SATURday, March 18 / 3:00 pm / Ottawa Art Gallery

Program: Likeness, Maya Nilo (Laura), interactive talk with Emily Diana Ruth

“The Female Gaze” \

To expand IFFO’s programming year-round, IFFO programmer Tish Black created “The Female Gaze” screening series to focus on women not just behind the camera, but women on-screen and in the audience. The film and thematic talk of each screening explore, with the audience, the personal and cultural significance of films created by women, about women, and for women. (Once more for effect: women!)

In the series’ first in-person screening, Tish invites Canadian filmmaker Emily Diana Ruth to discuss the featured film Maya Nilo (Laura) and the complexities of women’s familial relationships in films. With three generations, Maya Nilo (Laura) explores relationships between mothers and daughters, sisters, aunts and nieces, and grandmothers and grandchildren. 

Women's relationships are often relegated to the land of “chick flicks” in film, but they are far from trite, nor are they a niche topic. Stories exploring women’s relationships with other women in their family can be viscerally relatable and evocative for viewers. Recently, we saw an atypical mother-daughter relationship in The Lost Daughter about a mother who struggled with motherhood. In 2017’s Meditation Park (screening at IFFO this year), we found a daughter supporting her mother’s new lease on life. And of course, the classic Little Women, and its many film adaptations, presented many layers of sisterhood among the March women. Women and their families certainly make it on-screen, but how do we feel about the representation?

Centred around Maya Nilo (Laura), Tish and Emily, and the audience, will have a discussion after the screening about conventional and unconventional family dynamics, seeing ourselves (or not) represented in the women and their families on screen, and how complex fictional familial relationships can affect our own.

Feature presentation \

motherhood \ sisterhood \ road trip

Driving through five countries, sisters Maya and Nilo, and Nilo’s daughter Laura, are heading from their home in Stockholm to their mother’s home in Portugal, all with their own motives for the trip. Maya’s son has been living with his grandmother for some time, but with his father threatening to take his son back, the unsuccessful music artist is desperate to arrive first and claim her son for her own. Stealing her sister’s car, Maya picks up her niece Laura, who is secretly planning to go meet a boy she talks to on the Internet when they drive through Germany. With no choice but to get her car and daughter (and some control) back, Nilo crashes their trip. A feminist writer with a cheating husband, Nilo decides to join their trip despite not wanting to see her estranged mother who claims to be dying of cancer. Along the journey, with its fair share of mishaps and misadventures, the three women will break down and recreate relationships, learn about each other and themselves, and finally allow themselves to let go. Writer-director Lovisa Sirén’s first feature film brings the laughter, the tears, and the heart of women’s complex relationships to the screen for us to join in.

- Tish Chambers

Traversant cinq pays en auto, les sœurs Maya et Nilo ainsi que la fille de Nilo, Laura, partent de leur maison à Stockholm pour aller chez leur mère au Portugal, chacune ayant ses raisons de voyager. Le fils de Maya vit avec sa grand-mère depuis un certain temps, mais comme son père menace de le reprendre, l’artiste de musique n’ayant pas réussi à percer est désespérée d’arriver la première et de garder son fils pour elle seule. Volant la voiture de sa sœur, Maya ramasse sa nièce, Laura, qui planifie secrètement de rencontrer un garçon à qui elle parle sur Internet lorsqu’ils passent par l’Allemagne. N’ayant plus le choix que de reprendre sa voiture et sa fille (et un peu de contrôle), Nilo s’immisce dans leur voyage. Une auteure féministe avec un mari trompeur, Nilo décide de se joindre à leur épopée sans toutefois vouloir voir sa mère à qui elle ne parle plus, laquelle prétend être en train de mourir du cancer. Au cours du voyage, qui a son lot d’incidents et de mésaventures, les trois femmes vont rompre et recréer des relations, apprendre à mieux se connaître les unes les autres, et elles-mêmes, et finalement se permettre de lâcher prise. Le premier long métrage de la scénariste-réalisatrice Lovisa Sirén fait ressortir l’humour, les larmes et le cœur des relations complexes des femmes à l’écran, afin que nous nous joignions à elles.

- Tish Chambers (traduit par Jacinthe Grenier-Albert)

short film \