International Women's Film Festival (Australia)

During the early 1970s, there was a growing feminist movement in Australia, and women's cinema gained prominence. The role of women's films was discussed at the Women's Liberation Conference in Melbourne in 1970. Groups such as the Sydney Women's Film Group (SWFG) and Reel Women in Melbourne were established. A number of filmmakers, including Jeni Thornley, Sarah Gibson, Susan Lambert, Martha Ansara, Margot Nash, and Megan McMurchy collaborated and explored ideas related to women by creating stories in film. Owing to poor distribution by commercial distributors, feminist films were shown by film societies, educational institutions, community groups and film festivals across Australia and the world. • To provide historical and cultural context of women's cinema • To allow women to explore their creativity through films • To counterbalance the lack of distribution of women's films in Australia • To provide more exposure for Australian films made by women • To explore the iconography and cinematic language used by women in their films • To examine "women's culture" and develop a feminist perspective in the critique of women's films ==The festival==

As a protest at the low number of women filmmakers featured in the Sydney Film Festival, the Sydney Women's Film Group (SWFG) organises the International Women's Film Festival. From September 1974, groups in each state worked towards creating a film festival, and in January and February 1975, two women from the coordinating group went to Europe and America to negotiate for films that they wanted to show. The International Women's Film Festival, which was the first of its kind in Australia, ran from August to October in 1975, in every state capital city, and Canberra (Australian Capital Territory). In Melbourne and Sydney the festivals ran for nine days (with an audience of around 56,000), and in the other states they spanned two to three days. The festival was devoted to films by and for women, and was tied to the International Women's Year movement. ==Legacy==

The festival inspired women filmmakers around the country and empowered activists, helped build momentum for the Australian Women's Liberation Movement, and was the first event that demonstrated that women audiences existed as a distinct group. The Melbourne Women in Film Festival (MWIFF), launched in 2017, "inherited the aims and intentions of the original 1975 International Women’s Film Festival". The inaugural event included a keynote panel on which several of the original organisers of the IWFF were panellists, and ran a shorts program screening some of the rare films from the IWFF. ==Footnotes==