Feminist cinema – reflections on the 5th edition of PortoFemme

From the 7th to the 12th of September 2022 the feminist film festival PortoFemme took place in Porto for the fifth time. More than 80 films were screened in various cinemas and cultural associations around the city, inviting for film experiences, conversations, workshops and networking. What follows are shared reflections on this year’s edition of the festival, a selection of films and contemporary feminist cinema.

QUEER PERSPECTIVES

The opening of the 5th edition of the Porto femme sets a political tone for the festival by giving the stage to the Kings Of Kitéria, a collective that unites drag kings in the north of Portugal. Re-thinking and re-negotiating masculinity and raising questions about the different possibilities that arise when women occupy normatively considered male places. “Entertaining responsibly” is the self-acclaimed slogan of the drag kings – which can mean amongst other things that a picture of Bolsonaro ends up ripped into pieces and shoved down one’s underpants.  

Another introduction is made by this kick-off: this year’s edition of the festival opened up to the queer practitioners in the field. With the category, The XX Element, filmmakers who identify themselves outside the gender binary were featured to showcase their work. The thematic category Bodies, too, invited transfeminist and intersectional perspectives and raised questions about the collectivity and singularity of bodies as well as multiple perspectives on manifestations of bodies in and through cinematic art.

The winner of the latter category, the documentary No Makeup continued the opening theme of drag. Filmmaker Monika Konarzewska joins several drag queens and intimately shows their personal relationships with drag during the process of putting on the make-up for their performances. Identities, aesthetics, playfulness, emotion and katharsis are illustrated in the intimate sphere of the dressing room as well as at an amply laid table on the rough and scenic coast of Iceland.

FEMALE PLEASURE

Claiming one’s own sexuality has been a key topic of feminist cinema. The award-winning animation film Sex Relish (A Solo Orgasm) by Ananda Safo picks up on the stigmatisation of female masturbation and brings forward diverse stories of women with their own bodies, their lust and their experiences of pleasuring themselves. While the stories of women are undoubtedly important, touchingly personal and nuanced, the animation tended towards clean and salubrious images. I wished for an approach that dared to risk more and to engage reflexively with the search for aesthetics that speak to female desire in its complex, often messy ways.

Inspired by a conversation with a co-guest in a hostel about an intoxicating sea urchin sting, director Luciënne Venner’s film Silent Heat explores female fantasy and desire through a mythological underwater narrative. Lingering between music video and experimental film, the new pop aesthetics of the eponymous theme song are mirrored in the graininess and colour palette as Silent Heat was shot on film. The choreography was inspired by various sea creatures and takes the spectator to a place where estrangement, sensuality and sexual desire coincide.

STORYTELLING

Two films that were outstanding to me due to their storytelling approaches are Tchau tchau and A Fairy Tale. Cristèle Alves Meira’s short film Tchau tchau intricately mobilises the aesthetics and dynamics of digital communication that we have come to experience as a collective during the Covid-19 pandemic from the perspective of a child. Lovingly and with great attention to the absurdities and comedic moments of online communication and the human tragedy of death (peaking in the zoom funeral of the beloved grandfather) Alves Meira tells an intimate story about loss and connection.

Due to its moving camera and conversations between the cinematographer and the protagonist Coco, A Fairy Tale aspires to a documentary style which is defied by the sharp, clean and colourfully rich visuals. Unveiling the constructedness of the narrative does not impair the directness of the film by Zoé Arene who takes one on an intense rollercoaster ride through the city of Brussels. Coco is a young woman whose life is dictated by alcohol and drug abuse and who claims to be a fairy that has been hired by “the kingdom”. Feeling abandoned, she is increasingly driven towards self-destruction. Without ever being too literal in any teased metaphors and with a playful ambiguity Arene raises questions of community, exclusion, addiction and the autonomy of decision over one’s death.

QUESTIONS OF CARE

Competing in the National Competition the animation film The Garbage Man by Laura Gonçalves was celebrated. The computer animation in muted blue and yellow tones resembles a hand-drawn style and gives space for nuance. During a family dinner, stories about the deceased great-grandfather are shared by his relatives. Personal humorous anecdotes of pineapples, life-changing events like the flight to France during dictatorship times and his participation in the colonial war in Angola interweave history and biography in its enmeshed existences.

Family relations are central to The Ones Left Behind as well, a short film winner of the National Competition. Giving the front stage to a woman who has to take care of her demented mother as she is being left alone in this task by the rest of her family, particularly her brother. Aurélie Oliveira Pernet’s film is dedicated to the invisible care work that is performed on daily basis by women. By no means is this a story of victimhood though: in her struggle and solitude the protagonist is driven by desire as much as anger; eventually facing her own power and radicality.

FEMINIST FILMMAKING TODAY

What is the role of a feminist film festival today? Promoting feminist storytelling and aesthetics; creating spaces for debates on the politics of filmmaking; international networking with other festivals and filmmakers; re-negotiation what feminist cinema can mean when inscribed into intersectional debates; building new audiences; support of women in the industry and upcoming generations of filmmakers. The challenges are manifold.

The structures and conditions that continue to inform the film industry – not only in Portugal –  today, i.e. structures of funding, education and production, are embedded in patriarchal systems and disadvantage women as well as non-binary and trans persons, black people and People of Colour. Emblematic of this struggle is the founding of associations like MUTIM (Mulheres Trabalhadoras das Imagens em Movimento) by Paula Miranda that aims to promote women’s equality within the film and audiovisual industry. During the festival, women’s positions in front of and behind the cameras were explicitly engaged with in the workshops Worlds Creation – Art Direction led by Mónica Santos and Women in Cinema and Audiovisual through the Look of the Script and Editing with Paula Miranda and Fernanda Polacow; offering the present international film practitioners’ spaces for dialogue, reflection and creation. More initiatives promoting inclusivity and equality are necessary as diversity has to be the very underlying condition from which we create films within and for more just societies. 

The extensive Student Film Competition with four categories gives aspiring filmmakers the possibility to showcase their work and offers a platform that allows for networking and support for the upcoming generation of filmmakers. By giving this space, PortoFemme is an important structure, especially for local and regional creation.

We do not only need a next generation of filmmakers -  but we also need audiences. I noticed a remarkably small audience during the festival which left me with the impression of a rather intimate circle that shared, worked and celebrated during this week in September in Porto. While there is no doubt about the value of such close-knit network spaces, I kept on asking myself: who is watching? Audience development is not only about effective marketing strategies but also about promoting education, spaces for aesthetic experiences and critical engagement with such.

RE-THINKING FEMINIST CINEMA

The opening film In the silence of an abysmal sea by Juliette Klinke is a contemplation on the erasure of women from film history. A montage of scenes from films directed by women in the late 19th and early 20th century are presenting a repressed archive; narrated by the personal journey of the filmmaker to trace her own history within this “ocean”. Partly tribute to outstanding women filmmakers, partly exclamation to not forget and retrace women’s tremendous influence in filmmaking, this film triggers another view on feminist film festivals, a new grounding one could say: women have always played crucial roles in the film industry and the art of cinema as directors, editors, costume designers, etc. It is a story of continuation, yet continuous struggle, that needs to be told. With new challenges ahead and important demands on intersectional perspectives in feminist filmmaking, I am excited to, again and again, re-think the history, present and future of cinema with you.

Until the next edition, PortoFemme.

Submissions for the festival edition of 2023 are open now.