WOW has been celebrating the riches of world cinema since 2001, bringing an eclectic, intriguing, and moving selection of films from around the globe to cinemas across Wales. WOW presents a selection of the very best in world cinema – and sometimes a film from Wales too.
Chatting to a friend recently about the wonderful Ida and the not-quite-so-good Cold War, she said to me “B&W films can seem more real than colour”, a thought-provoking observation about how authenticity doesn’t necessarily come from trying to slavishly reproduce the ‘real world’.
But how come B&W films can seem ‘more real’ than those shot in colour? I certainly find that B&W images often stay with me so clearly and are somehow much more memorable than colour ones.
For the second year running, WOW Film Festival has succeeded in curating a programme in which half the films are F-Rated, meaning that they are either directed or written by women. After 2018’s 50% F-Rated programme, I questioned whether we would be able to maintain that ratio in future years. But once again in 2019 women filmmakers continue to be prominent among the most striking and relevant voices in world cinema today.
Notable F-Rated films in WOW’s programme include Cathy Yen’s Dead Pigs (Sundance World Cinema Special Jury Prize) from China, Cristina Gallego’s Birds of Passage (Honourable Mention Best Film London Film Festival) from Colombia, Renée Nader Messora’s The Dead and the Others (Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival) from Brazil, Dominga Sotomayor’s Too Late to Die Young (Best Director Locarno International Film Festival) from Chile and Mouly Surya’s Marlina The Murderer in Four Acts (Winner Special Award Asia Pacific Film Festival) from Indonesia.
Today, to honour International Women’s Day I’d like to put the spotlight on two extraordinarily intimate documentaries that gained unprecedented access to women’s lives in Libya and Japan: Freedom Fields and Ama-san.
The 2019 WOW Film Festival trailer is here!
This year's festival has a global-rural theme, with a strong selection of South-American films, more than a hint of shamanism and our usual F-Rated focus - more than half the films in the programme are either directed or written by women!
We're also bringing Aberystwyth it's first comicon style convention, Abercon, a partnership event with Mencap Ceredigion, whose idea it was!
Tickets are now on sale too!
