Women of Color Film Festival 2007

March 1, 2007 - March 10, 2007

She Rhymes Like a Girl, March 10

Lights! Camera! Women of color filmmakers are at the center of the action! This season we celebrate our twelfth year of screening exceptional works by fresh and accomplished, award-winning filmmakers from the African, Asian, Latina, Middle Eastern, and Native diasporas. Bringing you an array of colors from the infinite film palette, our festival has five programs at PFA, two presentations at San Francisco Cinematheque, and Bay Area–based filmmaker Lourdes Portillo in residence, too.

While particularly concerned with Latino and Chicano issues, Portillo's work transcends borders. Nominated for over thirty awards, her creations have moved the imaginations of generations of young filmmakers and her original documentary film style continues to challenge the way stories are told and viewed. Please join us as we meet and celebrate Portillo along with the other excellent artists featured throughout the festival. It has been a treat to program this year's festival; we hope it will inspire, incite, and make you laugh.

For details on the March 17 program at San Francisco Cinematheque, visit www.sfcinematheque.org or phone (415) 552-1990. For the entire festival program, visit www.wocff.berkeley.edu.

The 22nd Annual Empowering Women of Color Conference will be held on March 3 on the UC Berkeley campus. For more information, please consult the conference website at ewocc.berkeley.edu.

Patricia Contreras, Eileen Koh, Jooyeon Nam
Festival Coordinators

Thursday, March 1, 2007
5:30 p.m. Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (Free Screening!)
Artists in Person. Lourdes Portillo presents her Oscar-nominated documentary about the brave mothers of Argentina's "disappeared." With shorts Untold Legacy and The Farm.

Saturday, March 3, 2007
7:00 p.m. Corpus: A Home Movie for Selena
Lourdes Portillo in Person. A critical yet heartwarming look at the legacy of Tejano singer Selena. With Portillo's latest video, My McQueen (as in Steve).

Saturday, March 3, 2007
9:00 p.m. The Devil Never Sleeps
Lourdes Portillo in Person. Portillo investigates her uncle’s mysterious death in this “docu-telenovela”—a blend of documentary, Mexican soap opera, and personal revelation that draws from both sides of the border.

Thursday, March 8, 2007
7:30 p.m. Gathering Strands
Artists in Person. In this visually mesmerizing collection of shorts, artists experiment with storytelling techniques, drawing from individual experiences and expressive cultural vocabularies.

Saturday, March 10, 2007
7:30 p.m. Sidestepping the Eternal Repetition
Artists in Person. Short films that deconstruct history, rewrite fairy tales, and energetically look to the future.

This festival is made possible by curators and volunteers Lynda Byrd, Marie-Josee Carlsen, Susan Chen, Amy Corbin, Aileen Cruz, Wanda Dabkoska, Desi Gallardo, Sara Gambin, Elaine Kovacs, Cindy Lin, Claudia Lira, Cheryl Mak, Maria Mejia, Jenny Oh, and Pui Man Wong.

Lourdes Portillo's residency is funded by a grant from the Consortium for the Arts at UC Berkeley. The Women of Color Film Festival is an ASUC-sponsored, wheelchair-accessible UC Berkeley student initiative and is co-presented with the Empowering Women of Color Conference. A heartfelt thanks to our individual donors and other sponsors: Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, Graduate Assembly, Film Studies Program, Ethnic Studies, SUPERB, Multicultural Student Development Center, and Gap Inc.