixie Chicks outspokenness and right to define themselves as artists has been a courageous inspiration to women everywhere who are told to shut up and be quiet, and are ridiculed and threatened with loss of revenue and work. The witch hunt is documented...

..."It’s a time, where – see “Whale Rider” or “Rosenstrasse” - in many countries films made by women seem not to be anything special anymore and women film festivals therefore obsolete. We know, they are not and patriarchy still exists and shows it’s ugly teeth. I don’t think it is necessary to debate this. But I thought it was very interesting what Moira Sullivan told yesterday about the difficulties of women politics in a culture – Sweden - where gender equality has been officially declared as achieved. We know, that it is a difference that women’s films make als o if not every film made by a woman makes a difference. And we need women’s film festivals more than ever if just for the reason that so many think of them as obsolete. But there is a more general aspect to the example of Sweden . I think one of the major inner problems women film festivals had to face in the nineties is the dissolving of feminist identity politics in gender and q...

The Dixie Chicks are the subject of an excellent well-crafted new documentary by Barbara Kopple. Shut Up and Sing. The title comes from one of the country group’s ex fans who would feel perfectly content if everything that is disturbing to her was censored and muzzled. Why are artists assumed to be exempt from having opinions about political causes and world matters? Why are they just supposed to entertain? This contempt for the artist as the public's stooge recalls some of the films of Ingmar Bergman about the theme of the artist as outsider such as the most vivid example The Magician ( 1958, Sweden) . The Dixie Chicks gained infamous popularity after a statement made at a concert in London in 2003 that they were ashamed that George Bush Jr comes from Texas. The comment was picked up by the Guardian in London and syndicated making its way back to the USA. A personal opinion about the governor from the state of Texas, who many still refer our controversial often foot in mouth hig...

This is not a film review, no siree bob, its about a theater production written by Marga Gomez . But she has starred in several indie films including, THE D WORD, a spoof on THE L WORD, and so the work of this multi -talented artist is here for you all to appreciate. Marga Gomez is a household word in San Francisco, and she is back in town, her "creative home" as she puts it. (And MY "mythical home", proclaims CinéFemme! ). I managed to catch this über talented performer in Stockholm years ago in a museum built to house the enormous shipwrecked Vasa , which sunk on its maiden voyage in the 16 th century. It escapes me what Gomez was up to in Stockholm that year, but the spunk and fire that fuels her performance about oh , 20 years later was in crystalline form. She has only gotten better and better and better, every time I see her. Just know that in an oppressive political period there are a lot of tight asses. I guess you can say this is the theme of thi...