For all of five days, the team led by Festival Director Silke Räbiger had presented over 90 films, talks, seminars and workshops at six different venues. Despite beautiful early summer weather, the enthusiastic audiences ensured sell-out performances. Altogether, more than 8,000 viewers came to Cologne especially for the festival.

Prize Winners 2008

No easy job for the jury. The eight entries in this year's Best International Debut Feature Film Competition for women film directors were all completely different in style and content, which ranged from war parable through road movie to literary film. And the winner was … "L’HOMME QUI MARCHE" by French director Aurélia Georges who was in Cologne personally to pick up €10,000 prize at the evening awards ceremony held in the Film Forum.

According to jury members Dr Barbara Buhl (Cologne), Prof. Dai Jinhua (Peking) and Nina Menkes (Los Angeles)

"L’HOMME QUI MARCHE is an unconventional film portrait of an unknown author seen from a contemporary viewpoint. Screenplay, main actor, camerawork and editing all come together in a bonafide and sparing way to create a convincing, authentic, true-to-detail piece of work about the life of an unsuccessful artist who gradually loses contact with society."

The jury also gave special praise to the Dutch social comedy "MAYBE SWEDEN" by Margien Rogaar, saying …

"Thanks to successful mix of outstanding direction, interplay between the actors, a taut dramatic structure and a sharp sense of humour, the outcome is a strong and politically relevant film."

The winner of the Audience Prize, which comes with €1,000 donated by Choices, the listings magazine, was "COWBOY ANGELS" by Kim Massée (F)

The Focus on China section of the program offered a good overview of the films currently being made by Chinese women film directors and the chance to talk to the film-makers in person. Unique opportunities which, in this form, will probably not be possible in Germany for some time to come. Either way, the variety of the works on view left an impression of an incredibly vital, creative and self-aware film scene.

Unlike previous years, all the programme sections were given equal footing — with Queer Looks, as ever, proving to be the audience magnet. With her comedy "TICK TOCK LULLABY," for example, Lisa Gornik (UK) simply enchanted the Film Forum audience on the Saturday evening.

The ideal of allowing more space and time for the need to talk about film and content also went down very well. For instance, the Panorama film & discussion event with Medica Mondiale revolving round Meira Asher's documentary film "WOMAN SEE A LOT OF THINGS" about former girl soldiers in Sierra Leone made a deep and moving impression on the audience.

Meanwhile, as if in no time at all, our brand-new Festival Blog – a collaborative venture by students at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences and the Technical University of Dortmund – became a lively online platform for all the latest news about the festival. It will continue after the festival has finished at: http://festivalblog.or.yourweb.de/

This year, from 23 – 27 April 2008, a total of 95 movies including new international discoveries, feature film debuts and the latest lesbian and transgender films will be providing a unique overview of the latest films being made by women from 30 different countries. The PANORAMA and Queer Looks sections are the core of the 2008 festival.

PANORAMA – the forum for international new discoveries

In 2008, PANORAMA will be presenting no fewer than 44 topical works from 18 countries. Films from all genres and of all lengths. Again, the documentary format is also well represented. Here the women film-makers have put children and young adults at the center of their attention, locating their protagonists within social structures that are frequently all too rigid and ingrained. A prison for juvenile delinquents in the Russian Urals, with all the rituals of re-education but no great chance of success, in Allein in vier Wänden ("Alone In Four Walls") by Alexandra Westmeier. Her film has already been screened at the Sundance Festival. A psychiatric clinic in Rumania with its insurmountable courtyard walls in Adina Pintilie's prize-winning documentary film Don't Get Me Wrong (Golden Dove 2007, DOK Leipzig). Or the ongoing cultivation of feudal structures in modern-day India in Lakshmi & Me by Nishtha Jain. Meanwhile, in her first documentary film Elle s’appelle Sabine, the French actress Sandrine Bonnaire shows a moving but also positive portrait of her autistic sister Sabine.

As if purpose-made for a women's film festival, Vogliamo anche le rose ("We Want Roses Too") is receiving its German premiere in Cologne. With its young and unconventional central characters, Alina Marazzi's documentary take on the emancipation process in the Italy of the 1960s and 1970s is as fresh and rebellious as its cast.

The feature films in the PANORAMA section are also humorous and quirky. Based on real events, Très bien, merci by Emmanuelle Cuau is a tragicomedy bordering on the absurd. After being involved in a trivial incident, a typical Mr & Mrs Average get caught up in the claws of the French justice system … from which there appears to be no escape. Sandrine Kiberlain and Gilbert Melki are simply brilliant whether acting grotesque or tranquil moments.

To kick off the long film night on Saturday with a raft of entertaining shorts, the festival is pleased to present a work from the Argentinian cinema, the like of which you will never have seen before: UPA! Una pelicula argentina. The film is a wonderful dogme satire on the perils of film-making, lack of funds, unreliable assistants and a coked-up over-the-top film director.

Where more classic styles might come up against their limits, experimental approaches help to make stories narratable and ideas articulatable. In her new documentary film, for example, the Japanese director Naomi Kawase Tarachime – Birth/Mother does not pursue a linear narrative structure. The distance in time between the birth of her own daughter and the death of her grandmother (who brought her up) is interwoven with poetic intimate and, at times, even harsh moments of memory.

In re-enacted scenes, three women process the nightmare they experienced as child-combatants in Sierra Leone. Woman See Lot of Things is a striking portrait by Netherlands based Israeli director Meira Asher of occurrences that words cannot begin to describe. She gives the women space to express their memories through movement. How about crawling on your stomach up to the victim? What does it feel like to cut a woman's unborn baby out of her stomach? The female ex child-combatants themselves relate their stories — neither downplaying nor dramatising the events. After the screening, there will be an opportunity to discuss the topic with the director and with Gabriela Mischkowski, an expert on gender justice from medica mondiale.

The subsection of Experiments in the PANORAMA section as a whole is also given over to experimental documentaries as it presents the latest work by renowned avant-garde artists. In Part Time Heroes by Mara Mattuschka and Chris Haring, for example, the four protagonists use dance, sprechgesang and antique communication devices to stage their egos. Alternatively, Light·Work·Mood·Disorder by Jennifer Reeves stands more in the tradition of classic experimental film. The New York-based film-artist, whose works have frequently been seen at the festival, collaborates here with musician Anthony Burr: they mix footage material from the fields of science, industry and medicine with electronic music, bass clarinet and organ. For its part, Phantom Love expresses that feeling of being trapped in your own soul and it is with this work, an experimental full-length film, that Nina Menkes – the US underground star and member of the jury at this year's International Debut Feature Film Competition – makes a comeback after some time away from the limelight. As both director and camerawoman, Ms Menkes depicts the life of her protagonist in precise black-and-white pictures — surreal and full of symbolic meaning.

QUEER LOOKS

International lesbian- and transgender films

The Queer Looks section now rates as a tradition in its own right at the Cologne branch of the festival. This time round, it highlights 22 films out of ten different countries, offering a thematic spectrum that couldn't be more diverse. From Jamie Babbit, the director of But I'm a Cheerleader, Itty Bitty Titty Committee is a homage to the Riot Grrl movement, a truly refreshing story about an apolitical small-breasted woman who sets out to learn all about radical feminism and find love in the process. Or, as critic Ruby Rich puts it so neatly: "For all of those who despair of the world and of the cinema, this bunch of 'revolting lesbians' have got a megadosis of hope in store". Tick Tock Lullaby by Lisa Gornick is a comedy about the impossibility of a lesbian getting pregnant by coincidence, the pros and cons of parenthood and the power of the imagination. Jamie Babbitt and Lisa Gornick will be in Cologne to present their work in person.

Three documentary- and two short-film blocks round off the Queer Looks section. The Canadian-Chinese production of She’s a Boy I Knew breaks with the notion that transident people start as a child to rebel against the gender that has been imposed on them. Instead, it shows the path taken by one person who only after years as a boy and man comes to terms with his womanhood.

Seeds of Summer documents the drills that young women in the Israeli Army are put through. Former combat soldier Hen Lasker, now armed with a camera, decides to retrace the steps of her past only to find herself getting involved again.

With Love and Words, Sylvie Ballyot attempts to depict the undepictable. Her pictures of a Yemenite woman were confiscated by the authorities and her subject threatened with death. Even so, Ms Ballyot decides to continue with the project.

Art as bioterror

– exclusive preview of Lynn Hershman-'s Strange Culture at ART Cologne

In cooperation with the Stranger Than Fiction Festival and ART Cologne, there will be a screening of Strange Culture by Lynn Hershman-Leeson in the Filmforum / Museum Ludwig on 19 April at 21.00h. With this preview, the team at Dortmund|Cologne International Women's Film Festival is hoping to whet the film-going appetite before the actual festival begins. Ms Hershman-Leeson's documentary is a series of interviews that detail how a seemingly banal misunderstanding can turn into a judicial nightmare.

NEW — Festival Blog and Festival News

Infos, backstage stories, opinions about the festival. And that on a 24/7 basis! This year, in addition to the official website at www.frauenfilmfestival.eu, there will be two other festival-centred publications: The Festival News and The Festival Blog.

The Festival News is a student project that has run successfully at the Dortmund branch of the festival for several years. As its name suggests, it is a (daily) newspaper that provides visitors to the festival with interviews, previews and reviews as well as background stories. This is its first issue at the Cologne location.

The Festival Blog is entirely new, the result of a cooperative venture with the Cologne University of Applied Sciences and Prof. Petra Werner from the Department of Online Journalism. Here you will find comments and impressions put together by students from the Cologne University and the Technical University of Dortmund. It is to be launched at the beginning of April at redakteure.com/festival-blog

Further information about the short list of films and the members of the jury for the International Debut Feature Film Competition, about the School Films Program and about various cooperative ventures and special events will be provided in the form of press statements or via our website: www.frauenfilmfestival.eu from where you can also download this press release and press photos.

This year, from 23 – 27 April 2008, a total of 95 movies including new international discoveries, feature film debuts and the latest lesbian and transgender films will be providing a unique overview of the latest films being made by women from 30 different countries. The PANORAMA and Queer Looks sections are the core of the 2008 festival.

PANORAMA – the forum for international new discoveries

In 2008, PANORAMA will be presenting no fewer than 44 topical works from 18 countries. Films from all genres and of all lengths. Again, the documentary format is also well represented. Here the women film-makers have put children and young adults at the center of their attention, locating their protagonists within social structures that are frequently all too rigid and ingrained. A prison for juvenile delinquents in the Russian Urals, with all the rituals of re-education but no great chance of success, in Allein in vier Wänden ("Alone In Four Walls") by Alexandra Westmeier. Her film has already been screened at the Sundance Festival. A psychiatric clinic in Rumania with its insurmountable courtyard walls in Adina Pintilie's prize-winning documentary film Don't Get Me Wrong (Golden Dove 2007, DOK Leipzig). Or the ongoing cultivation of feudal structures in modern-day India in Lakshmi & Me by Nishtha Jain. Meanwhile, in her first documentary film Elle s’appelle Sabine, the French actress Sandrine Bonnaire shows a moving but also positive portrait of her autistic sister Sabine.

As if purpose-made for a women's film festival, Vogliamo anche le rose ("We Want Roses Too") is receiving its German premiere in Cologne. With its young and unconventional central characters, Alina Marazzi's documentary take on the emancipation process in the Italy of the 1960s and 1970s is as fresh and rebellious as its cast.

The feature films in the PANORAMA section are also humorous and quirky. Based on real events, Très bien, merci by Emmanuelle Cuau is a tragicomedy bordering on the absurd. After being involved in a trivial incident, a typical Mr & Mrs Average get caught up in the claws of the French justice system … from which there appears to be no escape. Sandrine Kiberlain and Gilbert Melki are simply brilliant whether acting grotesque or tranquil moments.

To kick off the long film night on Saturday with a raft of entertaining shorts, the festival is pleased to present a work from the Argentinian cinema, the like of which you will never have seen before: UPA! Una pelicula argentina. The film is a wonderful dogme satire on the perils of film-making, lack of funds, unreliable assistants and a coked-up over-the-top film director.

Where more classic styles might come up against their limits, experimental approaches help to make stories narratable and ideas articulatable. In her new documentary film, for example, the Japanese director Naomi Kawase Tarachime – Birth/Mother does not pursue a linear narrative structure. The distance in time between the birth of her own daughter and the death of her grandmother (who brought her up) is interwoven with poetic intimate and, at times, even harsh moments of memory.

In re-enacted scenes, three women process the nightmare they experienced as child-combatants in Sierra Leone. Woman See Lot of Things is a striking portrait by Netherlands based Israeli director Meira Asher of occurrences that words cannot begin to describe. She gives the women space to express their memories through movement. How about crawling on your stomach up to the victim? What does it feel like to cut a woman's unborn baby out of her stomach? The female ex child-combatants themselves relate their stories — neither downplaying nor dramatising the events. After the screening, there will be an opportunity to discuss the topic with the director and with Gabriela Mischkowski, an expert on gender justice from medica mondiale.

The subsection of Experiments in the PANORAMA section as a whole is also given over to experimental documentaries as it presents the latest work by renowned avant-garde artists. In Part Time Heroes by Mara Mattuschka and Chris Haring, for example, the four protagonists use dance, sprechgesang and antique communication devices to stage their egos. Alternatively, Light·Work·Mood·Disorder by Jennifer Reeves stands more in the tradition of classic experimental film. The New York-based film-artist, whose works have frequently been seen at the festival, collaborates here with musician Anthony Burr: they mix footage material from the fields of science, industry and medicine with electronic music, bass clarinet and organ. For its part, Phantom Love expresses that feeling of being trapped in your own soul and it is with this work, an experimental full-length film, that Nina Menkes – the US underground star and member of the jury at this year's International Debut Feature Film Competition – makes a comeback after some time away from the limelight. As both director and camerawoman, Ms Menkes depicts the life of her protagonist in precise black-and-white pictures — surreal and full of symbolic meaning.

QUEER LOOKS

International lesbian- and transgender films

The Queer Looks section now rates as a tradition in its own right at the Cologne branch of the festival. This time round, it highlights 22 films out of ten different countries, offering a thematic spectrum that couldn't be more diverse. From Jamie Babbit, the director of But I'm a Cheerleader, Itty Bitty Titty Committee is a homage to the Riot Grrl movement, a truly refreshing story about an apolitical small-breasted woman who sets out to learn all about radical feminism and find love in the process. Or, as critic Ruby Rich puts it so neatly: "For all of those who despair of the world and of the cinema, this bunch of 'revolting lesbians' have got a megadosis of hope in store". Tick Tock Lullaby by Lisa Gornick is a comedy about the impossibility of a lesbian getting pregnant by coincidence, the pros and cons of parenthood and the power of the imagination. Jamie Babbitt and Lisa Gornick will be in Cologne to present their work in person.

Three documentary- and two short-film blocks round off the Queer Looks section. The Canadian-Chinese production of She’s a Boy I Knew breaks with the notion that transident people start as a child to rebel against the gender that has been imposed on them. Instead, it shows the path taken by one person who only after years as a boy and man comes to terms with his womanhood.

Seeds of Summer documents the drills that young women in the Israeli Army are put through. Former combat soldier Hen Lasker, now armed with a camera, decides to retrace the steps of her past only to find herself getting involved again.

With Love and Words, Sylvie Ballyot attempts to depict the undepictable. Her pictures of a Yemenite woman were confiscated by the authorities and her subject threatened with death. Even so, Ms Ballyot decides to continue with the project.

Art as bioterror

– exclusive preview of Lynn Hershman-'s Strange Culture at ART Cologne

In cooperation with the Stranger Than Fiction Festival and ART Cologne, there will be a screening of Strange Culture by Lynn Hershman-Leeson in the Filmforum / Museum Ludwig on 19 April at 21.00h. With this preview, the team at Dortmund|Cologne International Women's Film Festival is hoping to whet the film-going appetite before the actual festival begins. Ms Hershman-Leeson's documentary is a series of interviews that detail how a seemingly banal misunderstanding can turn into a judicial nightmare.

NEW — Festival Blog and Festival News

Infos, backstage stories, opinions about the festival. And that on a 24/7 basis! This year, in addition to the official website at www.frauenfilmfestival.eu, there will be two other festival-centred publications: The Festival News and The Festival Blog.

The Festival News is a student project that has run successfully at the Dortmund branch of the festival for several years. As its name suggests, it is a (daily) newspaper that provides visitors to the festival with interviews, previews and reviews as well as background stories. This is its first issue at the Cologne location.

The Festival Blog is entirely new, the result of a cooperative venture with the Cologne University of Applied Sciences and Prof. Petra Werner from the Department of Online Journalism. Here you will find comments and impressions put together by students from the Cologne University and the Technical University of Dortmund. It is to be launched at the beginning of April at redakteure.com/festival-blog

Further information about the short list of films and the members of the jury for the International Debut Feature Film Competition, about the School Films Program and about various cooperative ventures and special events will be provided in the form of press statements or via our website: www.frauenfilmfestival.eu from where you can also download this press release and press photos.