The 14th annual Woman in Media-Newark International Film Festival covers two weeks from July 27-30 and August 3-6 with in-person and virtual screenings in celebration of women's global achievements.
The festival has various venues and is the brainchild of Women in Media-Newark's Executive Director Pamela Morgan, who is also a WBGO board member.
Morgan and two participating filmmakers join WBGO News Director Doug Doyle to talk about their respective docs and the event.
Dorna van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal's Finding Enok: The hidden history of a family in the Dutch East Indies screens at 5pm at the Cranford Theater in Cranford, NJ. The director's statement about her film.
"In Europe, where many countries in history colonised other countries, a discussion about our past has been going on for years. So too in the Netherlands. Before World War II one of the largest empires in the world, with many colonies in East and West, now one of the smallest country’s. Since 1949, Indonesia has been an independent state, at least according to the Netherlands, when the official handover took place. The Indonesians themselves have a different independence date: 17 August 1945, when President Sukarno issued the proclamation. That briefly outlines the split we find ourselves in; we Dutch were colonists and oppressed another people, but to this day we have enormous difficulty admitting it. Yet we have to acknowledge it and many feel shame about the past. The assessment of our ancestors’ actions is diametrically reversed. If you were (once) a victim of another, it is not so difficult. But if you, or at least your ancestors, were perpetrators, it becomes more difficult. nYou need a nimble mind for that.
At a time when kings and government leaders are apologising for past misdeeds, my cousin Maurice and I made a road movie in our native Indonesia, in search of the indigenous ancestor Enok, to whom we feel connected. But we are also the grandchildren of a white Dutchman who was part of that colonial system. How do you yourself feel about these changing views of our past? Do they lead to that sense of guilt and desire to make amends? Our ancestors will continue to visit us, at least in spirit and our DNA, if the violations they experienced in the past are not addressed and acknowledged. And that includes Enok, our grandfather’s mistress, who had to give up her own child to the father as well as the ruler of her land. She taught me the all-important lesson we must all learn: countries and women must be freed, now and in the past, from colonial and patriarchal structures, power must be returned to them to express their stories, voices and freedom. Finding Enok is a film about and also an ode to Enok, an indigenous girl who suffered in an inhuman system and whose existence has forever changed our family into what it is."
Gina Rodgers-Sealy's film Two Faced: Gender Inequality in the Bahamas will be shown on August 5 at the Newark Library at 10am.
Rodgers-Sealy says while The Bahamas is a beautiful and progressive country, there are many difficult issues for women there.
"The Bahamas is is such a beautiful little country, that is world class in many respects except when it comes to the rights of women. With the highest rate of rape per capita in the world and no laws in place to protect women against marital rape, The Bahamas’ beauty fades. This documentary was created to reach out and explain this dilemma to not only our Bahamian people, but to anyone in the world that wants and cares enough to listen."
The festival's lineup is set.
You can SEE the entire interview here.
