Press Kit

Women's Image Network
Adelphia Communications Presents

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 18, 2001

Contact: Phyllis Stuart
Email info@winfemme.com
Telephone: 310-229-5365

WINFEMME FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES ITS 2001 LINE-UP

LOS ANGELES - Each year, WIN creates the WinFemme Film Festival and presents its Audience Awards to its winning filmmakers as well as a WIN Award to its honorees. This year's invited WIN Award recipients are: Lynn Redgrave, Pierce Brosnan and Christina Ricci. For the first time, WIN is also extending an invitation to the networks and studios to compete to receive a WIN Award in one of 20 categories and urges them to submit their favorite episode or film with a female lead, which was released or was broadcast in last season. That entry deadline is August 1, 2001.

The Third Annual WinFemme Film Festival will be held at the Clarity Theatre in Beverly Hills, from September 6-9, 2001 and will debut 35 films that all tell a woman's story. During its opening night festivities WIN will screen the dramatic feature, WHAT MATTERS MOST, by director Jane Cusumano, who died from breast cancer just four weeks following its completion. WIN will follow the screening by presenting Pierce Brosnan with a WIN Award for his steadfast support of breast cancer research. To close the festival on September 9th, Women's Image Network will produce the televised Audience Awards to its winning filmmakers and the 2001 WIN Awards to honor Oscar nominee, Lynn Redgrave and Christina Ricci. Winners of the network/studio WIN Award will also be announced at this lively event. (Former WIN Award recipients include Jane Campion, Lauren Bacall, Laura Ziskin and Tichi Wilkerson).

THE OFFICIAL WINFEMME FILM FESTIVAL SELECTION:

FEATURES:
ONCE & FUTURE QUEEN, (Director, Todd Verow), ALEX IN WONDER, (Director, Drew Ann Rosenberg), FREUD'S 2ND LAW, (Director/Writer, Ian Gamazon), WHAT MATTERS MOST, (Director/Writer, Jane L. Cusumano), OPHELIA LEARNS TO SWIM, (Director/Writer, Jürgen Vsych), IN THE WAKE (Director Erica Jordan) , BABY LUV , Director, Robert Martin Carroll).

SHORTS:
BOUNDARIES, (Director, Greg Durbin), MARY CAME BACK (Director, Christopher Harris), AUDIT, (Director, Brian To), UNDONE, (Director, Kandeyce Jorden), PATRIOTIC (Director, Judy Dennis), ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING, (Director, Elizabeth Massie), RUNNING OUT OF TIME, (Director/Writer, Tania Trepanier), JIGSAW VENUS (Director/Writer, Dean Kapsalis), WEDDING ALBUM (Director/Writer, Carolyn Jacobs), HEAVENLY HOST, (Director/Writer, Bernadette Anderson), DYING LIGHT (Director, Robin Murphy), THE LAST GUNSHOT, (Director, Gabriella Tollman), SHE NEVER (Director, Jen McGowan), THREE STORIES FROM THE END OF EVERYTHING, (Director/Writer, Semi Chellas), , WHAT THE FENG? (Director, Courtney Selan), WELFARE TO LOVE, (Director/Writer, Chris Coronado).

DOCUMENTARIES:
IF I COULD, (Director, Patti White), YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I GOT, (Director, Linda Duvoisin), A DAY IN THE LIFE: 5 WOMEN WHO CLIMB, (Director, Paul Dusatko), SOMEBODY'S MOTHER, (Director, Michael Rivette), JUDY'S TIME, (Director, Erin Flannery), EVERY WOMAN, (Director, Adam Holmes), SHOWBIZ IS MY LIFE, (Directors, Ayr Robinson & Hillary Harris), JAILHOUSE ROMANCE, (Director, Wendy Rowland), SING! HEALING, COMMUNITY, CELEBRATION, (Director, Bill Weaver).

The WinFemme Film Festival will also hold several symposiums with notables such as, Film Producer, Midge Sanford (Desperately Seeking Susan, How To Make An American Quilt), Documentary Film Distributor, Udy Epstein (Seventh Art Releasing), Financing expert, Greg Trattner, (Film Finances, Inc.), Geoff Gilmore, (Festival Director, Sundance Film Festival), writer & documentary producer, Ms. Cari Beauchamp, (Without Lying Down), Short Film Producer, (F/X Shorts & Quickband DVDs), Kim Adelman, Acquisition Executive, Andrew Weiner, (Hypnotic.com) and Short Film Distributor, Carol Crowe, (Apollo Cinema).

Women's Image Network is truly making strides in their mission to increase the number of women's stories and to reduce sexism in the media", says founder, Phyllis Stuart, we select films that dispel stereotypes of women. Women are not just the man's sidekick, we have interesting lives, too! If we can get better images of women seen in the media, perhaps women may attain economic and social parity. But we at WinFemme are not the art police. Females can be as flawed as males, we simply embrace diversity".

Using comedy to drive home the point of the festival, Adelphia Communications will run the clever WinFemme commercial on 16 television cable outlets. Southern Californians will soon see an animated chick, fox, doll and a tomato, who each dance onto the screen and say: "for those who sometimes confuse women with various unrelated objects…The WinFemme Film Festival"…This commercial television spot was made possible by Royce Steele, of Foundry +FX and Paramount Pictures head, Sherry Lansing one of WIN's many illustrious Advisory Board members.

Stuart says, "WinFemme isn't strictly a women's film festival. We hope not to marginalize our filmmakers and welcome male and female filmmakers alike. Our films simply feature female protagonists." Stuart explains.

In 1993, filmmaker/actress Phyllis Stuart founded Women's Image Network a non-profit corporation to tell more women's stories in TV, theatre and film. To that end, WIN produces the Annual WinFemme Film Festival, which will runs September 6th-9th. WIN also produced a Jason Alexander Special, GET INTO MY SHORTS (a funny one-
hour show about short films), which aims to air on syndication in fourth quarter, 2001.

WinFemme films have garnered Oscar & Spirit Award nods and have sold to Showtime, HBO, the Sundance Film Channel and in TV syndication including the films: SERAGLIO, GODASS, WAKING MELE & ETHEL'S SOFA. Finally, the Win Femme films, SERAGLIO (2001)& SPEAKING IN STRINGS (2000), won Oscar Nods while VALERIE FLAKE, garnered Susan Traylor an IFP Spirit nomination!

Women's Image Network benefits from the enormous support provided by the entertainment community, its illustrious advisory board including Sherry Lansing, Fred Schepisi, Arthur Hiller, Janet Yang, Blake Edwards, Lauren Lloyd, Lili Fini Zanuck, George Stevens, Byran Lourd, Laurence Mark & Todd Black. WINFEMME advocates include: Anjelica Huston, Sharon Stone, Geena Davis, Andie MacDowell, Gloria Stewart, Madonna, David Geffen & Lynn Redgrave.

This year's proud WinFemme Sponsors include: Adelphia Communications, Gillette Venus Razor, Entertainment Weekly, Audio Rents & The Entertainment Industry Development Corporation.

For more information:
Telephone 310-229-5365
Website: http://www.winfemme.com or email info@winfemme.com

Mailing address:
WOMEN'S IMAGE NETWORK
P.O. Box 69-1774, L.A., CA 90069