Women’s lives on screen
A devastated African family dealing with the loss of its family members in arson in Paris. A 19-year-old aspiring doctor dealing with the troubles of her extended family and network of friends in the vibrant Yop city in Ivory Coast.
An Indian couple that have to learn English to be granted a visa to Canada, a deaf girl who is raped and impregnated, but that doesn’t kill her education ambitions, a not so rosy journey of a successful African female writer- all are just some of the themes explored in the five feature and short films shown at the Goethe Zentrum in Kamwokya last weekend during the International Images Film Festival for Women in Kampala.
A diverse four films, including a documentary explore the challenging lives of women, their interpretation of their troubles and how they encounter the situations.
In Dambe, a feature film, two Malian women are torn between wrath and hope in the European city of Paris. Others were, English Lesson, and Aya of Yop town.
The event was organised by the International Images Film Festival for Women (IIFFW), a Zimbabwean organisation. According to its director, Laura Ganda, the annual festival was screened in Uganda for the second time with the purpose of taking the pan African approach to grow the film industry in Africa.
“We explore different social issues by women especially in Africa where women are marginalised,” she says. No Ugandan film was entered into the festival this year and there is only one entry for next year’s festival,‘Spying on Susan,’ which if chosen, will be showcased in five African countries next year.
The screenings were accompanied by comments by award winning script writer and film director, Angela Emuron, writer and editor, Hilda Twogyeheirwe, Film director and script writing tutor at Makerere University, Sister Dominic Dipio.
Sister Dipio stressed the need for Ugandans with a passion for film to look out for several film festival calls and submit.
She also emphasised the issue of learning, by attending several workshops for film and script writing if the country’s film industry is to grow.
