Women’s Day: Girls’ Voices Initiative to honour female film makers

Girls’ Voices Initiative says it will honour female film makers at the Women’s International Film Festival Nigeria (WIFFEN) to celebrate International Women’s Day.

In a statement on Tuesday, the organisation said as the International Women’s Day approaches, conversations are being held across board on issues of gender equality.

The statement said this time, the conversation is about the need for the movie industry to recognise women film makers in Nigeria and around the world and for more women to take up leadership roles in film making.

“Roles in front of, and behind the camera, are still heavily dominated by men but in the past few years, women are beginning to rise to filling more roles such as Producers, Directors and Technicians,” the statement reads.

“To mitigate this is why Girls Voices Initiative has the Girls’ Nation Academy, a platform to train young girls on how to produce quality films. And to celebrate international women’s day, Girls Voices in partnership with the French embassy’s PISCCA program and other partners will honour women film makers at the Women’s International Film Festival Nigeria (WIFFEN).

“We are trying to project the image of women so that they are able to bridge a gap in the country. The festival is key to our national development, and we are determined  that they must be produced by women with good quality production.”

The programme will include discussions, master classes, and screening of short, animation, and documentary films from the collection of films that were selected from over 3000 film submissions from over 130 countries of the world.

According to the statement, Carolyn Seaman, creative director of Girls’ Voices Initiative said the call for women to take up more leadership roles in film making has become necessary because “women are often disadvantaged.”

“We all know that women are often disadvantaged. This is a global issue, we want to bring a platform for women to showcase their skills to reach the public,” Seaman said.

On her part, Stephanie Odia, the festival showrunner, said the film festival will provide an opportunity for female producers to project value-driven stories into society.

“When it comes to producing quality movies, women are usually good storytellers, and we are utilizing the film festival to project the nation in the positive limelight. We are tired of the old narrative,” odia said.