Bodies in Trouble: A Charity Film Festival. Mylène Branco and Dominique Carlini Versini Postgraduate Experience Award

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1 Bodies in Trouble: A Charity Film Festival Mylène Branco and Dominique Carlini Versini Postgraduate Experience Award

2 The event The Bodies in Trouble Charity Film Festival was a one-day awareness and fundraising event held at the University of Kent. Its major objective was to raise money for the Rising Sun Domestic Violence and Abuse Charity by promoting and screening films directed by female filmmakers. The Rising Sun Domestic Violence and Abuse Charity is a local charitable organisation based in Kent and provides services for families who are affected by domestic violence and abuse. Over the course of the event, film practitioners and specialists presented the films prior to the screenings and lead panel discussions. The Rising Sun Charity representatives also attended to speak about their work. To mark the end of the festival, BAFTA and multi-award-winning film director, founder and president of Think Equal, Leslee Udwin, was present for a Q&A with the audience. The goals We felt that organising the Bodies in Trouble Charity Film Festival was now more important than ever. In the light of the recent accusations of sexual harassment against the high-profile public figure Harvey Weinstein, women across the world have started speaking up. With this film festival, we wanted to stand up with them, and make a statement against physical and psychological violence. It was our aim to raise consciousness, to show how violence pervades all social classes to implicate everyone. The Bodies in Trouble Charity Film Festival was also about showing the diverse ways female directors have represented gender violence and the body in fiction and non-fictional works. It was open to undergraduate and postgraduate students, academics from the University of Kent and beyond, as well as to a non-academic audience. Fundraising and solidarity. The Bodies in Trouble Charity Film Festival was more than a screening programme aimed at entertainment and cinephilia. It distinguished itself by its nonprofitable, pedagogical and humanitarian goal. The screening programme was characterised by its accessibility to a wide-ranging audience (i.e. non-specialised public, students and scholars) in order to increase public attendance and, subsequently, the funds and spontaneous donations for the Rising Sun charity. Cinephilia. The festival provided a great opportunity for the public to discover a selection of transnational cinematic works by female directors and their various explorations of on-screen gender violence. The programme 19 May 2018 Gulbenkian Cinema

3 : Screening of Pollution, a short film made by School of Arts student Annie Pilnik followed by a discussion with the director 15:00 17:45: Introduction by Prof. Núria Triana Toribio + Screening of Take My Eyes (2003) by Icíar Bollaín followed by a panel discussion with Rising Sun officers 18:00-20:00: Introduction by Mylène Branco and Dominique Carlini Versini + Screening of India s Daughter (2015) followed by a Q&A with director Leslee Udwin Funding and Awards The Bodies in Trouble Charity Film Festival was kindly supported by the Centre for Film and Media Research ( 150), the School of European Culture and Languages ( 300), the Postgraduate Experience Awards ( 400) and the Student Projects Grant Scheme ( 1100) at the University of Kent. The various awards we secured helped us to hire the Gulbenkian cinema, to pay for screening rights for the different films and to invite and fund a guest participant, Leslee Udwin. Leslee Udwin started her own charity organisation Think Equal, an educational charity aiming to bring the missing subject of social and emotional learning to children from the earliest years (3 and onwards) to fight gender and other discrimination through values-based education. India s Daughter has sparked a global movement for gender equality and Udwin has been invited by the UN to give a speech in She was elected by the New York Times second most impactful woman of 2015, right behind Hillary Clinton. India s Daughter won 38 awards across the world. Conclusion Profits made with the sale of tickets were donated to the Rising Sun Domestic Violence and Abuse Service. The feedback we received for the event was very positive. Attendees engaged in productive discussions with the film directors as well as the Service Director of the Rising Sun Women s Shelter, Anne Lyttle. After the Q&A, conversation continued with Leslee Udwin, who showed herself particularly open and approachable. She offered volunteering opportunities at her charity to PhD students who expressed their interest. As organisers, we are very grateful this experience was made possible by the various funding opportunities we received, including the Postgraduate Experience Award. The organisation of this festival honed our creativity and inspired us to keep engaging with the cultural and humanitarian sectors in the future.

4 Fig. 1 School of Arts Alumna and director Annie Pilnik discussing her film Fig. 2 Prof. Núria Triana Toribio introducing Icíar Bollaín s Take My Eyes

5 Fig. 3 Q&A with film director and humanitarian Leslee Udwin led by Mylène Branco and Dominique Carlini Versini Fig. 4 Film directors Leslee Udwin and Annie Pilnik and festival organisers Mylène Branco and Dominique Carlini Versini

6 Fig. 5 Post-festival chat with Leslee Udwin