The International Women's Film Festival (IWFF) was a one-off

film festival A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending up ...

focusing on women's issues and films made by women, run in several capital cities of Australia in 1975.

Background

During the early 1970s, there was a growing feminist movement in Australia, and

women's cinema Women's cinema primarily describes cinematic works directed (and optionally produced too) by women filmmakers. The works themselves do not have to be stories specifically about women and the target audience can be varied. It is also a variety of ...

gained prominence. The role of women's films was discussed at the Women's Liberation Conference in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...

in 1970. Groups such as the Sydney Women's Film Group (SWFG) and Reel Women in Melbourne were established. A number of filmmakers, including Jeni Thornley, Sarah Gibson, Susan Lambert,

Martha Ansara Martha Ansara (born 9 September 1942) is a documentary filmmaker whose films on social issues have won international prizes and been screened in Australia, the UK, Europe and North America. Ansara was one of the first women in Australia to work a ...

Margot Nash Margot (; ) is a feminine French given name, a variant of Marguerite. It is also occasionally a surname. Persons named Margot include the following: People with the given name Margot * Margot Asquith, countess of Oxford and Asquith * Marguerite ...

, and Megan McMurchy collaborated and explored ideas related to women by creating stories in film. Owing to poor distribution by commercial distributors, feminist films were shown by film societies, educational institutions, community groups and

s across Australia and the world. In 1974, ahead of

International Women's Year International Women's Year (IWY) was the name given to 1975 by the United Nations. Since that year March 8 has been celebrated as International Women's Day, and the United Nations Decade for Women, from 1976 to 1985, was also established. His ...

in 1975, a group of around 20 women submitted a proposal to the Film and Television board of the

Australia Council for the Arts The Australia Council for the Arts, commonly known as the Australia Council, is the country's official arts council, serving as an arts funding and advisory body for the Government of Australia. The council was announced in 1967 as the Austr ...

, providing a list of reasons as to why a women's film festival was necessary. These included: *To provide historical and cultural context of

*To allow women to explore their creativity through films *To counterbalance the lack of distribution of women's films in Australia *To provide more exposure for

Australian films The cinema of Australia had its beginnings with the 1906 production of ''The Story of the Kelly Gang'', arguably the world's first feature film. Since then, Australian crews have produced many films, a number of which have received internati ...

made by women *To explore the

iconography Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...

and cinematic language used by women in their films *To examine "women's culture" and develop a feminist perspective in the critique of women's films

The festival

As a protest at the low number of women filmmakers featured in the

Sydney Film Festival The Sydney Film Festival is an annual competitive film festival held in Sydney, Australia, usually over 12 days in June. A number of awards are given, the top one being the Sydney Film Prize. the festival's director is Nashen Moodley. Hist ...

, the Sydney Women's Film Group (SWFG) organises the International Women's Film Festival. From September 1974, groups in each

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * '' Our ...

worked towards creating a film festival, and in January and February 1975, two women from the coordinating group went to Europe and America to negotiate for films that they wanted to show. The International Women's Film Festival, which was the first of its kind in Australia, ran from August to October in 1975, in every state capital city, and Canberra (

Australian Capital Territory The Australian Capital Territory (commonly abbreviated as ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a landlocked federal territory of Australia containing the national capital Canberra and some surrounding townships. ...

). In Melbourne and Sydney the festivals ran for nine days (with an audience of around 56,000), and in the other states they spanned two to three days. The festival was devoted to films by and for women, and was tied to the International Women's Year movement. Jeni Thornley, Margot Oliver, Pat Longmore and Sue Johnston were all part of the original organising group in Sydney, while Suzanne Spunner was co-ordinator of the Melbourne event, which screened at the historic

Palais Theatre The Palais Theatre (originally Palais Pictures) is a historic picture palace located in St Kilda, an inner suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. With a capacity of nearly 3,000 people, it is the largest seated theatre in Australia. Repl ...

Legacy

The festival inspired women filmmakers around the country and empowered activists, helped build momentum for the Australian Women's Liberation Movement, and was the first event that demonstrated that women audiences existed as a distinct group. It also enabled networking for women in various art, theatre and film groups, who later collaborated. Out of these meetings arose ''LIP'', a feminist arts magazine founded by Spunner in 1976. The Melbourne Women in Film Festival (MWIFF), launched in 2017, "inherited the aims and intentions of the original 1975 International Women’s Film Festival". The inaugural event included a keynote panel on which several of the original organisers of the IWFF were panellists, and ran a

shorts Shorts are a garment worn over the pelvic area, circling the waist and splitting to cover the upper part of the legs, sometimes extending down to the knees but not covering the entire length of the leg. They are called "shorts" because they ...

program screening some of the rare films from the IWFF.

Background

The festival

Legacy

Footnotes

References

Further reading