Announcing the Women+Film Festival Lineup
Denver Film has announced the line-up for the 2023 Women+Film Festival, opening April 13 and running through April 16 at the Sie FilmCenter, 2510 E. Colfax Ave. Full festival passes are $75 for Denver Film Members/$85 Non-Member, and individual film tickets are $15 for Denver Film Members/$18 Non-Member. Individual tickets and full festival passes go on sale March 16 at 10 a.m. at denverfilm.org.
The Festival’s Opening Night presentation is Judy Blume Forever, a documentary celebrating the woman whose trail-blazing books changed the way millions of readers understand themselves, their sexuality and what it means to grow up. The Festival will conclude April 16 at the Sie FilmCenter with a presentation of The Eternal Memory. Using archival footage from both newsreels and intimate home video, this film – winner of the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema Documentary at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival – explores a Chilean couple’s 25-year romance, a husband’s diagnosis with Alzheimer’s and his wife’s role as caretaker.
“We’re thrilled not only to bring the best in woman-centric global cinema right to Denver but also to collaborate with a variety of woman-owned and woman-led local businesses,” said Denver Film Programming Manager Ambriehl Turrentine. “This ultimate goal of our festival is to celebrate and strengthen our connection to film itself and our own community.”
In addition to an exceptional film lineup, this year’s festival includes an Opening Night reception with food and drinks on Thursday, April 13 at 6 p.m. and a marketplace featuring gifts, artwork, crafts and novelties from local, woman-owned businesses on Saturday, April 15 from noon to 5 p.m. in the Sie FilmCenter lobby.
The festival will also feature live Q&As with filmmakers immediately following the presentation of The Disappearance of Shere Hite on Saturday, April 15 at 7 p.m. and the presentation of Girl Talk on Sunday, April 16 at 11:30 a.m.
Click to see the full schedule and purchase tickets and passes.
Members of the press interested in covering the Women+Film Festival may contact Denver Film’s Ambriehl Turrentine at ambriehl@denverfilm.org or Marty Schechter at marty@schechterpr.com.
FILMS IN PROGRAM:
JUDY BLUME FOREVER
Directors: Davina Pardo & Leah Wolchok
Opening Night – Thursday, April 13, 7 p.m.
Generations of readers have found themselves in a Judy Blume book. Her name alone launches a flood of memories for anyone who’s gripped one of her many paperbacks. For decades, Blume’s radical honesty has comforted and captivated readers – and landed her at the center of controversy for her frankness about puberty and sex. Now the beloved American author candidly shares her own coming- of-age story.
Emmy-winning filmmakers Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok trace Blume’s journey from fearful, imaginative child to storytelling pioneer who elevated the physical and emotional lives of kids and teens, to banned writer who continues to fight back against censorship today. Playful and poignant animations celebrate the magic and awkwardness of being young, while intimate conversations with acclaimed authors and artists reveal Blume’s profound impact on readers. Long-standing fans share open-hearted letters they wrote to Blume over decades.
With humor, sensitivity, and a healthy dose of adolescent cringe, Judy Blume Forever tells the story of the woman whose trail-blazing books changed the way millions of readers understand themselves, their sexuality, and what it means to grow up.
Includes a pre-film reception featuring food and drinks at 6 p.m.
AN ETERNITY OF YOU AND ME
Director: Sanne This
Friday, April 14, 2 p.m.
Albert and Sanne live in a house with their cat and chickens in the backyard. And more than anything, they dream of having a child. So they give it a try, and have already started preparing to become parents. But nothing much really happens and they have to resort to fertility treatment and artificial insemination. As if taken from the myth of Sisyphus, Albert and Sanne roll one stone after another up the side of the mountain, only to see them roll back down just before they reach the top. But Sanne is also the film’s director, and takes us along for everything from gynecological exams and doctor’s appointments to negative pregnancy tests and marital conflicts. An Eternity of You and Me is a musical chamber play told in sweatpants about relationships, ingrained gender roles and all the dreams you have to bury – or dig up again – once the fox has been around.
PLAN C
Director: Tracy Droz Tragos
Friday, April 14, 4 p.m.
The abortion pill, which safely and effectively ends a pregnancy up to 12 weeks, has been approved by the FDA since 2000 and yet few have heard of it. Plan C follows Francine Coeytaux, a public health specialist and the co-founder of the grassroots organization Plan C, as she and her team fight to expand knowledge of, and access to, the abortion pill across the United States. The film reveals the pipelines they built, the criticism they faced, and the hope they have for the future.
BLUE JEAN
Director: Georgia Oakley
Friday, April 14, 7 p.m.
England, 1988 – Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government is about to pass a law stigmatizing gays and lesbians, forcing Jean, a gym teacher, to live a double life. As pressure mounts from all sides, the arrival of a new girl at school catalyzes a crisis that will challenge Jean to her core.
Screening in partnership with Blush & Blu
BLACK BARBIE: A DOCUMENTARY
Director: Lagueria Davis
Saturday, April 15, 11:30 a.m.
Love her or hate her, almost everyone has a Barbie story. Even if they don’t have a story, there’s a story as to why they don’t have a story. In this film, we tell the story behind the first Black Barbie, because yes, she has a story too. It started with the filmmaker’s 83-year old aunt, Beulah Mae Mitchell and a seemingly simple question, “Why not make a Barbie that looks like me?”
SHORTS PROGRAM
Saturday, April 15, 2 p.m.
Films and presentations include Aemilia Scott’s Help Me Understand, Sue Ding’s Makeover Movie, Nicole Bazuin’s Thriving: A Dissociated Reverie, Urška Djukic and Émilie Pigeard’s Granny’s Sexual Life, Ash Goh Hua’s The Feeling of Being Close to You, and Laís Santos Araújo’s Infantry.
MONICA
Director: Andrea Pallaoro
Saturday, April 15, 4:15 p.m.
Monica is the intimate portrait of a woman who returns home to the Midwest for the first time in 20 years to take care of her dying mother. Exploring the universal themes of abandonment, aging, rejection, acceptance and forgiveness, we are led into Monica’s world and state of mind, the pain and fear, needs and desires of a woman whose journey ultimately illuminates the human condition.
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SHERE HITE
Director: Nicole Newnham
Saturday, April 15, 7 p.m.
The Hite Report, a groundbreaking study of the intimate experiences of women, remains one of the bestselling books of all time since its publication in 1976. Drawn from anonymous survey responses, the book challenged restrictive conceptions of sex and opened a dialogue in popular culture around women’s pleasure. Its charismatic author, Shere Hite, a feminist sex researcher and former model, became the public messenger of women’s secret confessions. With each subsequent bestseller, she engaged television titans in unforgettably explicit debates about sexuality while suffering the backlash her controversial findings provoked. But few remember Shere Hite today. What led to her erasure?
Digging into exclusive archives, as well as Hite’s personal journals and the original survey responses, filmmaker Nicole Newnham (Crip Camp, 2021 Best Feature Documentary Oscar® Nominee, Audience Award Winner: U.S. Documentary, 2020 Sundance Film Festival) transports viewers back to a time of great societal transformation around sexuality. Her revelatory portrait is a rediscovery of a pioneer who has had an unmistakable influence on current conversations about gender, sexuality, and bodily autonomy, as well as a timely, cautionary tale of what too often happens to women who dare speak out.
Includes post-film Q&A with director Nicole Newnham
GIRL TALK
Director: Lucia Small
Sunday, April 16, 11:30 a.m.
Set in the cutthroat, boy-dominated world of high school debate, Girl Talk tells the timely story of five girls on a diverse, top-ranked Massachusetts high school debate team. They are often talked over, under-represented and judged differently than their male counterparts, but each girl faces these challenges and shows us the value of speaking up and finding your true voice.
Includes post-film Q&A
SHOWING UP
Director: Kelly Reichardt
Sunday, April 16, 2:15 p.m.
A sculptor preparing to open a new show must balance her creative life with the daily dramas of family and friends, in Kelly Reichardt’s vibrant and captivatingly funny portrait of art and craft.
THE ETERNAL MEMORY
Director: Maite Alberdi
Closing Night – Sunday, April 16, 5 p.m.
Augusto Góngora, a veteran Chilean journalist and prominent chronicler of the crimes of the Pinochet regime, and Paulina Urrutia, actress, activist and politician, have been a tight-knit loving couple for over 20 years. Augusto was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s eight years ago, and now Augusto and Paulina face the inexorable and accelerating descent of his physical and mental powers together. Heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time, the story of Paulina’s warm and uncompromising dedication and Augusto’s fierce fight to hold on to his identity is a deeply affecting testimony to their love. The Eternal Memory is both an inquiry into human dignity in old age and adversity and into the mechanisms of individual and collective remembrance. What – and who – do we recall from our past? Why do we forget or suppress certain memories, and what effect does this have, on a person as well as on an entire country?
Includes a post-film reception featuring food and drinks at 6:30 p.m.
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Sponsors
Liberty Global, Visit Denver, Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative (IGLI), Colorado Office of Film, Television, and Media, Mordecai Heyman Family Fund, SecondAct|Women, SCFD, National Endowment for the Arts, Bonfils-Stanton Foundation
