FESCAAAL has always celebrated differences and this year we want to reflect together on the need to achieve gender equality. In recent years, the leading role of women has grown to the point of being constantly debated, even if we often end up talking about it in terms of gender quotas or women’s quotas.

But especially in the field of cinema, women have always been there, as pioneering filmmakers such as the French Alice Guy-Blaché and the Salerno-born Elvira Notari remind us. However, women are offered fewer opportunities and for this reason female directors are a minority compared to their male colleagues.

At 30th FESCAAAL we therefore want to celebrate them and take advantage of the national dimension of this edition to make their work known as much as possible. We will do this by focusing on 5 films, 1 round table and 1 jury composed entirely of female professionals.

Women on the edge of changing the world: a section and round table discussion

We have created a thematic section that includes five great stories from Morocco, Chile, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and South Korea directed by Maryam Touzani, María Paz González, Hinde Boujemaa, Shahad Ameen, Lee Jihyoung and Kim Sol.

We are planning a round table to dialogue with some personal FESCAAAL guest directors in the various geo-political contexts, focusing above all on female authorship, aesthetic and narrative choices and the production of new female imagery in a contemporary, post-colonial and globalized. This online meeting, called Private spaces, global issues, contemporary visions. How the cineasts of the three continents are changing the vision of the world will see the participation of Annamaria Gallone and Alessandra Speciale (artistic direction of FESCAAAL), Farah Polato (researcher of the University of Padua in filmology, intercultural and post-colonial studies), Michela Occhipinti (director and member of the Fescaaal jury), Beatriz Seigner (director and member of the jury who presents her latest work Between us a secret at the festival), Hinde Boujemaa (director and member of the jury) and some other directors presenting a film at the festival: Hiwot Adamasu (Ethiopia), Shahad Ameen (Saudi Arabia), Marìa Paz Gonzàlez (Chile), Zamo Mkhwanazi (South Africa), Maryam Touzani (Morocco).

Finally, to determine the winning feature film of the festival we also have a jury composed only of female professionals, namely the Tunisian Hinde Boujemaa (awarded in 2019 at the TFF for Le rêve de Noura), Beatriz Seigner, Brazilian screenwriter and director, winner of the Audience Award at FESCAAAL 2019 with Los Silencios (film selected and awarded in 2019 in more than twenty international festivals including Cannes) and Michela Occhipinti (President), Italian director who chose Africa to set her beautiful film debut Bride body presented at Berlinale 2019.

“In these thirty years of festival we have met, invited, awarded a large number of women, filmmakers, artists, warriors from the three continents who, through cinema, have taken Firsthand action to make a change, overturn a stereotype, tell the world through new perspectives. We want to dedicate this 30th edition to them” affirm the artistic directors of the festival Annamaria Gallone and Alessandra Speciale, who can be counted among the first artistic directors of film festivals in Italy.

With this program, FESCAAAL adheres to the Women’s Talents Programme, promoted by Assessorato alla Cultura del Comune di Milano per l‘anno 2020/2021 avvalendosi della collaborazione dell’Ufficio Reti e Cooperazione Culturale del Comune di Milano.