Film festivals – Page 7

NY Feminist Film Week 2017

Posted on March 11, 2017 by krissy

This week I’ve had the pleasure and honor of being included in the New York Feminist Film Week, a festival with a lineup of incredible films and filmmakers. The event is at Anthology Film Archives in NYC.
I am part of:
Program 2: BODIES (International Women’s Day Wednesday March 8, 2017 at 6:30.
Joey Carducci (formerly known as Gina Carducci), Nona Faustine, Sasha Just, krissy Mahan, Patricia Silva and Mila Zou

Program 6: Feminist Film Genealogies Roundtable Saturday Match 11, 2017 at 5pm
With Signe Baumane, Joey Carducci (formerly known as Gina Carducci),
Nona Faustine, Barbara Hammet (yes, really), Sascha Just, krissy Mahan, Constanta Mirré, Joanna Rytel, Patricia Silva, and Mila Zou.
Laurel_FFWnyc2017

LesbianLives2017 and Older Women Rock!

Posted on March 4, 2017 by krissy

Wow! I had quite the UK run at the end of February. My parody of the Todd Haynes’ film “Carol” found a loving home on screens with the Women Over 50 Film Festival ON PARADE! It was shown at LesbianLives2017 and at the “OlderWomenRock” program, at the Quarterhouse_UK of CQ_folkestone
Here are some screenshots from the lovely and talented and hard working curator, Nuala O’Sullivan.

Hate and Love

Posted on March 2, 2017 by krissy

Every time i get hate mail, I remember how richly I’ve been blessed with joy and acceptance.

“Carol” – in the style of Todd Haynes

Posted on September 18, 2016 by krissy

This will be shown as part of the Women Over 50 Film Festival in Brighton, UK October 1, 2016.

I didn’t like the Haynes’ film at all. No matter how many rain-splattered windows there are, and no matter how beautifully filmed with a surging cello score, the story being told is a schmalty snoozefest about white rich people behaving badly, that even it’s author was embarrassed to claim (Highsmith published it under a pen name). If it was about a straight white couple, it would be both boring amd offensive in its class politics. Like every other movie, no? I saw Haynes’ “Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story” 15 years ago, and maybe it influenced my movie-making. So I am disappointed that he chose to make this earnest melodrama.

Press/Reviews/Fun. Autumn 2016

Posted on September 10, 2016 by krissy

The IPF on 2016 Wotever Film Festival

Celebrating and prioritizing real accessibility at 2016 Wotever DIY Film Fest

Shoddy sensationalist press trying to discredit Scottish Queer International Film Festival for the festival’s porn workshop
http://www.theskinny.co.uk/sexuality/lgbt/sqiff-porn-tabloid-outrage

Nuala O’Sullivan on BBC for the Women Over Fifty Film Festival to be held on 1 October 2016 in Brighton, UK
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047d2m6#play
(about 37 minutes in)

“Faggot Girl Gets Busy in The Bathroom”
Dir. Krissy Mahan, USA, 2016, 03:39
World premiere: Specially commissioned for WDIYFF 2016
We’ve been showing Krissy Mahan’s work since 2012 when Faggot Girl, Mahan’s disability-rights campaigning, alter-ego superhero, first burst on to our screens. Since then, Faggot Girl has crusaded relentlessly for greater accessibility for all body types, arguing that access is a queer issue. We’re delighted to commission Faggot Girl Gets Busy in the Bathroom for this year’s festival, in which our fearless hero/ine demonstrates why public bathrooms are a crucial frontier in the fight for equality (and can also be great spots to hook up in, too).

“Like A Riot”
Dir. Krissy Mahan, USA, 2016, 02.00
Krissy Mahan is back again this year with this wonderful short in which puppet Sophie Mayer hangs out with Campbell X’s puppet self. The two super heroes embark on a campaign to deal with the white, male overkill prevalent in the film industry. And what better way to incite a riot to the soundtrack of London-based punk band Big Joanie?”
( WWDIYFF 2016 program notes )

“Like A Riot” 2m
Dir. Krissy Mahan, USA, 2016
“Like anyone who grew up with the Muppets and Fraggle Rock, I have always wanted to have a puppet self. And of course I want my puppet self to hang out with Campbell X’s puppet self. Krissy Mahan has made it happen!” Dr. Sophie Mayer
( SQIFF 2016 program notes )

Summer into Autum 2016 Update

Posted on July 31, 2016 by krissy

Faggotgirl with accessible bathroom sign — Faggotgirl

Who could have guessed how surreal things would actually become when I first put “As Surreal As It Gets” on my website 15 year ago? I am glad that I have a body of work that stands in opposition to the status quo, and hopefully uses joy and goodwill to challenge white mainstream complacency in the face of such deadly threats to vulnerable people.

Here’s a rundown of some of my activities this summer, and some festivals coming up in the fall. (In reverse order of things happening.)

I was able to catch my friend Saul in Philadelphia, and he let me record him and Veronica talking about Informe-SIDA. They tell the story of how their HIV/AIDS information service began — in Texas, where consensual gay male sex was illegal, and there were no health services in Spanish. That is just the kind of history that I try to make sure doesn’t get lost. I hope someone will make an even bigger/better record of their important and lifesaving work. I started Dykeumentary as a way to make a record of people, especially my queer friends, in their own words, and owned by them.

I am working on my first commissioned movie! Wotever DIY Film Festival, based in London, asked me to make a Faggotgirl short to play at their 2016 festival, happening the DIY Space For London September 3-4, 2016 — an accessible venue! I’m flattered and I am happy that I have made a movie that addresses the issue of bathrooms AND accessibility. Everyone has bathrooms on the brain because of the hateful North Carolina HB2 bill, and I figured while we are thinking about bodies in bathtrooms, why not use the political will of this moment to make sure truly ALL bodies enjoy the privacy and accessibility of public restrooms?

My movie “Like A Riot” was chosen to show at Wotever DIY Film Festival on 3-4 September 2016, and the Scottish Queer International Film Festival, in Glasgow, Scotland on September 29 – Ocotober 2, 2016, to be shown as part of their feminist shorts program. Hilarious. They sent me laurels and everything. I wish I could go, I’ve always wanted to visit Scotland.

This weekend,“Faggotgirl Does(n’t Do) The MTA” showed at GAZE International LGBT Film Festival in Dublin, Ireland, as an example of Wotever DIY films. The WDIYFF has been doing an outstanding (and international) job of promoting DIY film, and I am very appreciative of their work. I’m happy that something I made showed in Ireland, because both sides of my family emigrated (unhappily) to America from Ireland in the 20th century, as Roman Catholics from the British-controlled northern counties. I hope they are all having a good laugh and a drink that their great/granddaughter is poking fun at oppressive abuses of power.

There was also this big lezbo camping fest, LFEST, that i absolutely MUST go to one day, and Theresa Heath curated the film tent. She showed “The Genesis of Butch and Femme” and reported that the audience laughed at all the appropriate places!! Triumph! Here’s a blurb about how LFest went.

AND “Until Justice Rolls” was shown in Scotland as part of “Queers In The City” curated by SQIFF. “A selection of shorts looking at the relationship of LGBTQ+ people to cities. In depicting anonymous cruising, lamenting gentrification, showing cities as a backdrop to loneliness and personal pain, and creating comedy subversion of urban imagery, these films recognise the unique place of queers in the city space. Featuring work by both international and local artists plus a filmmaker Q&A”

“Until Justice Rolls” was an Honorable Mention at the Superhero Film Festival, but other than that, I’ve been rejected from 23 film festivals. Becky and Ellen laugh at me every time I am sad to be rejected, and now that its happened so many times, I understand what they were saying.

honorable SQIFF selection

Women Over 50 Film Festival 2016

Posted on March 1, 2016 by krissy

Celebrating Women In Front Of And Behind The Camera
Women Over 50 Film Festival
At WOFFF we champion the work of older women on both sides of the camera.
Each of the 44 films on offer this weekend (2016) has a women over 50 at its centre on the screen or behind the lens in the core creative team as the writer, director or producer.
We’re hosting an all-female panel event on women in film and a practical workshop for anyone who’d like to have a go at filmmaking but doesn’t quite know where to start.
We’re delighted to have many of our filmmakers with us
at the festival. We’ll be having a short Q & A after each screening so we can hear more about them, their work and their inspiration.
So please sit back, relax and enjoy this year’s WOFFF!
Nuala, Natalie, Hilary, Priscilla and Rebecca
The WOFFF team

Saturday 1 October 2016 18:30Screening 3 | Love, death and legacy
Patience by Robert Hackett (7 mins)
Memorial by Helen Selka (30 mins)
Carol by Krissy Mahan (7 mins)
Old Friends, Out to Pasture by Marlijn Franken (11 mins)
The Wake by Oonagh Kearney (20 mins)

In 2016 we held our second festival. We screened 44 international short films, hosted an all-female panel event and a beginners’ filmmaking workshop. A full festival report will be published soon.

For a film to be eligible for submission to WOFFF it has follow one of these two simple rules. The film has to have a women over 50 at its centre OR have a woman over 50 in the core creative team (writer, director or producer)

Our next festival is in 2017 in Brighton. So we hope to see you beside the seaside with us soon!

February 2016 Update

Posted on February 8, 2016 by krissy

Hello all, and I hope you are enjoying this mild winter as much as I am.
Here’s Mom looking badass in 1955.(Click it and it rotates correctly, I don’t know why it is doing this.)

As some of you know, I’ve moved home to take care of my mother as she battles PSP – Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. According to the CDC, this disease is rare. However, in South Jersey, it is so common in older women that almost everyone I talk with has a grandmother or aunt who has/had it. Infuriating and expected, in a post-industrial wasteland poisoned by thorium, mercury, lead and asbestos. Camden will never gentrify because no white middle-class family would move here. It is neurologic birth defect ground zero (I was also born with a neurological abnormality in my brain stem.) Our sister-city-in-murder-rates, Flint, MI is a sorrowful example that poor, Black-majority cities are just allowed to die.

So it is difficult to focus on making movies during this time of intense eldercare. I have been writing screenplays and fiddling around with a remake of “Carol” when I have a few moments to myself. I also signed up for Film Freeway and so have been sending my videos to festivals for consideration. I am most excited for a project about my childhood, when we learned my best friend’s sister was a lesbian.

It has been exciting to see all the action figures of women in the news lately. I am glad that Faggotgirl has some Super Friends. I hope they have superpowers, and are not just to be looked at and dressed up. More later!

Novmber 2015 Update

Posted on November 1, 2015 by krissy

Howdy!
I’m very excited about the positive responses my movies have been receiving. It’s a compliment and it is an inspiration to make more. I have some new equipment and I’m so curious and excited about telling wacky stories with new tools.

Gender Reel 2015
I’ve screened movies at GenderReel every year it’s existed – that feels really cool especially since GenderReel has been growing, and gaining more recognition every year. My movie “1987, Summer” is part of this year’s traveling festival. The only screening left in 2015 is in Houston, Texas. I have a special place in my heart for the film community in Texas. At AGLIFF‘s “My Gay Movie” in 2004, “Faggotgirl Does Austin” won “The Weirdest Movie Jenn Garrison Had Ever Seen.” I treasure that award.

Scottish Queer Film Festival: Queer Women In Love
“This November and December, SQIFF is taking part in BFI Love with two programmes of films and events. Queer Women in Love is a diverse and exciting selection of films by and about lesbian, bisexual, and queer women with events across the UK. I Do? considers queerness and marriage marking the one year anniversary of changes to the marriage law in Scotland.”

BFI/Scottish Queer Film Festival’s Women in Love: The Virgin Machine
November 10, 2015
The Glad Cafe, Glasgow, Scotland
“The Virgin Machine”
In this early film by director Monika Treut, wannabe writer and journalist Dorothee leaves Germany for San Francisco searching for her long-lost mother and some insights into the ailment known as love. Encounters with male impersonator Ramona, charming bohemian Dominique, and purveyor of lesbian erotica, Susie Sexpert, result in liberating adventures in sexual self-discovery. When Dorothee surfaces a little dazzled on the wilder shores of the city’s lesbian community, she has discovered her sexuality…and left her illusions of romance behind.

Screening with short films “Fingers” by Sandra Alland, and “1987, Summer””Fingers” features a British Sign Language (BSL) poetry performance by Alison Smith about love, longing, and the sexiness of touch. “1987, Summer” is about a a baby dyke who has landed in a gay resort town during the AIDS crisis. She plays softball, goes clubbing, sleeps with lots of women, and learns about who she is and what she wants.
Part of BFI Love, in partnership with Plusnet bfi.org.uk/love

It is such an honor, and so humbling, that my movie will be screening on World AIDS Day 2015, because it is about me and my friends trying to figure out the world as gay men were dying around us. We were kind of blaming ourselves AND feeling guilty AND trying to not get AIDS AND trying to figure out a political response AND trying to be young, gender-non-conforming people when we had no analysis of gender or trans issues or sexism generally. We did all of that badly, I am sad to say. But I want to talk about that, and see how far we all still have to go on those issues, including a comprehensive response to AIDS.

WORLD AIDS DAY 2015
BFI/Scottish Queer Film Festival’s Women In Love – Go Fish
December 1, 2015
Dundee University Feminist Society.
Room 3G02 within Dalhousie Building.

Go Fish:
Max is a too-cool-for-school young lesbian woman stressing over the fact she hasn’t had sex for ten months. After first dismissing hippy, excessive drinker of tea Ely, Max goes on a date with her, leading to a long-term mutual infatuation and a ‘will they, won’t they’ romantic trajectory. A collaboration between Guinevere Turner (The Watermelon Woman, Itty Bitty Titty Committee) and Rose Troche, Go Fish features a supporting cast of lesbian waifs and strays, including Ely’s sex addict roommate Daria and Max’s roommate Kia, whose girlfriend Evy has been kicked out her home by her homophobic mum.

Screening with short films “Dyketactics” and “Summer, 1987.” “Dyketactics” by Barbara Hammer is a sensuous, bold look at women’s desire and sexuality from a seminal lesbian filmmaker. “Summer, 1987” by Krissy Mahan is set in summer in the late 1980s when a baby dyke has landed in a gay resort town during the AIDS crisis. She plays softball, goes clubbing, sleeps with lots of women, and learns about who she is and what she wants.
Free. Donations will be taken for World AIDS Day.

Part of SQIFF presents: Queer Women in Love, a season of films by and about lesbian, bisexual, and queer women. Part of BFI LOVE, in partnership with Plusnet bfi.org.uk/love

BFI/Scottish Queer Film Festival: Queer Women In Shorts
December 15, 2015
The Royal Vauxhall Taver, London, England
Scottish Queer International Film Festival (SQIFF) in collaboration with Wotever DIY Film Festival and Bar Wotever presents a selection of shorts from SQIFF’s Queer Women in Love season, featuring films by and about lesbian, bisexual, and queer women. The line-up includes a range of styles and ideas relating to the theme of love from Barbara Hammer’s innovative 1970s lesbian experiment Dyketactics to Ami Nashimoto’s vegan, gluten-free date nightmare-comedy Dinner For Two, via queer filmmaking legend Cheryl Dunye’s very first film, Janine, and activist Krissy Mahan’s 1980s-set gay beach town dramedy, 1987, Summer.
With an introduction from SQIFF’s Helen Wright.

This is how accessibility, and information about it, is done well!
Tyneside Cinema is accessible for wheelchairs. Each of the Tyneside’s Cinema’s screens have power assisted doors and dedicated spaces for wheelchair users. If you specifically require tickets for the wheelchair spaces available in our auditoria, you can contact Box Office on 0845 217 9909. There is high contrast signage throughout the building, complete with braille. Tyneside also uses the Phonic infrared headset system to provide amplified sound in their screens. Headsets are available for this service from the Box Office on the ground floor and Tyneside Bar on the third floor.

Wotever DIY FIlm Festival 2015 – Day 2

Posted on September 3, 2015 by krissy

Saturday started with breakfast with (the Danish boi band) New Male Privilege so I knew it would be a good day. I traveled together with my gracious hosts Jac and Angie of Looking at You Productions to the filmmaker’s networking event that they sponsored. I met some great people and had a good lunch before heading downstairs to the smaller theatre at The Cinema Museum, where the program I was in was held.

The event description reads: “22nd August 13.30 Film and Q&A with filmmakers.
Space, Place, DIY: A Three-way Retrospective of Bev Zalcock and Sara Chambers, Val Phoenix and Krissy Mahan
Ideas of community and place have rarely been as pertinent as they are now as we witness the turbo-gentrification of urban areas and rapid loss of queer spaces. In this retrospective, some of our favourite, DIY, lesbian or queer-identified filmmakers explore connections to space, place and time and depict the complex relationship between female or queer bodies and the urban or pastoral environments. In particular, these films embody an ultra-DIY ethic and experimentalism which forms an inspiring example of what can be achieved on little or no budget.”
I was honored that my films got such attention, and preparing for the Q & A made me carefully consider what the heck I am doing with my movies. When I make them, they seem pretty immediate, and this was the first time I presented them as a “body of work” – the 4 films selected (by their programmers) were “Until Justice Rolls,” “The Genesis of Butch & Femme,” “Starlite Stays,” and “Memoir, My Dykeumentary.” I attended the screening dressed as Faggotgirl, and of course had her with me.
My favorite film of the program was Bev Zalcock and Sara Chambers are Barrelstout Productions (formerly Pitbull Productions)’s Dayglo (You Know You Know), shot on Super 8, UK, 2011, 03:00 “Made in memory of Poly Styrene singer & songwriter, once of the punk band X Ray Spex. Poly’s music has always inspired us for its spirit of feminism & liberation; we’re particularly fond of ‘Oh Bondage Up Yours!’ The film’s soundtrack features her biggest hit, and uses an abstract array of vivid colours, some of which are made by painting food dyes on to the film emulsion.” Beautiful and hilarious.
The discussion after the movies was interesting and fun. We filmmakers had great discussion and the audience asked us thoughtful questions. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, and i even enjoyed it.

After the program, we went outside and had some beers, and I had the chance to connect with Digital Desperados, who came to London for a screening of their “Best of Glitch” (more on that tomorrow). They are brilliant and friendly and we even went to dinner together before the evening program! I felt really cool.

That evening I attended the program “The Personal Is Political.”
22nd August 19.30 @ Cinema Museum
“The Personal is Political is a fact most queers live with every day, especially if facing intersecting oppressions such as race, gender or disability. These films are about a politics that is both individual and universal in how it isolates and unites us. It’s about queer people of all identities finding their own way in the world, whether it’s through dance (Private Dancer, He’s the Greatest Dancer), music (I’m Not Your Inspiration), sexual exploration (Push Me), telling your story (Bedding Andrew) and ultimately through each other; in friendship (MingMong – about coming of age and rejection), family (Guao) and loved ones. These films showcase queer people’s explorations within this.”
Faggotgirl made her World Premiere in “Faggotgirl In Winter,” and my favorite movie was “Private Dancer -Catwalk” dir. Henri H Hiltunen, Sweden. As soon as I saw it I wanted to watch it again. I also loved “A Rabbit’s Tale,” dir. Rachel Shenton, UK, 2015 4:04 WORLD PREMIERE – and that movie is going to friggin’ Cannes Short Film Festival! Respect. I met Rachel and Becky on Thursday night because their movie “Morgan” was part of the Wotever DIY Film Festival at The British Film Institute on Thursday. After that program, we all went upstairs to catch the performance of New Male Privilege and a group from I think Sweden but I can’t find the name just now.
Angie, Ingo and Naomi from Planet London and I all went out to dinner after the program and had a lovely time.

(In this photo you can see Tanya Wol, Nosheen and Cloudberry of Digital Desperados, the other filmmakers in this program Barrelstout Productions, Val Phoenix and many of the kind people who attended. Thank you!
And here’s a photo from Saturday night, with the discussion led by festival programmer Stephanie Goldberg.