Spazju Kreattiv is hosting a two-day film programme as part of the ongoing exhibition The Ordinary Lives of Women.

The film programme, curated by Nicole Bearman, sets out to frame the everyday challenges of women – both ordinary and extraordinary and anywhere in between. It embraces the curatorial theme of highlighting women who have been ‘pushed to extraordinary acts when their rights and lives − and those of their societies − have come under threat’. It also turns a particular lens on women and girls in public and private space, on safety and expected behaviour. 

The programme spans the 20th and 21st centuries with a selection of features, shorts, documentaries and films by women directors and artists of diverse backgrounds and locations, including Persian, Iranian, Australian, North American, Palestinian, Guatemalan, Swiss/ Austrian and Kosovan.

Vivian's Garden (2017)

The event kicks off tomorrow evening at 9 with Vivian’s Garden (2017), by Rosalind Nashashibi, a 30-minute documentary about the relationship between a mother and daughter, Swiss Austrian émigré artists Elisabeth Wild and Vivian Suter. The film was shot and is set in the connected houses the two women share in a jungle garden in Panajachel, Guatemala, where they have developed a matriarchal compound in an environment that seems to be a site of both refuge and fear.

Become a Microscope: 90 Statements on Sister Corita (2014)

It will be followed by the documentary Become a Microscope: 90 Statements on Sister Corita (2014). Director Aaron Rose tells the story of Sr Corita (1918-1986), a teacher, political activist and one of the most popular serigraphic artists of the 1960s, who incorporated typography and advertising slogans into her silk-screen works. The film was shot on location in 2009 on the campus of the Immaculate Heart College, in Los Angeles where Corita taught.

The last film showing on the evening is the 2014 American Persian-language horror Western film A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. Directed by Ana Lily, the black-and-white film takes place in an Iranian ghost town and depicts the adventures of a lonesome vampire.

Hidden (2020)

The programme continues on Saturday at 5pm with the short film Hidden (2020) by Jafar Panahi. The film follows the director, his daughter and her theatre-producer friend to a remote Kurdish village to visit a woman, a preternaturally gifted singer, whose traditional family refuses to allow her to perform publicly. 

The Time That Remains (2012)

The gothic short melodrama The Time That Remains (2012), by the two-person art collective Soda Jerk, will follow. Comprised entirely of sampled audiovisual material, this experimental found footage work is the third séance fiction film in Soda Jerk’s ongoing Dark Matter Cycle. It features the late screen stars Joan Crawford and Bette Davis who wake up to find themselves haunted by their own apparitions and terrorised by markers of time. Isolated in their own screen space, each woman struggles to reclaim time from the gendered discourses of ageing. 

Haus 209 (2016)

The final film on the programme is Haus 209 (2016) by visual artist, film-maker and curator Bettina Hutschek, who lives and works between Malta and Berlin. The film tells the story of a woman who is a prisoner in a clinic in a crisis-torn country and who is used in a dystopian experiment that involves travelling to the ‘other world’. Haus 209 is made up of still images from various stays at the Helios-clinic for radioactive iodine therapy, of found footage from the 1950s and of microscopic images of cells and inner-body activity.

For more information and tickets, visit www.kreattivita.org.

Photos: Lindsay Bahia

About The Ordinary Lives of Women

The Ordinary Lives of Women, which runs until March 13 at Space A in Spazju Kreattiv, tries to examine the political and social realities around women and their contribution to humanity. 

It acknowledges the trillions of woman-hours that are spent daily in undervalued tasks, such as cleaning and caring, and also recognises that ‘ordinary’ women have been pushed to extraordinary acts when their rights and lives – and those of their societies – have come under threat.

The artists taking part in this collective show are Maltese artists Florinda Camilleri, Abigail Agius and Charlie Cauchi, Edith Dekyndt (Belgium), Katel Delia (France/Malta), Rachel Fallon (Ireland), Syowia Kyambi (Kenya/Germany), Julieta Gil (Mexico), Fatima Mazmouz (Morocco/France) and Francesca Saraullo (Italy).

Curators Elise Billiard Pisani and Margerita Pulè will be present at the exhibition space for informal chats on Saturday at 2pm and on Sunday at 11am, on March 12 at 2pm and on March 13 at 11am. No registration is required.

This project is supported by APS Bank, Arts Council Malta, Melita Foundation, the Embassy of Ireland in Malta and the French Embassy in Malta. It is held in collaboration with Unfinished Art Space, Brazza Art Residency, Art+Feminism and Wikimedia Community Malta.