Birds Eye View Film Festival 2011

After another Oscar year without a female nomination in the Best Director category, and women still only making up six per cent of directors and 12 per cent of screenwriters, it’s safe to say there is a serious case of under-representation in the film industry. But thankfully, the Birds Eye View Film Festival, the UK’s first women’s film festival, is here to help bump up those percentages. Since 2005, BEV has been celebrating the best in female writing, directing and creative talent in film with 2011 being no exception.  

Taking place at the ICA and BFI, this year’s programme included premieres, features, documentaries, shorts, panel discussions – basically this run down is going to prove something of a challenge in the face of concision so instead I will opt for highlights…

‘Fashion Loves Film’ presented a series of short films bringing the glamour of the fashion industry to the stylistic prowess of the cinema. Parodying our consumer driven lives, Katerina Jebb’s Simulacrum and Hyperbole switched us on to Lucid TV, a pensive, comedic and surreal collection of adverts forcing us to consider how easily those pretty images on the screen can seduce – something all the more poignant when placed in the context of fashion.

Art meets fashion meets film in Linder Sterling’s Forgetful Green. Showing how fashion houses themselves are turning to the big screen to promote – and celebrate – the styles, the movements, the energy of their latest collections, Ruth Hogben joined the hypnotic rhythms and thumping soundtrack of the catwalk to the stylised frames of the avant garde as soft chiffon stands beside metallic bondage in Gareth Pugh’s S/S collection.

Sailing on the success of receiving the worthy accolade of Best Foreign Language Film at two of the biggest events in the filmic calendar, the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards, Susanne Bier’s In a Better World received its UK premiere at the BFI. Split between a refugee camp in Africa and a small-town in Denmark, Bier’s film uses one man’s experiences in these two different worlds to explore the concept of revenge and our ability to forgive in the face of monstrosity. In a Better World can also happily add another accolade to its collection after winning Best Feature at the BEV Awards.

Orgasm Inc., Liz Canner’s eye-opening documentary probes the pharmaceutical industry to uncover the truth about corruption and commercialisation of women’s sexuality, marketing sexual dysfunction as a disease only cured by a little pink pill. And conveniently, after the success of Viagra, there happened to be a lady-shaped gap in the market…

Keeping it sexy, selling a copy every four seconds, and without a wizard in sight, Julie Moggan’s Guilty Pleasures celebrates those paperback secrets we hide in the deepest darkest corners of our bookshelves: Mills & Boon. Emerging from the recession with barely a ladder in its stocking, Mills & Boon has been a publishing force to be reckoned with since 1908. This rom-com-cum-documentary follows the lives of the women who read them, the men who write them and the torsos who decorate their covers. Poor Stephen, the perma-tanned Adonis whose torso has graced many a dust jacket but never the arm of that special lady. Hilarious yet heartfelt, Guilty Pleasures shows the truth behind the sheikh’s mistresses and outback lovers that have kept women flushed throughout the ages.

For me, the festival highlight has to be the BEV favourite, Sound and Silents, this year at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. Part of this year’s ‘Bloody Women: From Gothic to Horror’ theme, Sound and Silents called upon the services of some of the most ground-breaking female musical artists to provide soundtracks for some of the most groundbreaking surrealist short films from as early as 1913. In her typically experimental style, Micachu scored Lotte Reiniger’s silhouette version of Hansel and Gretel while classically trained Seaming created a suitably haunting accompaniment to Maya Deren’s eerie Meshes of the Afternoon.

Introducing her innovative and almost apocalyptic trance sound to the equally innovative Lois Weber’s Suspense (1913),  Tara Busch kept the audience on the edge of their seats before Weber’s dark vision of a prowler and an unprotected woman. The main act was of course Grammy award-winning musician, Imogen Heap, accompanied by the Holst Singers, as they provided an unforgettable live, a cappella priginal score to Germaine Dulac’s disturbing The Seashell and the Clergymen.

After a fortnight of such a staggering display of female filmic talent, the clear lack of women in the film industry became all the more notable – and inexplicable. However, while women may not yet quite be at the forefront with their male counterparts, the Birds Eye View Film Festival proves women are by no means going to allow this to silence their voice and innovation on the big screen.

The Birds Eye View Film Festival took place at the ICA and BFI from March 8 to 17.

Image by SPDP courtesy of Flickr