GUTH Gafa is celebrating the work of some of the leading women documentary filmmakers at this weekend’s festival, 2-4 October, Headfort House and Kells, Co Meath.
Of the 15 International and Irish women film makers who feature in the programme, nine will be attending the festival.
The festival will also feature a Women in Documentaries workshop with participating filmmakers.
Award-winning Kim Longinotto’s latest film Dreamcatcher profiles the extraordinary Brenda Myers-Powell a former Chicago prostitute who dedicates her time to rescuing women and teenage girls from a life of sexual abuse and exploitation.
In the illuminating Jungle Sisters, Chloe Ruthven follows two young girls from rural India as they travel to the city to work in a textile factory as part of a project run by Chloe’s sister, Orlanda.
In Gulsah Dogan’s unexpectedly uplifting film, Naziha’s Spring, a spirited mother of 10, who has separated from her violent husband struggles to keep her children out of trouble in their adopted home in The Netherlands.
Oeke Hoogendijk follows the circuitous, thwarted renovation project of one of the most famous art museums in the world, The New Rijksmuseum over 10 years from start to the grand opening.
In Democrats, Camilla Nielsson spends an extraordinary three years going behind the scenes of politics in Zimbabwe, as a new constitution is being drawn up.
In a poignant The Closer We Get , filmmaker Karen Guthrie
returns home to Scotland to nurse her mother after a stroke and begins to uncover her father’s secret life.
Helen Simon’s challenging No Lullaby uncovers the trauma of child abuse and its devastating impact through the generations.
In the eye-opening Something Better To Come, Hanna Polak follows the life of 11 year old Yula who lives on Europe’s largest landfill site, through 14 years.
Andrea Culkova spent five years investigating the impact of sugar on health and its pervasiveness in western diet after she was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes. The result is the shocking and entertaining Sugar Blues.
Lisa Nicol’s joyful Wide Open Sky is a portrait of an inspirational singing teacher in the Australian outback, who teaches the children to dream big.
Treasa O’Brien and Mary Jane O’Leary get to grips with the Irish relationship with protest in their illuminating film, Eat Your Children.
Daisy Asquith’s After The Dance explores the story of her mother’s conception after a dance in the 1940’s in the west of Ireland and her subsequent adoption.
Deirdre Mulrooney follows the footsteps of English author and travel writer, Rebecca West through Yugoslavia in Journey To Yu, a photo-documentary of a place that has been devastated by war.