The Baltimore Women’s Film Festival was founded by women who want to simultaneously celebrate the cinematic creativity of women and promote women’s health issues. Festival co-founder Marisa Cohen states, “I have been involved in the planning and organizing of film festivals for the past seven years. But I feel the Baltimore Women’s Film Festival is special. Through the purchase of a ticket, attendees of the festival will be encouraging female filmmakers, as well as directly assisting with the treatment of Baltimore-area women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer.”

Approximately fifty selected films will be screened over the festival weekend featuring a variety of genres including comedy, dramas, animation, experimental film, and documentaries about issues facing women. Filmmakers originally come from the Baltimore and DC areas as well as from around the globe. Filmmaker nationalities include Israel, Canada, Greece, Germany, The UK, France, Sweden, Costa Rica, Australia, Bulgaria, Ireland, Italy, and the Netherlands. Highlighted festival screenings include the Maryland premiere of “9/Tenths”, starring Gabriele Anwar (USA Network’s “Burn Notice”) and Henry Ian Cusick (ABC Television’s “Lost”) and a presentation of the first episode of “Terminal City,” which was directed by Baltimore native Rachel Talalay. “Terminal City” is a groundbreaking new television program which deals with issues surrounding breast cancer and will be airing on the Sundance Channel in 2008.

Participating filmmakers will be attending the festival to present and discuss their work including Laura Cain and Diana Gross, Baltimore-based directors of “Behind Closed Doors”, a documentary about women in the psychiatric system who have spent decades trying to recover from childhood abuse, Shauna Lawhorne, the DC-based director of “What do I call the woman who gave birth to me?” a documentary about the filmmaker’s personal experience of meeting her mother who gave her up for adoption, and DC-based Elvira Dones, director of “Sworn Virgins”, a documentary film about Albanian women who have chosen to become “men” due in part to social roles in the society. The documentary “Sworn Virgins” was recently profiled in the Washington Post.

Other filmmakers in attendance at the festival include Suzanne Niedland, Suzanne DiPronio, Dani Alpert and Kathi Carey. Niedland is the director of “Miss Lil’s Camp”, a narrative film about a woman who taught privileged children in the Jim Crow South that segregation was wrong. Dipronio is the director of “Nighthawks”, a film based on the director’s experience as a teenage runaway. Carey is the writer, director, and actor in “Reflections of A Life”, a dramatic short in which the heroine is taken through a “life changing experience…the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.” Comedian Dani Alpert’s short film “A Really Intimate Portrait…Of a Complete Unknown” is a innovative parody of the Lifetime series “An Intimate Portrait.” Directors originally from the Baltimore area including Jill Effron (A Day in the Life of a Bathroom Key), Nia Malika Dixon (Temporary Loss of Power), and Charlotte Harvey (Le Roi se lève), will also be in attendance to represent their participating films.

In addition to the festival screenings, the festival weekend will include a variety of events throughout the weekend including a Saturday daytime “Meet the Filmmakers” reception catered by Mr. Charles Market with special items also provided by Brassica Protection Products. During the reception, visual art that was created by breast cancer survivors and their caregivers will be on display- courtesy of Eli Lilly Oncology on Canvas. The Baltimore Women’s Film Festival will also be presenting a Saturday evening benefit party at Red Maple, located at 930 North Charles Street.