Dublin Feminist Film Festival 2019
22nd, 23rd and 24th August 2019 - Light House Cinema Smithfield Dublin 7
Dublin Feminist Film Festival has established firm roots on Dublin’s cultural calendar, shining a spotlight on women in film. DFFF promotes and celebrates female filmmakers, hoping to inspire and empower others to get involved in filmmaking.
This involves considering women on-screen, but also behind the camera, through the dual-aspect of celebrating and showcasing fantastic female filmmaking, as well as demonstrating that women make compelling and complex characters and subjects. DFFF is a celebratory couple of days and our commitment to inclusive art is reflected in the programme each year, showcasing a range of work, from documentary to drama, short form to feature, films from different places and representing different perspectives, as well as work by women-of-colour.
About 2019's festival
DFFF 2019 is happy to present a season of Irish Female Filmmakers. This year we have dedicated the festival to highlighting the incredible work that these women are doing – across genres and filmmaking formats. Despite the cultural and institutional barriers that still exist – in production and distribution – women in Ireland are directing a wide array of films that are funny, moving, frightening, heart-warming, and often inspirational. These are films that deserve to be seen, talked about, and seen again!
Moving forward, we will continue to support and promote films directed by women from around the world – in fact, this year’s shorts programme remains international in scope – but for now, let’s sit back and enjoy the fantastic cinema landscape being created by Irish women.
WOMEN IN IRISH FILM
For the last five years, Dublin Feminist Film Festival has screened features, documentaries and shorts from around the world. We’re proud to have brought to the screen films directed by women from Argentina, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Canada, Turkey, and other countries far and wide. It’s all part of our mission to showcase and celebrate female filmmaking in all its many forms. No national cinema in the world has anything close to parity when it comes to female filmmakers. And while each country has its own unique set of conditions, even those that are actively promoting and supporting female filmmaking are far from finding equal footing. Sweden, for example, a country that very actively promotes female filmmaking and which has the highest proportion of women-directed films of any in the world, saw roughly 38% of its films directed by women in 2016.
Ireland is no different. Despite a high-profile and highly active push to increase the number of films directed by women here, the number continues to hover around 20% in any given year. We have a relatively young national cinema, and, as our timeline shows, women’s participation in the industry has developed in fits in starts. But even with growing vocal demands for inclusion and a national film board dedicated to promoting female filmmakers, 20% is far too low a number.