Women are not getting the chance to tell their stories in film.
That's why they still suffer from domestic violence and even incest, said Hoi Cheu, English and film studies professor at Laurentian University.
Cheu is the author of Cinematic Howling: Women's Films, Women's Film Theories, just published by UBC Press. He was at Cinefest Sudbury at SilverCity yesterday at noon talking about the book just prior to the film screening of Women Who Walk by Sue Kennedy, about a pilgrimage she made.
"Barbara Quart, a scholar, who published a study in 1986 on
American film studios between 1949 to 1979 found that only 0.2
percent of Hollywood films were directed or written by women,"
said Cheu.
Worse, the film distribution system in North America is
skewered against presenting films about issues important to
women he said.
"Take the Goddess of 1967 created by Clara Law, an Australian. The film is about three generations of women who suffer from incest and domestic violence. It is a very powerful film, with beautiful cinematography and well scripted," said Cheu.
Though the film won Best Actress (2000 Vienna Film Festival) and Best Director (Chicago Critics Award) it was never released commercially in North America, he said.
"Cinefest Sudbury did show it in 2000. I appreciated that but still when I look the Cinefest listings this year I see very few films created by women-three or four, despite the fact that more women attend film festivals than men," he said.
The distribution of films is highly controlled in North America by a male domineering ideology that demeans women's experience, said Cheu.
"It amounts to men in control saying that these issues like domestic violence, vital to women, are not important. They say who cares?" said Cheu.
Cinematic Howling looks at how women can engage in the storytelling process of film to remodel the world around them, he said. Cheu remarked that his intent was to have the women film makers speak for themselves, keeping his role as author to a minimum.
"I want to examine how storytelling by women is positive both for themselves and society as a whole if they allowed to do that," he said.
Belinda Oldford, from Montreal, whose short animated film Come Again in Spring, screened at Cinefest Monday said more women are making films. She was speaking Monday night at a geography class at Laurentian University.
"I do a lot of work with Canada's National Film Board and most films there are now made by women, and in Europe the number of films made by women is rising too," she said.
Charmaine Kennedy, acting executive director of the Sudbury Sexual Assault Crisis Centre does agree with professor Cheu.
"I am totally in agreement with the premise of his book,
about the dominance of the old boys club where women are not on
the same level as men. We have seen sexual harassment of
three women at Laurentian University and York University
recently.
In fact, most date rape cases occur in the first eight weeks of
school. We need films to make this threat to women and others
highlighted in our culture or face the consequences," said
Kennedy.
Kennedy expects a large turnout by campus women for the
annual Take Back The Night march Thursday night at the
Steelworkers Hall
on Frood Rd at 7 pm.
"We have been organizing this march for 29 years because it is still needed. How long do we have to organize this kind of activity until society gets the message that violence against women is wrong?" asked Kennedy.
Cinematic Howling is expensive ($85) in hardcover but Cheu expects a soft cover version for students to be published shortly. Two copies are available at the Laurentian library or email Cheu for a discount price at [email protected] .
