The third edition of the Purple Meridians 2023, winner of the Gender Equality sponsorship by Eurimages, this year will have its public and main event at the Durango Book-Music-Cinema Fair today 7 December. Durango is a city in the Basque Country and has been chosen by the organizers of The Purple Meridians to expand even further – as is the purpose of this project – the connections among women filmmakers in Europe and beyond.

The choice of the Basque Country was therefore a ‘natural’ development as Basque filmmakers followed the first two Purple Meridians albeit ‘from a distance’. The program in the Basque Country will be possible thanks to the collaboration with the Durango Book Fair and Suargi Elkartea.

Two main themes would be the focus of this third event: the difficulties, responses, proposals for women in the film industry to conjugate work and care work (maternity, care of children, care of elderly, care of ill partner/family member etc) and for women with disabilities.

These two themes will be discussed in a 2-session conference today.

Two filmmakers directly and most affected by this situation will be leading the discussion, Lisa Calan and Ahu Ozturk. The two filmmakers, both Kurdish, will work with Basque filmmakers (who are exploring these issues in their films and who this year will be presenting a manifesto about ‘care’), as well as with the other filmmakers of The Purple Meridians (from Italy and Catalonia), not only in exposing the problems, but also in proposing answers, keeping in mind that one of the pillars of The Purple Meridians project was creating networks among women filmmakers in different countries.

Internationally awarded Basque actress Itziar Ituño (La Casa de Papel) will also attend the conference. So will Basque director Ainhoa Olaso, Basque writer and journalist Kristina Berasain, Italian director Claudia Tosi, Argentinian scriptwriter and writer Luciana de Mello, Catalan colourist Lara Vilanova and the Post (Film) Collective - Buryatia, Grezia, Syria, Belgium. Palestinian director Mira Sidawi will attend via zoom and so will Rojava director Sevinaz Evdike.

The event is in collaboration with Asociaciò Catalana para la Pau, Zutarri cultural association, IM Film.

Organizers

Streamthings

Streamthings is a startup created in April 2020 to push forward the boundaries of the cinematic and audiovisual content available online. Streamthings manages Streeen.org, a streaming service offering a wide selection of arthouse and independent movies curated in partnership with the no profit association Streeen-Lab. The Streamthings staff handles the entire online distribution process, from acquisition to publication and promotion.

In the last two years, Streamthings has hosted several events and festivals that decided to migrate online due to the pandemic. This allowed the Italian and international audience to have access to programs that normally have limited space in the regular Italian theaters and that often focus on marginalized communities. The promotion of socially and artistically significant movies by female directors, as well as of productions working towards an attentive representation of the LGTBQ+ community, is a major goal of Streamthings’ editorial strategy.

Rosa Kadın Derneği

Rosa Kadın Derneği is a no profit association active in the city of Diyarbakır (South East Turkey) since 2018.
The association carries out activities related and promoting gender equality as well as women’s empowerment through a number of collaborations with other institutions, such as local government institutions, trade unions, cultural institutions, lawyers’ associations, etc. Rosa Kadın Derneği works in collaboration with the Diyarbakır Network for combating violence against women: BARO Women's Rights Center, BARO LGBTI+ Commission, TTB (Turkish Medical Association), KESK Components, TMMOB Women's Commission, İHD –Human Rights Association, Amed Women's Commission, BARO Child Rights Center, DAKP (Dicle Amed Women's Platform), Women Are Strong Together, THRESHOLD (Women's Platform for Equality).

Several of Rosa Kadın Derneği’s activities focus on Women’s Cinema. The association promotes the activities of female filmmakers, producers and scriptwriters on a yearly basis and organises workshops, seminars and courses on cinema for young women. In 2020 Rosa Kadın Derneği has also co-organised the Filmmoor Women’s Festival (http://filmmor.org/en/).

OVNI

The Unidentified Frame Observatory (OVNI, “Observatori de Vídeo No Identificat” in the catalan translation) has been a resident research project at the Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) for almost three decades. OVNI’s activities are structured thematically and aim at encouraging and enabling a critique of contemporary culture and society, using strategies based on the expansive and heterodox use of video as a medium. OVNI has always chosen to avoid prefabricated models and formats, approaching research as a daring quest for knowledge in the contemporary world. In the era of serialized images, OVNI speaks of things as yet “unidentified”, of the unforeseen, and of that which ventures into the unknown.