“ If there’s specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can’t change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies .” – Kathryn Bigelow

“ Never give up. If you want to become one, you have to be really, really strong, never give up, because you’re going to have so many ‘nos.’ When I wrote my first screenplay, I was 17, but when I directed my first film, I was 36. It gives you an idea how long it takes .” — Julie Delpy

Cinema knows no bounds or borders. So too universality of socio-political and other myriad thematic concerns they address bringing before cinephiles.
That cinematic explorations of trials and tribulations of humankind, irrespective of gender or geography, Sisyphean struggles to surmount them, find resonance in any part of planet Earth, is wondrous beauty of creative craft of cinema.
That women film makers, in recent years, have been holding their own, with eclectic ensemble of human dramas, realistic and reflective, providing individual perspectives and delectable delineations, at film festivals across globe, is welcome augury.
Film festivals, lately, both as stated policy, as also matter of equity, make express efforts to ensure qualitative and quantitative representation of films by women.
Thereby, bringing the “other” and “comparative” aspects to viewers’ cinematic experience. Thus, making attending film festivals a meaningful, educative and enriching experience.
The recent trends at film festivals can be ascribed as Second Coming providing women visibility in exploring gender issues.
Be it female sexuality and identity, freedom or empowerment from patriarchal social settings, or other dominant thematic narratives, bringing in their own individual perspectives to subjects at hand.
Film festivals have ensured there are pivotal opportunities for exhibition of films by women filmmakers beyond the mainstream. Enabling them become dominant part of public discourse.
Film festivals have turned significant platforms for showcasing and disseminating women’s films actively shaping global film festival landscape in terms of filmmaker’s gender identity informs how women are represented in films.
It is in their regard the 16th Edition of Capital City Bengaluru’s flagship calendar cultural event – Bengaluru International Film Festival – BIFFes – draws attention.
Its rich repertoire of creative cinematic works by women directors making it a meaningful festival of choice to mark one’s attendance.
This time BIFFes features 37 fantabulous films, by women directors, comprising nearly 40% of films featured at the showpiece spectacle reflecting global initiative to ensure fairness and quantum of representation for films by women, and also of and on women are strictly adhered to.
It warms one’s cockles that these 37 films come from as many as 25 film making nations that have etched their niche in the film festival marquee.
That a handful of them are debutant directorial attempts full of promise and pluck, besides few sophomore sojourns, makes visitation of these films an engaging enterprise.
Countries Bhutan to Costa Rica to Afghanistan to Estonia to Somalia to Tunisia to Mongolia. Others include Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the US and Uruguay find representation.
Set in Russia, during illegal mass deportation campaign, Georgia’s The Antique (Antikvariati) by Rusudan Glurjidze, focuses on a young woman contending with an old man as flatmate. Incidentally, Glurjidze’s debut House Of Others bagged Grand Prix at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Likewise, Dea Kulumbegashvili’s sophomore foray April concerns an obstetrician under scrutiny of State on hearsay she is into illegal abortions for women. Her debut feature, Beginning bagged bushel of awards including FIPRESCI Prize at TIFF.
Marianna Brennand’s Brazilian flick Manas revolves round a 13-year-old seeking to escape with her young sister from circumstances despite adversities and abuse braving inimical forces shackling women from independence and freedom. This debut fare is based on research into sexual abuse and exploitation of children and teenagers on Marajó Island in the Amazon rainforest.
Providing perspective peek into duality of migration – city to country – vice versa, Juliana Rojas’ Cidade; Campo (City; Countryside) brings to fore struggles of assimilation through two women each striving to assimilate with their translocations.
Spaniard Iciar Bollain’s I am Nevenka (Soy Nevenka) speaks of the universal issue of sexual harassment women face in workplaces. It brings the real-life incident which saw city mayor taken to court for sexual and labour harassment.
Celine Sallette’s Niki spotlights on how freedom of displacement, turns one nostalgic homewards despite its constrictive milieu from where one escaped.
Frida Kempff’s The Swedish Torpedo (Den Svenska Torpeden) spotlights on how a single mother (true tale of swimmer Sally Bauer) confronts social opprobrium to give wings to her dreams of crossing English Channel.
My Favourite Cake (Keyke Mahboobe Man) by Iranian duo Maryam Moghadam & Behtash Sanaeeha portrays quaint romance between an aged widow and a taxi driver who chance upon each in the course of an evening.
Tunisia’s Meryam Joobeur dwells on mother’s angst and anxiety following her radical son’s return with pregnant woman he claims his wife and change in family dynamics in Who Do I Belong To (Me El Ain).
Bhutan, renowned for charming cinematic works, sees filmmaker Dechen Roder’s I, The Song, address modern-day travails of social media touching upon themes of exploitation, identity and culture at risk wherein a teacher struggles to clear her name after a video circulates about her.
Winner of Best Directing Award at 2024 Sundance Film Festival, Iranian duo Raha Amirfazli & Alireza Ghasemi’s In The Land of Brothers speaks of trials and travails Afghan natives – Mohammad, a young teenager and promising student; Leila, a woman isolated by geography, and Qasem, face in Iran being looked down as outsiders in a country reeling under US invasion.
Spotlighting on postpatrum issues a young mother faces with her new born after catching upon chilling news about French woman drowning her twins is Mar Coll in her haunting film Salve Maria.
How a trio of sexagenarian women, having led their youth crushed in taboo ridden society rediscover their femininity and sexuality in new found freedom revisiting past forms the fulcrum of Costa Rican Antonella Sudasassi Furniss’ sophomore feature Memories Of A Burning Body (Memorias de un cuepro que arde).
Sarah Friedland’s debut feature Familiar Touch is probing and provocative exploration of society views the aged as burden tracking an octogenarian woman’s transition to life in assisted living, beset with memory issues, tries to contend with her conflicting relationship with her caregivers.
How a footloose, fancy-free teen on the cusp of adulthood finds himself with onerous responsibility of having to take care of his seven-year-old sister and harsh reality he faces is France’s Louise Courvoisier in her debut foray Holy Cow (Vingt Dieux).
Given that today’s teens have to confront myriad issues with equipoise and maturity beyond their age can be witnessed in India Donaldson’s Good One winner of Grand Jury Prize for Best Independent American Feature Film. A 17-year-old girl weighing chinks of two men – her dad and his friend – while on a hike and accept harsh reality that confronts her.
Estonian film Lioness (Emalovi) by Liina Triskina-Vanhatalo is a searing and searching study of a professional caretaker grappling to address her teen daughter’s needs and demands who is sliding on dangerous self-destructive path. How she comes to terms with what it means to provide motherly love forms the crux.
Touching upon a similar mother-daughter issue is Spain’s The Exiles by Belen Funes. How a forced eviction catalyses the two to reassess their lives and rebuild it is brought out in a pugnacious manner in this second film.
Canadian Sophie Deraspe’s Shepherds (Bergers) is another self-discovering quest to find meaning and sense of one’s life. This is brought out beautifully through an aspiring writer heading to countryside to commune with nature and quietitude and joined by a civil servant in his quest by quitting her cushy career.
Glimmers (Los Destellos) by Spain’s Pilar Palomero is another mother-daughter relationship saga. A mom is asked to take care of ailing estranged husband. The new responsibility allows her to assess present and past failures that fractured their relationship.
Another delectable filial drama is Celia Rico Clavellino’s Little Loves (Los Pequenos Amores) from Spain. The mother-daughter relationship drama showcases how the two representing different generations contend to living under same roof as they go through bittersweet emotions of love and loneliness.
Samia by Somalia’s Yasemin Samdereli chalks the chequered course of the country’s rea- life athlete’s passion to represent her country in Olympics sees her make bold to defy taboos and tradition bound society.
How a Portuguese immigrant finds meaning and connection in life as she fights loneliness, alienation and entrapment workplace in Scotland where she works as warehouse picker forms poignant study of On Falling by Portugal’s Laura Carreira.
Among other films include Greece’s Ariane Labed’s September Says wherein two sisters with their single mum navigates various challenges they encounter in life. Queens (Reinas) by Peru’s Klaudia Reynicke sees two daughters and mother confronting social and political chaos of their country as they depart for better land.
Then you have Asli Ozge’s Turkish delightful docu-feature Faruk revolving round a nonagenarian protagonist of his daughter’s film as block of flats they have resided for decades are in for demolition to make way for modern apartments capturing the dad-daughter symbiotic relationship.
Frewaka from Ireland’s Aislinn Clarke is about home care worker despatched to remote village to look after an agoraphobic woman with psychic problems and together confront horrors of their past.
Canadian feature Paying For It by Sook-Yin Lee, adaptation of Chester Brown’s graphic novel takes audiences through process of discovery of a couple examining various contours of love, sex and non-monogamous relationships.
From Afghanistan Roya Sadat’s Sima’s Song speaks of how talented singer Sima confronts unstable political landscape with her inseparable friend Suraya escaping demands of conservative society’s traditional rigours on marriage and morals.
Eva Trobisch’s German fare Ivo is about how a woman seeks the assistance of her nurse to end her life.
Taking the mystery-thriller format, Iraq’s Kurwin Ayub in Moon (Mond) speaks of the trials of three sisters – shackled in the constrictive and confining milieu which is witnessed by a martial artist who flies in from Austria to train them.
Measures For The Funeral by Canada’s Sofia Bohdanowicz follows young academic who ferrets out past of her failed and acclaimed violinist musician mother –real-life Kathleen Parlow.
The Party’s Over (Fin de Fiesta) from Spain by Elena Manrique touches upon universal issue of immigrants and how young Senegalese immigrant escaping from the police ensconces himself in the house of wealthy woman forging unlikely relationship with her lady inadvertently being cooped in there.
To Kill A Mongolian Horse by Xiaoxuan Jiang, speaks of a herdsman who must discover how the world has dramatically changed. An intimate portrait about masculinity in crisis from a female perspective.
Sook-Yin Lee’s Canadian flick Paying For It live-action adaptation of acclaimed alternative-cartoonist Chester Brown’s best-selling graphic novel, speaks of how a couple address the issue of love, sex and non-monogamy for adults, dealing with exchange for sex-work versus complications of romantic love.
Zsofia Szilagyi’s Hungarian humdrum drama January 2 provides a micro-realist story about separation, from the perspective of wife’s best friend, while The Ties That Bind Us (L’attachment) by France’s Carine Tardieu presents a strand oif stories with a young single father trying to find the strength to love. A feminist librarian, single by conviction, shunning motherhood. A six-year-old child trying to find a place in a new family structure. By revealing their aspirations, their fears, their choices the film depicts myriad ways in which humans create families.

The Uruguay duo Ana Guevar & Leticia Jorge’s Don’t You Let Me Go (Agarrame Fuerte) depicts how, following her best friend’s death, Adela embarks on a journey through time to a distant autumn, where Elena eagerly awaits, armed with detective novels and the warmth of a crackling fire, as Adela confronts her grief and unravel the mysteries that binds her to Elena.
Indeed, it would be worth the while to make BIFFes 2025 participation a meaningful experience by catching upon these panoply of provocative, perceptive and polyphonic creative cinematic narratives.

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S VISWANATH is a veteran film critic who officiates as JURY at several National & International Film Festivals. He deputises as CHIEF CINEMA CURATOR/PROGRAMMER & CREATIVE ADVISOR for Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFes). He also curates & advises on the selection of shorts & documentaries for Bengaluru International Short Film Festival (BISFF). Mr Viswanath is the author of “RANDOM REFLECTIONS: A Kaleidoscopic Musings on Kannada Cinema”.