Film: bringing women everywhere, together
In 2019, Kristin Scott Thomas’ character, Belinda, delivered a monologue on, Fleabag, that sent the Internet, especially the women in their audience, into a frenzy of laughter and tears (see above). The speech was hailed as ground-breaking, with clips being shared, turned into memes, and Twitter losing its collective mind, giving it a solid place in television history.
In it, Belinda states that, “Women are born with pain built in It’s our physical destiny: period pains, sore boobs, childbirth, you know. We carry it within ourselves throughout our lives, men don’t. They have to seek it out, they invent all these gods and demons and things just so they can feel guilty about things, which is something we do very well on our own. And then they create wars so they can feel things and touch each other and when there aren’t any wars, they can play rugby. We have it all going on in here inside, we have pain on a cycle for years and years and years…”
The Female Film Club (FFC) is an international film club geared at bringing female identifying film creatives together from all over the world, united by their love of the cinematic arts, and the monologue by Phoebe Waller-Bridge is exemplary of what they believe in, namely, art as an opportunity to bring into focus shared, marginalised experiences, and subsequently, provide firm ground to unite us as human beings. We, at the FFC, believe that regardless of what is happening in the wider world, with its wars and pandemics and violence, women everywhere, are united by the common experience, the pain and joys, of being a woman. Regardless of the variations and contextual differences we live in, there are elements that connect us no matter where we are, and that, no man could ever fully understand or capture. Menstruation, childbirth, menopause, amongst others, and the shared pain and joy that we live through alongside those, coupled with love and anguish and parenthood, have the power to heal and bind us.
That is the premise of Cinema Sabaya by Orit Fouks Rotem (pictured above). Kicking off their Israel Month at the FFC, in collaboration with Memento and the Israeli Embassy in the United Kingdom, as well as the Israeli Consulate in New York and Los Angeles, Cinema Sabaya was chosen specifically by the FFC as its premise is very much in line with the club’s objective of breaking borders and bringing women together through film.
Described by Rotem as offering “a rare glimpse to the hidden depths of the lives of Jewish and Palestinian women, where their central point of convergence, the most profound thing they had in common, is simply being a woman”, Cinema Sabaya centres around the lives nine women, of both Jewish and Arab-Palestinian descent, all of whom work in various parts of the Municipality of Hadera. The lives of these women converge as they take part in a short video course run by a young Director and Filmmaker, Rona at the Centre of Coexistence. Rona sets them up with cameras and we follow the journeys of each of these individual women as they strive to complete the different assignments that Rona sets out for them each week, and their interactions with each other as they go through the course. Through the footage that the women take, we are given a peek into each of their lives, exploring some of the common themes that inform theirs, and our, experience as women all over the world, such as lost dreams, parental relationships, divorce and re-building of lives post-divorce, amongst others..
The FFC is committed to empowering women everywhere to boldly make art and share it with the world. To artists taking a deep dive into issues that may be seen difficult, and even taboo. Most of all, we hope, that the art made goes on to act as a catalyst to remind ourselves that underneath it all, we are all women. This is something we have in common and should be celebrated regardless of the chaos that we see in the world. We dream. We love. We hurt. We live in hope.
NB: The FFC is also interested in working with Palestinian filmmakers. They have, and are offering free memberships to Palestinian film creatives and are also trying to organise a Palestinian-based event similar to this one, to highlight and showcase Palestinian voices and talent in the film industry. Anyone interested should get in direct contact with them via info@femalefilmclub.com
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By Sheyna Zaid Lam from the Female Film Club.
