By Julissa Treviño/south news editor
South Campus will screen its fourth annual film festival in honor of Women’s History Month.
Not For Ourselves Alone, Salt of the Earth and The Hours will be presented through March, celebrating women’s contributions to history and literature.
“Some of these films are screened every year because of their contribution to our understanding of women’s history and their relevance to the struggles that continue today,” Nicole Vallee, South Campus instructor of English and Women’s History Month Committee member, said.
“There are others that I have rotated on and off depending on response and discussion generated each year,” she said.
Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, showing March 4, is a documentary on two of the pioneers behind women’s rights.
“[The film is] a well-done and comprehensive look at women’s history and the suffrage movement,” Vallee said.
However, Salt of the Earth, Vallee said, offers a different perspective on women’s roles in society.
Screening March 11, Salt of the Earth was made during the McCarthy era by a group of blacklisted filmmakers.
The film is based on a 1950s miners’ strike in Silver City, N.M. It follows a Mexican-American miner and his wife, who, among social injustice, find themselves in reversed roles: the woman takes over at the picket line while her husband stays at home to do domestic work.
To end the film festival March 25, the committee will present the 2001 film The Hours.
Starring Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep, The Hours focuses on three women suffering from depression in three different eras but whose lives are connected.
Kidman plays Virginia Wolfe in 1928 England while she starts her novel Mrs. Dalloway.
In 1951 Los Angeles, Moore is Laura Brown, a preoccupied and anxious pregnant mother, reading Mrs. Dalloway.
Living in 2001, Clarissa Vaughn (Streep), nicknamed Mrs. Dalloway, is a New York publisher coping with AIDS.
Vallee hopes to get feedback from students on the films and their topics.
“My goal is to generate discussion with film as a prompt,” Vallee said.
“For some, it will be the lectures and performances, for others, film,” she said.
Vallee said film is only one of the many mediums that can facilitate one’s knowledge and understanding of women’s issues.
“Many, many events are organized simultaneously,” she said. “This is only one event to honor [Women’s History Month].”
The films will be shown 2-4 p.m. Tuesdays in SRTA 1201. The festival is free and open to the public. For more information, call Vallee at 817-515-4303.
