‘Girls On Film Festival’ Is This Weekend In Melbourne, And It Sounds Amazing
Two days of films, talks and parties that celebrate strong women in film.
When you love a song, you put it on a mixtape. And because the team behind the inaugural Girls On Film Festival love seeing the stories of girls and women told on film with humour, solidarity and positivity, they’ve made you a live mixtape of movies, parties and feminism.
This weekend in Melbourne, GOFF will screen ten features and documentaries, each followed by lively discussions. It’s a smart balance of provocative and inspiring documentaries, family-friendly animation, your favourite cult classics and powerful indigenous dramas. And every night, like the ending of an awesome teen movie, the music starts and everybody parties.
A Salon And Slumber Party
For one weekend, the Northcote Town Hall will be transformed into a cinema and bar – “like a relaxed salon mixed with a super fun slumber party,” says GOFF’s Curator, film critic and programmer Tara Judah (also an occasional Junkee contributor). The festival’s Associate Director Gus Berger, who also runs the roving Blow Up Cinema, is the projectionist.
Along with Berger and Associate Director Rohan Spong (whose documentary T Is For Teacher is showing at GOFF), Judah worked closely with GOFF’s Festival Director, feminist organiser Karen Pickering, and the rest of the GOFF team to mix the perfect film cocktail. Judah also wrote the incisive film synopses you can read on the GOFF website – and in the forthcoming GOFF zine.
Pickering says it’ll be “pretty mind-blowing” to see Radiance on Sunday afternoon with an introduction by dramatist Nakkiah Lui, who’ll be in conversation afterwards with one of the film’s stars, Rachael Maza. “It’s such a strong moment in Australian cinema history, and I’m thrilled that we’re featuring Deborah Mailman and Rachel Perkins in our first GOFF program.”
Judah calls Saturday night’s ‘Murder & Mayhem’ double bill of Heavenly Creatures and Heathers “unmissable”. “When it comes to films that are begging for friends in abundance, I think these are hard to go past. Plus I hear Karen is designing a drinking game for Heathers. How very.”
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Riot Grrrls And Fairy GOFFMothers
Along with the films come the parties. On Saturday afternoon there’s an all-ages feminist hangout called Girl Germs. Named after one of the original Riot Grrrl zines, it includes live music from Georgia Fields, Pikelet and Charm of Finches, a zine-making workshop, DJing lessons, a nail bar, and the Kathleen Hanna documentary The Punk Singer. “My teenage self is doing cartwheels in approval!” says Judah.
Hosting the Girl Germs event is Anna Barnes, one of four festival ambassadors who’ve been dubbed the Fairy GOFFMothers. She and her peers Cerise Howard, Nakkiah Lui and Sarah-Jane Woulahan – who’ll all be introducing and discussing the festival films – embody the spirit of the festival. “They don’t take things too seriously (except art) and they are outspoken feminists with a total, lived commitment to making work that is feminist, as well as reaching out to other women, always,” says Pickering. “To paraphrase Torrance Shipman from Bring It On, ‘They believed in us! That’s important to us!’ — and we believe in them too.”
Pickering traces her personal girls-on-film awakening to Dirty Dancing. “I just thought Baby was so cool and clever and brave, and that Patrick Swayze was a robobabe, and that all the women were complex and powerful,” she says. “I realise now that it was written like that and the makers clearly allowed this main female character to be the best person there, who didn’t need rescuing, and told the audience that the sex object was Johnny, not Baby. Thank goodness for that movie. I have watched it probably a thousand times.”
The festival is called Girls On Film, Pickering says, “to signal that we want young feminists to feel invited – and there are more of them than ever before – but also as a nod to our heroes in Riot Grrrl and that spirit of ‘Girls to the Front’ that really drives GOFF.”
GOFF also wants to make the iconic phrase ‘girls on film’ stand for something better than “that sleazy Duran Duran video”, she adds. “This is more interesting and cool than your dumb song! …Okay, your song is quite catchy.”
So enthusiastic has the support been for GOFF – it raised many operating costs through a successful crowdfunding campaign – that the organisers are already planning next year’s festival, and even considering year-round programming. “There have literally never been more people interested in feminism and popular culture,” says Pickering.
GOFF Won’t Put Baby In A Corner
Women love movies. In the United States they make up the majority of cinemagoers; 70% of all Australian women visit a cinema at least once a year, compared to 64% of men. Screen Australia statistics also show more Australian women are making films than their overseas counterparts: women account for 17% of Australian feature filmmakers (compared to around 5% in Hollywood), 34% of film producers and 24% of screenwriters.
Yet, notoriously, women aren’t seeing themselves onscreen. A study of 2013’s top 100 films found that female characters constituted only 15% of protagonists, 29% of major characters, and 30% of all speaking characters. The New York Film Academy has more depressing statistics about the disproportionate sexualisation and narrative marginalisation of female characters.
“We knew there were other movie lovers like us who were sick of seeing only shitty, boring roles for women, and tired of seeing the same tropes for men in crisis,” Pickering says. “I just wanted one weekend hanging out with other feminist movie fans where girls and women weren’t just set decoration or victims on slabs or annoying girlfriends.”
What differentiates GOFF from other film festivals focused on women directors – such as Sydney’s WOW (World of Women’s Cinema) Film Festival, Tasmania’s Stranger With My Face horror film festival and the Seen & Heard festival – is that it celebrates onscreen visions of powerful, fascinating and inspirational women, no matter who made them. “We all know that dudes can make movies with excellent gender politics and women can make movies with no women at all,” says Pickering, citing Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker. “We wanted movies that make you feel good about feminism and seeing girls and women on screen. Also, we’re unashamedly lowbrow — even mainstream — in our tastes and programming.”
GOFF is changing the tape, and popping a new mix in your deck. “We made it with love,” Pickering says, “and we can’t wait to share it.”
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Girls on Film Festival is on this weekend, 12-14 September, at the Northcote Town Hall. Find out more and get your tickets here.
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Mel Campbell is a freelance journalist and cultural critic. She blogs on style, history and culture at Footpath Zeitgeist, and tweets at@incrediblemelk.