(BFFW Logo © Berlin Feminist Film Week 2020)

by Lindsay R. Bellinger

This year's edition of the Berlin Feminist Film Week 2020 coincided with International Women's Day for the 7th year in a row. To mark the occasion, the Feminist Love Talks program, curated by Marilia Moschkovich, presented an interesting mix of Brazilian short films focusing on questioning traditional relationships. There was a somewhat lively discussion afterwards. Moschkovich is a Brazilian sociologist with a PhD in Social Sciences and Education currently living in Berlin. She has been a feminist activist for the past decade. She has experience with non-monogamous relationships (polyamory) since 2014, which led to her recently making it her research topic. 

The film Vai, made by nine female Pacific filmmakers and filmed in seven different Pacific countries, which world premiered and opened the NATIVe - Indigenous Cinema section at Berlinale 2019 screened following the Brazilian short films and discussion. These eight different but interconnecting stories, depending on how you look at it, tie together Vai's journey from a young girl to an elderly woman. The different stages of her life are filmed in completely different countries and with different local actresses and languages being represented. In these Pacific nations "vai" means some sense of water. Vai is a blending of stories that make up a moving feature film made by nine female filmmakers from the Pacific. The film was shot on-location in Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Kuki Airani (the Cook Islands), Niue and Aotearoa (New Zealand).

Here you can read a bit more about The Berlin Feminist Film Week, their mission and their activities throughout the year. 

(A mulher que eu era © Karen Suzane Silva)

The trailer for A mulher que eu era (The Woman I Was), the closing film from the Feminist Love Talks program.