Athena Film Festival
March 2-5, 2023 at Barnard College
DAUGHTER OF RAGE / LA HIJA DE TODAS LAS RABIAS
A film by Laura Baumeister
(Nicaragua/Mexico/Netherlands/Germany/France/Norway/Spain, 2022, 91 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Nicaragua, today. Eleven-year-old María lives with her mother Lilibeth on the edge of an immense rubbish dump. Their future depends on selling a litter of purebred puppies to a local gang member. When the deal falls through, Lilibeth has to move to the outskirts of the city and leave María to work at a recycling factory. The days go by with no sign of her mother's return. María feels abandoned, confused and angry. One night she meets Tadeo, a kind and romantic boy determined to help her find her mother.
FOGARÉU
A film by Flávia Neves
(Brazil/France, 2022, 100 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
On the border between the real and the fantastic, between the colonial past and the overwhelming modernity of agribusiness, the city of Goiás is the scene of the meeting between the young Fernanda and her secret roots. She returns to the home of her wealthy uncle, after the death of her adoptive mother, in order to implode the certainties and to reveal the painful truth about its origin.
JEANNETTE
A film by Maris Curran
(USA, 2022, 78 min. In English)
Jeannette is unlike any character we’ve seen depicted on screen before; she’s a competitive bodybuilder and a lesbian single mother who struggles to cope with trauma after surviving a mass shooting. The film begins in the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub massacre and follows Jeannette as she recovers, backslides and eventually finds support and healing through community. The film provides a window into Jeannette’s life—her strained relationship with her mother, her identity as a lesbian and mother to her teenage son and her roots in Puerto Rico. Taking a vérité approach, Maris works to create a window into one woman’s life—her strength and vulnerability—in the aftermath of trauma. Jeannette is a film about resilience that gives an audience the opportunity to move past the headlines and ask: in the wake of tragedy, how do we move toward wholeness?
EL CARRITO
A film by Zahida Pirani
(USA, 2021, 15 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
Nelly lives alone with her elderly father. The only way she makes ends meet is by working as a street vendor from dawn to dusk. Nelly has learned not to trust anyone until one day she is forced to take a leap of faith or be resigned to her position forever.
THE RITUAL TO BEAUTY
A film by Shenny de Los Angeles, Maria Marrone
(USA, 2021, 15 min. In English and Spanish with English subtitles)
The Ritual to Beauty is a mixed media piece integrating the stylization of documentary and spoken word. Inspired by Shenny’s one-woman show “What Happens to Brown Girls Who Never Learn How to Love Themselves Brown?”, this piece invites you to witness the meaning of beauty through three generations of Dominican women. The grandmother, the mother, and the daughter.
In learning about the ritual to beauty that was passed down to each woman, there is a pain buried deep in the denial of their blackness. It is only through the secret voice in the water, that the daughter is able to release herself from a pain she’s been holding onto since she was born. By forgiving herself and the women before her, will she finally see just how beautiful she is when she’s free?
