Equis-Festival de Cine Feminista de Ecuador: Promoting Feminism Through Cinema

Estefanía Arregui and Virginia Sotomayor are feminists, cultural managers and passionate about the seventh art. It was this same feeling that led them in 2018 to devise a project that promoted the rights of women, children and dissidents. This is how the first edition of Equis-Festival de Cine Feminista de Ecuador was born, after winning competitive funds from the IFCI. “We understood that if we wanted to promote feminism, an incredible source of generating empathy and entertainment and discovery was cinema,” says Arregui.

“We created the project because we believe in the power of cinema, to generate social changes, to have social impact. Given the high figures of gender violence in this country, it seemed necessary to us that there be a film festival that promoted the rights of women, children and dissidents,” Sotomayor argues.

Since then, five years have passed since the first edition, going through so many challenges, a pandemic, virtuality and other factors that have not stopped the management of this film meeting. “The festival has been consolidated by alliances, both between groups, feminist organizations and sponsors (…) It is too nice and gratifying to feel that when we stretch out our arms there are people who grab us.”

They say that reaching five years has been quite an achievement, and they look forward to what comes in the future.

Estefanía Arregui and Virginia Sotomayor, directors of the Equis Feminist Film Festival. Photo: Santiago Serrano

The directors recognize that carrying out a festival is a gigantic challenge. “For all the people who do cultural management in the country, it is,” they emphasize. This particular festival takes place in conjunction with organizations, allied people and institutions. “It’s difficult, but it’s very rewarding,” they also mention about the alliances that exist with alternative film spaces, or movie theaters in the country where they make satellite projections that allow them to reach other audiences. “All satellite venues receive a communication kit to be able to communicate unifiedly about the festival at their venues. They all receive certain guidelines that they must meet and we also hold meetings so that they feel that they are part of the festival and not just individual initiatives, but that we are all parts of a single one.”

This year the performances will take place in thirteen satellite venues, in twelve cities in the country, arriving for the first time in Santa Cruz (Galápagos), San Francisco de Sigsipamba (Pimampiro), Riobamba and Machachi.

In Guayaquil the satellite venues will be Muégano Teatro and Alianza Francesa.

The in-person screenings in Quito will be at the Cinematheque of the House of Ecuadorian Culture, Parque Urbano Cumandá, Casa Somos Roldós, and Yaku Parque Museo del Agua. In Cuenca they will be in the auditorium of the Alliance Française of Cuenca and in the Old Central School.

Through the Equis Foundation they do other activities throughout the year. “We no longer only organize the festival, but we also do workshops… which make sense with the aim of promoting feminism through cinema.”

“We understood that if we wanted to promote feminism, an incredible source of generating empathy was cinema”

Equis Film Festival

They finish an edition and soon begin the search for the films that will be part of the following year’s billboard. The directors affirm that the mission is to bring together films that raise questions. “From this we choose the films, also thinking about which are the most current topics, which need to be talked about that year, in accordance with what is happening in Ecuador,” says Sotomayor.

In this way, the films screened at the festival cover topics such as abortion, sex work, girls in science, trans women, eating disorders, self-esteem, social networks, the body, motherhood, the role of women in cinema, defenders of territory and nature, among other themes that empathize with social realities.

Daisy (Catalina Kulczar, EU, Hungary, 2022).

EQUIS will kick off next Tuesday, November 7, with the screening of Daisy (Catalina Kulczar, USA, Hungary, 2022), a film where the narrator undertakes a quest to explore her Jewish lineage and her family’s immigration history, after of his mother’s death. This function will be at 7:00 p.m. in the Cumandá Urban Park, in Quito. Free entrance.

This meeting will be until November 19. The performances at the official headquarters, Cinemateca de la Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, will be from Wednesday to Sunday, with two daily performances at 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Tickets for this venue will cost $5 per screening, but you can also purchase the EQUIS Pass, which for $20 gives you access to all the films.

Through www.festivalequis.com 16 films will be screened. Online admission is $5 and the purple pass is $15, which gives you access to all the virtual films. (YO)

2023-11-05 18:32:10
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