AN ambitious Glasgow filmmaker successfully organised an international film festival within just two weeks in celebration of International Women’s Day.
CHALLENGE: Carol Cooke had just two weeks to organise an international film festival
By Magdalene Dalziel
CAROL Cooke, director of Scrumptious Productions, challenged herself to host Women on Film: the Quest for Equality on March 10, following a tweet from Oxfam asking how she planned to mark the event.
Nine films were featured from across the globe, each highlighting the key issues and characters in the quest for gender equality.
One documentary came courtesy of Arabic news station, Al Jazeera’s Witness series and another from two Glasgow multimedia journalism students. Stars featured in film on the night included Condoleezza Rice, Daniel Craig and Dame Judy Dench.
Speaking at the screening last Thursday night, Cooke said she hoped to make the festival an annual event to coincide with the international day of the celebration of women.
She added: “As you can imagine, it’s been a bit of a challenge but it was an amazing cause.
“We came up with the idea because we are developing a film in Uganda at the moment, all about women in business, so I thought ‘what a great wee chance to showcase the film and put on a selection of films from across the globe.’”
“Hopefully, this is just the beginning of our quest for equality. Every single film featured is not just a movie, it’s a movement now.
“We were inundated with responses which were just amazing, films that will entertain, inspire and move you.
“All of the films highlighted the main barriers to equality which affects women across the world on a daily basis.”
The film festival showcased the talents of Glasgow Caledonian University students Rachael Fulton and Aimee Beveridge, who produced the film International Women’s Day, below, which was recently featured on STV’s news programme Scotland Tonight.
Speaking at the event, Fulton said: “We feel really privileged to be involved in tonight, not just because it’s such a great event, but also to be juxtaposed with such hard-hitting documentaries from the developing world.”
Scott McKenna, who attended Women on Film, said: “I think in this country women are still facing a lot of issues to do with equal pay. Coming to something like this gives you the opportunity to learn about them and raise awareness.”
The festival was part of Oxfam’s ‘Get Together’ theme. Almost 450 events took place throughout the UK, encouraging people to get together in celebration of women and to raise money and awareness worldwide.
Scrumptious Productions, which specialises in social documentaries and community outreach, is based at Cardonald College Glasgow’s business incubator unit – where young entrepreneurs are provided with free office space and industry standard workshop facilities.
Posted on March 20, 2012
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