Wellywood Woman

Back in September, I interviewed director Pratibha Parmar about her latest film Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth , well on its way to completion. This podcast is an update. I feel so lucky to be able to follow some of the process of making Beauty in Truth and I love Pratibha's eloquence about her work; I can't wait to see it! Download the podcast here (30min). This Wednesday Pratibha's classic A Place of Rage (1991), about the role of black women in the American civil rights movement, will show at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival , along with two short films that will also accompany it when it's released on DVD later this year— Angela: An Icon Reflects , a new interview with Angela Davis, and Wrong is Not My Name , the late June Jordan reading her Wrong is Not My Name poem, presented with a mixture of archival footage and animation. On Thursday at the festival, Pratibha will present excerpts from Beauty and Truth , and be interviewed.  Another recent int...

I. I’ve been finishing Mouse , my first short comic, and am researching/writing a play. Being quiet. And it takes a lot to get me out of the house before 2pm. But last week was Writers & Readers week here in Wellington. Part of the big New Zealand International Arts Festival. So I went to sessions I thought would help my work. A Bill Manhire poetry masterclass to enhance my research. A genre session where Denise Mina talked about the way (writing) comics exercises both sides of her brain and about a list of ‘rules’ that includes one about using only 40 words per panel. And a session on “Why is Theatre Not Dead Yet?” with local playwrights Dave Armstrong and Ken Duncum and with Englishman Robert Shearman, probably best known as a playwright who also wrote for Dr Who . They were very warm and funny and informative and I loved it. And then came the Q & A. This is how poet Bill Nelson reported the element that concerns me, in a sharp little review-as-script—the story of a wo...

Kate Kaminski applies stage blood during filming of 2020 © Judy Beedle Photography Why do women filmmakers create film festivals? In this podcast Kate Kaminski ( Bluestocking Series  in Maine, the only women's festival in the world where the primary criterion is that the films pass the Bechdel Test) and Briony Kidd ( A Stranger With My Face Horror Festival in Hobart) talk about their motivations and aims, the relationships between their filmmaking and their festival-making and about the role of the Bechdel Test in their festivals. I was fascinated by their differences and similarities. Warm thanks to them both. The Filmmakers Briony Kidd Why film schools teach screenwriters not to pass the Bechdel Test , by Jennifer Kesler Viscera: Celebrating Female Genre Filmmakers Women and Hollywood on women's film festivals Women's film festival bibliography Cornelia Walter's 'Absolutely Not Obsolete Women’s Film Festivals Are Still Not an Anachronism –...

In this podcast, Sheila Jackson Hardy talks about about her multi-platform Nice & Rough: Black Women in Rock project. It celebrates the unknown history and present-day community of Black women in rock. Download podcast Links Nice & Rough  website Twitter Facebook Eve's Lime , Sheila's production company NOTES Kudisan Kai: My Becoming My Becoming , the track at the end of the podcast, comes from Kudisan Kai 's Confessions . Kudisan Kai sang for six years with Elton John, and has toured with other rock legends–the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and others. She left the road to raise her daughter and joined the faculty of the renowned Berklee College of Music, where she has created a curriculum on women in rock. Confessions mixes deeply personal lyrics, blaring heavy metal guitar riffs and earth shattering vocals. It is also the featured hard-rock ringtone for contributors to the Nice & Rough funding campaign. Heather Ferreira Heather's comment...