Reykjavik Feminist Film Festival

SISTER Selection 1 – Veröld
6th May from 13:45

Short Fiction Film

Sunshine Acid - Gitti Grüter

Leni and Rea spend their holiday in the Serbian countryside. Leni tries hard to reach out for the attention of her friend Rea and convinces her to trip on LSD. Rea is opening up. The sun burns bright. But soon Leni will need to face her lack of prudence with fullest hardship.

Born in 1986 in Switzerland. Studied Philosophy and Film Studies in Lucerne and Zurich. 2013-2016 BA of Arts in Film directing at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Art (HSLU). Worked many years in gastronomy, as a builder on construction sites, as a gardener, as a cinema technician and in film industry. 2017-2018 Munich Screenplay Workshop run by the Munich University of Film and Television (HFF) in cooperation with Swiss Foundation for Professional Training in Film and Audiovision (FOCAL), under the mentorship of the fiction department at Swiss Radio and Television (SRF) and a scholarship from Telepool Zurich. Since 2019 studying Master’s degree in film directing at Filmuniversity Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF Potsdam, Germany.

Ladies Choice

While lamenting the end of a long-term relationship, Miriam confides in her mother, which leads to a tense argument about motherhood.
Celina is a film graduate from the Philippines, who went on to work on the production and marketing campaign of the award-winning historical film, HENERAL LUNA (2015). Her short film, LADIES’ CHOICE, was part of the Official Selection for SeaShorts Film Festival 2020, was featured in the Duduk & Tonton 2021 screening event under the Mini Film Festival (Malaysia), screened at the Kinosaurus Virtual Cinema (Indonesia) and part of the Objectifs Women in Film & Photography 2021 (Singapore). She is also a recipient of the Globe Studios Short Film Grant for KULAS, BERTO, AND THE MIRRORS, a short stop-motion film. As a Graphic Designer, she has designed posters for SUNDAY BEAUTY QUEEN, GASPING FOR AIR, and WOMEN OF THE WEEPING RIVER. She has also worked as Production Designer and Art Director for various films, music videos and advertisements.

Where are you running to?

On the set of a female-led documentary is a young soundwoman. The film deals with prostitution in Palestine society, and listening to the testimonies forces her to contend with her own past traumas.

Consumed

Grieving after an early miscarriage, Faye preserves the embryo in a jar of oil, and sleeps with it under her pillow. She shows her husband, expecting him to feel the same connection. Isolated when he questions her sanity instead, Faye must act to keep the embryo safe.

Armed with a postgrad degree in fine art photography, Karen began her career working as a fashion photographer. This quickly opened up opportunities in the music industry, first as a photographer and then as a music video director, working with high profile artists like Texas, Lamb, Jakarta, Seal and Garbage.

Consumed is Karen’s first narrative short film, and she continues to develop scripted work. During lockdown, Karen completed another passion project – a 30 minute documentary film, featuring the recently reformed Scottish band, Goodbye Mr Mackenzie.

It's OK to say NO - Aurora Nossen

16 year old Jane is surrounded by sexual pressure from social media, TV-shows and her “friends” from school. When it is discovered that she likes a boy from her class and he likes her back it is expected that they sleep together. Soon she ends up in a situation where she has to choose between social ruin and protecting her wishes, or so she thinks. A film about how the media can change todays view on sex and create a higher pressure on young boys and girls.
Aurora Nossen is educated as an actress from Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She is debuting as a director of two short films this year. Aurora also holds a bachelor degree in Architecture from The Oslo School of Architecture and Design and has worked as an actress for many years.

Short Experimental Film

The Swirl - Helka Heinonen

If nothing happens, why is it better not to tell about it?

The Swirl examines boundaries on the turning point of growing up.

At the end of the school year, a 12-year-old girl gets an exceptional gift from her teacher, a trip up north. They travel together. As an adult, she re-examines her experience. The work studies sensitively the complex experience and telling it as a story.

Helka Heinonen is versatile artist with strong creative view. At the moment she works with film, writing and media art. She is interested in the themes of growing up, facing controversal experiences, memory, human relationships and diversity.

She has studied both Arts and Education. She lives and works in Helsinki and Kemiönsaari.

Chrysalis - Eydís Eir

Vanesska is a 13 year old girl that just got diagnosed with a (dis) ability and is coming to terms with her new reality.

I studied writing and directing in the Icelandic film school and FAMU Film school in Prague and studied entrepreneurship working in entrepreneur projects in Berlin, Paris and Reykjavík.
When I was younger I founded a website and created web series about the art scene in Iceland, then co-hosted and produced TV music series Sleepless in Reykjavík aired on NOVA TV.
I’m a member and former Vice President of WIFT (Women in film and television in Iceland)
I wrote and directed the short film ISLANDIA that was nominated for EDDA awards, the Icelandic academy awards.

Goliath - Alana Gregory

Who is the dancer?
Who is the watcher?
Who dressed me?
Whose body is this?

Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls
https://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report-full.pdf

“…succeeding in sexiness isn’t real power.” Jill Filipovic https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/a55017/kim-kardashian-naked-selfie-empowerment/

A Scene from a White Wedding - Birna Ketilsdóttir Schram

A church without its altar. A white chalk cliff. A woman wearing a white wedding dress, smoking by the sea. A Scene by a White Wedding follows The Bride (29) on her wedding day and her journey to the church where she is about to give herself to her one and only.

Birna Ketilsdóttir Schram (1994) is an up and coming director from Iceland based in Copenhagen.

Since starting at the cinema department at Fatamorgana, The Danish School of Art Photography in Copenhagen, Birna has directed music videos, experimental short films and fashion films.
Birna graduated from Fatamorgana in 2021 with her short experimental film “A Scene From A White Wedding” which has been selected to Reykjavík Feminist Film Festival in 2022 and Lift-Off Global 2021.

The music video “Heartbeat” that Birna directed with photographer Eva Schram for Icelandic musician Matthildur was selected for the Northern Wave Film Festival in 2021. Birna’s work is highly visual, using the film medium as a tool to explore and draw out emotions in a poetic and sensual way.

 

Short Animation Film

Dawn - Nastenka Alava Calle

Deep in the Andes mountains lives a forest being, a brother watching over all the lives of the forest. One day, he encounters a human girl, he stalks her quietly, curious as humans are rare to venture so far into the mountain ranges.
Nastenka Alava Calle is an Ecuadorian-Canadian 2D animator and visual artist. She was awarded with an entrance scholarship to study 2D + Experimental Animation at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, where she completed her Bachelor of Media Arts. As a traditional fine artist, the introduction to animation during her first year in university became her newly discovered storytelling medium. Her current work depicts themes of inner beauty, physical and mental barriers with the interconnection of the natural world. Her film Dawn (2021) is a collision of fantasy, nature, and the bittersweet tragedy of the physical body in death, as it returns back to the Earth.

Better than Home - Marie Pauline Bagh

For women who experience domestic violence, a women’s refuge is often the only way out. This documentary short film is intended to give a small insight into this shelter and yet preserve its anonymity.

On The Surface - Fan Sissoko

4mn animation about a young Black woman who goes swimming in the Icelandic sea and reflects on her experience of raising a child in a country that feels nothing like home. As she enters the freezing water, she relives her traumatic pregnancy and postnatal depression. Soon her swimming eases. Being in the wild and facing her fears is helping her heal.
Fan Sissoko is a French-Malian artist and filmmaker based in Reykjavik, with a background in design for social change. Her work explores themes of migration, motherhood, otherhood and neurodiversity. Notable commissions include work for the Migration Museum, the Museum of London, the Science Gallery Dublin and the National Trust. Her animated short film ‘On the Surface’ was awarded a grant from Art With Impact, and screened at festivals around the world, including Clermont Ferrand ISFF (France), Encounters (UK), Ottawa International Animation Festival (CA), Margate Film Festival (UK), Rex Animation Festival (SWE). It won the Heartwired Award at Our Heritage, Our Planet Film Festival (US). Her co-directed documentary, ‘We The People’ (2019), has won the Film Futures Awards as part of Little Wing Film Festival 2020.

Sister Selection 2

6th May from 16:00

Short Documentary

In the Silence of an Abyssale Sea – Juliette Klinke

What’s worth remembering? Who decides what is worthy of remembrance?
Through images shot at the beginning of the 20th century by women filmmakers, the director questions her references, what she has been taught and passed on. Between past and present, memories and omissions, the audience (re)discovers women who have made cinema what it is today. A sensorial and poetic journey that takes the spectator back to its own knowledge and personal and social constructions.
Scriptwriter and director, Juliette Klinke works between Switzerland and Belgium. She also takes part in different projects as assistant director or children coach. Her two first fiction short movies Nelson and Les Dauphines were selected in several festivals around the world (Locarno, Angers, Clermont-Ferrand, BFI, FIFF,…) and received different awards. At the 53e Journées de Soleure she obtained an encouragement price to support the idea of a first feature film. Interested in geopolitics, she travels while starting the writing of a feature documentary. In parallel, she is involved since its creation in the collective “Elles font des films” which fights for the visibility of women in the cinema industry, and aiming at reducing structural inequalities.

Forever Young Forever Old – A Love Story – Kathrine Skibsted

Two women relive their teenage friendship through old diaries, photos and one special letter. Everything with the purpose of letting go of a love trauma between them – a love trauma of many levels. The film is about teenage life, memories, comparison, friendship, letting go, heartbreak, but most of all; the love between these two women.
My home has been in Copenhagen for the last 10 years, but I grew up in a small town in Jutland. Three years ago I started filming documentaries and I’ve been participating in different film courses. In 2019 I won DRs Talent prize and now debuting with my first feature length documentary (co directed with Andrine Moland and Caroline Mathilde Salic) at CPH:DOX 2021 and afterwards airing on Danish national television, DR3.
I’m a present and honest documentary filmmaker, who’s interested in gender roles, love, women and suburbian living. I’m looking for the flaws, because they’re are beautiful and poetic.

The E-girls Of Adelaide – Jessica Rowe

A fashion style? An internet-based word? A stereotype? What the F*** is an E-girl! Adventure into the throws of Generation-Z’s alternative fashion and culture, through the gaze of 3 Adelaide-based E-girls who are unapologetically themselves.
Jessica Rowe is a 20 year old film student originally from Kangaroo Island, South Australia. Studying Screen production at Flinders University, she is passionate about telling real stories and believes that everyone has something interesting to say. She hopes to use filmmaking to uplift others and explore different subcultures, communities, creative processes and practices.

Between Two Worlds – Jax Weiner

Amateur dancers from NYC’s South Asian diaspora team up to form Junoon Performing Arts. Their mission is to build community by merging their love of Bollywood with their passion for Contemporary dance to both celebrate their heritage and address social issues that have personal resonance for them including terrorism, homophobia and domestic violence.

 

I’ve worked as an independent film editor for over 20 years with a proclivity for character and authenticity. With the emergence of ‘reality’ tv, my documentary jobs were few and far between. I missed cutting and watching true stories. I’d always danced as a hobby, and in 2004 a friend suggested we take a Bollywood dance class. I was immediately seduced by the combination of technique, grace and narrative that characterized this style. While the dancers were of many ethnic backgrounds and welcoming to all, they were predominantly of South Asian descent. I was astounded at the commitment so many of these hard-working mostly corporate professionals were willing to make for a ‘hobby.’ 

 
Short  Icelandic fiction
To see the Sun Rise – Rosalie Guay
Soffia and Viktor meet randomly a year after their miscarriage and break-up. They try to get closure on their relationship but sharing their feelings ins’t as easy as they thought it would be.
Rosalie Guay is a 21 years old film director and screenplay writer from Montréal, Canada. After two years studying Cinema in College, her short-film «L’Engrenage» (co-directed with Leila Girard) was nominated for best picture at the Festival de l’Âme à l’Écran, hosted in Saguenay, Canada. She is currently studying a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Cinema Production at the University of Québec in Montréal

Home – Sigrun Mathiesen

A film that tackles blind love, codependency and domestic abuse. Lara is a single mother, she meets Gudjon and it’s love at first sight. Soon enough, troubles enter their relationship and their love is not as what it looks like.
Sigrún moved to Los Angeles to study television and film production. She specialized in directing and screenwriting.
Brestir is her second short film, her first was Somewhere Under the Sun, and was her thesis BA film.
Ambivalence – Ingibjörg Jenný Jóhannesdóttir & Elín Pálsdóttir
METTA (30) walks down the streets of Reykjavík on her way to work. On the way she sees TEDDI (26) dancing outside in the cold like there is no tomorrow. She doesn’t think too much about him and keeps walking. She shows up for her work, Kramhúsið and starts her daily routine, turns on the lights and makes everything ready for the day. She goes into the changing room and weighs herself, like she does every morning, and writes it down in a small diary. The dance students walk in, one by one, greet Metta, who works in the reception. After them comes SNÆDÍS (47), the dance teacher and chats with Metta. Shortly after comes INGÓLFUR (67), the old caretaker of Kramhúsið and greets the girls. The class has started and Snædís leads the girls through the routine, Metta watches. Kramhúsið closes and the dance studio is empty. Metta is alone. She walks into the dance studio, turns on the music and starts dancing. She dances the same routine that the girls from Snædís’ class were dancing. She fails several times but continues until she does it perfectly.
Two Birds – Anna Karen Eyjólfsdóttir
Lilja is challenged day by day with her sick husband, Gísli. She meets Stefán who gets her to re-think about her future.
Anna Karen Eyjólfsdóttir studied Acting at New York Film school and also Screenwriting and Directing at Icelandic Film school.