17th IAWRT Asian Women's Film Festival - Online Edition

The pandemic and lockdown was lurking at the edges of our festival in March 2020 and though we were able to come together in this annual gathering, for many of us it was the last public event before the coronavirus unleashed its wrath. The months that followed have shown that in a globalised world, erecting walls and barbed wire fences cannot bring about protection. And so, the need to dismantle enforced segregation and instead build solidarities, is not just a moral imperative but a practical one.

As creative media practitioners, we turn to the arts to help us do that, and our festival this year draws attention to this, both in the form that it has taken as an online festival and in the films that are being screened. We continue to strive towards building networks through artistic practice and highlight common ground with women filmmakers from across Asia. For IAWRT India, the Asian Women’s Film Festival is not a festival of what are commonly termed “women’s issues” but one that focuses on women’s perspectives of the world, on questions that are of concern to everyone. Thus, the idea of uncertainty that this festival explores is through a plurality of visions seen in the work of women filmmakers from diverse countries – India, Armenia, Taiwan, USA, Afghanistan, Iran and Hong Kong.

We hope you will enjoy the films, participate in the conversations with the filmmakers, and listen to what accomplished women practitioners have to say in the Masterclasses. While the context of the pandemic has certainly brought constraints, it has also opened up new ways of connecting that we hope will support this non-competitive space that has been nurtured for 17 years.

Until next year, in person!

-Samina Mishra

It is a privilege to be part of the organising team of the 17th IAWRT Asian Women’s Film Festival that has grown into a nurturing space for diverse women’s perspectives on the world. This year, the experiences of living through the pandemic have shaped the underlying thread of uncertainty that runs through the voices and practices that the programme presents. Through a mix of fiction, non-fiction, animation and experimental films, this year’s programme encourages viewers to look towards the challenges facing the world as they manifest in individual and collective lives, and draw from the stories of hope to imagine new possibilities. The films present both the inner lives of characters as well as larger structural issues to reinforce our abiding belief in the inextricable link between the personal and the political.

We are proud to share films that have won accolades at prestigious film festivals as well as some that will have their Indian, Asian and World premieres at AWFF 2021. As a festival and organisation that believes in enhancing opportunities for young women, we are pleased to have films by first-time women filmmakers that showcase how the young experience the world. The festival includes conversations around the films to generate dialogue and reflection on ideas and form, making room for different filmmakers to share their process. This is strengthened in the two Masterclasses on Editing and Sound, with Jabeen Merchant and Amala Popuri respectively, that focus on questions of craft and practice, and draw out how women respond to challenges in their work.

The COVID 19 pandemic has meant that this year’s festival will be an online edition. While we will certainly miss the physical interactions, we hope that the possibility of watching the films at any time in the 48-hour window and from anywhere in the world, brings us new film-lovers not constrained by location. We look forward to your participation in the discussions and hope you enjoy the selection of films.

Welcome to another edition of films by Asian women!

– Deepti Khurana