A collection of previously censored films made by women will be shown in Washington, D.C., in November. The films — part of the Censored Women’s Film Festival — highlight the plight of women around the world who face genital mutilation, “honor killings” and child marriages.
The films have caused a backlash in various parts of the world. “India’s Daughter,” a film about the gang-rape of a young girl, was banned in India after the filmmakers revealed they had interviewed one of the rapists in prison. “Honor Diaries,” another film to be shown at the festival, received a negative reaction from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which tried to keep the film from being screened across the U.S.
“Persepolis,” a graphic novel published in 2000 documenting the childhood of an Iranian girl during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, was banned from Chicago Public Schools in 2013. A film adaptation of the novel, which was nominated for an Academy Award, will be included in the festival.
The Washington Examiner recently discussed the upcoming festival with Paula Kweskin, a producer of “Honor Diaries,” as well as with Raheel Raza, one of the women featured in the film.
The festival, still relatively unpublicized, has not received the response that any individual film had received previously. Kweskin, who was surprised that anyone would criticize “Honor Diaries,” said that it could be “soul-crushing” to try and promote the films alone, but with the makers of each film banding together, it gave the project “needed energy.” Raza went a step further, likening the censoring of the films to the censoring of ideas.
“What we’re talking about here is not just censored films. We’re talking about the concept, the taboos, the ideology,” Raza said. “So this is women who have been shut up. These are issues that have been shut up, issues that have been shut down.”
For its part, CAIR has not condemned the entire festival; its communications director, Ibrahim Hooper, told the Examiner he had not heard of the other films being shown. But he did offer criticism for the inclusion of “Honor Diaries.”
“Anytime that the ‘Honor Diaries’ film is shown in a context other than in examining its propagandistic nature, we would be concerned,” Hooper said. “‘Honor Diaries’ hijacks a legitimate issue to demonize Islam and to marginalize American Muslims.”
After each film is presented, there will be time for members of the audience and those involved with the films to discuss the issues that have been highlighted.
When asked what it will take to get American women to care about the atrocities happening abroad and at home, both Kweskin and Raza suggested that film festivals like the one they are promoting are useful to “move the dial” on the issues.
“It’s just a process of education,” Kweskin said, adding that just a couple of decades ago, human trafficking was not that well known a problem. “Well, we’re where sex trafficking was 15 years ago — the honor violence movement. People don’t really know what it is yet. It is just getting the word out and making sure people are cognizant of it as an issue.”
The Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit data collection organization, estimates that more than 500,000 women and girls in the U.S. have undergone female genital mutilation or were at risk of having the procedure done to them. It’s an issue Raza has been fighting against for decades. She recently detailed the difficulty in protecting young women from the practice. FGM is illegal in Canada, where Raza lives, but there is little that can be done before the crime is committed.
She detailed the account of an English as a Second Language teacher, who had a male student tell her he was going to take his 5-year-old daughter back to his home country to perform FGM. The practice is called “vacation cutting,” where children are taken back to a home country where the procedure is not illegal. Social services in Canada told the woman it couldn’t intervene because the crime had not occurred. Law enforcement couldn’t do anything about a crime taking place outside of Canada.
Thanks to the awareness brought to these issues in part by the films featured in the upcoming festival, things are starting to change. Canada passed a law earlier this year to protect against child- and forced-marriages.
“It’s education, it’s exposure, it’s awareness and there is a lot of positive change that has come from the time that ‘Honor Diaries’ was first released,” Raza said.
Raza also said that it was time for American women to “stop living in La La Land” when it comes to perceived problems like microaggressions. Such a focus on perceived slights (such as last year’s hoopla over a comet scientist’s shirt) was described by Ayaan Hirsi Ali as “trivial bull—-.”
Kweskin suggested more focus needs to be put on human rights.
“While we’re still living in a world where basic human rights are not afforded to people because they’re women, or they’re from a certain culture or a certain religion, then I think we have a lot of thinking to do and a lot more analysis to do to,” Kweskin said.
The festival takes place On Nov. 19-20 at George Washington University. The event organizers are seeking to crowdfund an effort to increase the size of the festival.
