Director Annemijn Nieuwkoop: WHERE THERE IS NO LIGHT  A young New York girl finds herself falling for a handsome, mysterious stranger. Having no idea who he is or what he is capable of, she is unaware of how dangerous her path has become.

Screening 7 p.m. Sun. May 31, 2009

@ Austin Youth Hostel

Director Jennifer Hardacker: THE NIGHTGARDENER  The life of a garden after dark: Balinese dancers sway on the petals of clematis flowers, Russian singers perform in a calla lily. Disparate images that capture an idea about the humanity of the world play on floral screens.

Screening 7 p.m. Sun. May 31, 2009

@ Austin Youth Hostel

Director Courtney Webster :  THE HUSTLERS is a mediation on identity and sexuality and the potential violence that can erupt when these things intersect with self-esteem and class warfare.

Screening 7 p.m. Sun. May 31, 2009

@ Austin Youth Hostel

Director Lynn Estomin : RUN, JANE, RUN gives the victims of domestic violence the opportunity to tell their stories in their own words. The subject is definitely depressing, but these women’s stories put a face on the statistics and shine a ray of hope on the issue.

Screening 3 p.m. Sun. May 31, 2009

@ Austin Youth Hostel

Director Elisabetta Bernardini : RITIRATA (RETREATING) Thirteen-year-old Rosa races through the fields underneath the scorching Italian sun every day to be with her love. In time of war, the survival of this German soldier depends upon her.

Screening 7 p.m. Sun. May 31, 2009

@ Austin Youth Hostel

Director Renee Bergan:  POTO MITAN: HAITIAN WOMEN, PILLARS OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

gives the global economy a human face. Each woman’s personal story explains neo-liberal globalization,

how it is gendered, and how it impacts Haiti.

Screening 8 p.m. Sun. May 31, 2009

@ Austin Youth Hostel

Director Ilse Rumes:  KALARIPAYAT is an Indian style martial art that is said to be the source of all Eastern martial arts. Kalaripayat: "when the body becomes all eyes."

Screening 7 p.m. Friday May 29, 2009

@ The Long Center

Director Angela Guerra:   JOURNEY OF THE OPPORTUNIST  A short film that explores human movement and migration that occurs simultaneously in the lives of a dozen characters.

Screening 7 p.m. Friday. May 29, 2009

@ The Long Center

Director Salome Chasnoff:  DOIN’ IT: SEX, DISABILITY & VIDEOTAPE is a daring and humorous investigation into the uncharted intersection between disability and sexuality. The Empowered Fe Fes (slang for “female”) educate themselves from many angles by talking with activists, educators and scholars, challenging the notion that people with disabilities are not fully sexual human beings.

Screening 7 p.m. Sat. May 30, 2009

@ The Long Center

Director Shih-Shan Chen:  EVELYN, a teen-aged girl who is committed to a married man plans on giving up everything for him. However, after her Christian mother finds out Evelyn’s secret, she reproaches Evelyn for her looseness in life. Evelyn turns to the married man but is harshly rejected. At last, she decides to take revenge on him..

Screening 3 p.m. Sun. May 31, 2009

@ Austin Youth Hostel

Director Jane Fader : FEMALE EJACULATION: PERCEPTIONS explores contemporary social discourse of female ejaculation, as well as introduces audiences to the cultural history of this lesser known sexual response.

Screening 7 p.m. Friday. May 30, 2009

@ The Long Center

Director Cara Hagan: FOLDING OVER TWICE is a look at how the playful steps of little girls morph into choreographic threads executed with uncanny precision and finesse by the members of 87 Dance Productions, Cara and Mackenzie Hagan.

Screening 7 p.m. Friday. May 29, 2009

@ The Long Center

Director Fiona Cochrane: FOUR OF A KIND Four different women, each with a well-hidden secret they are coaxed, tricked or forced into revealing… sometimes it’s better to omit the truth.

Director Steffany Suttle :FRY BREAD BABES is a short documentary film of six Native American women discussing issues of body image and identity, candidly and with humor. How were they affected by the lack of Native American women in mass media?

Screening 7 p.m. Friday. May 29, 2009

@ The Long Center

Director Déjà Cresencia Bernhardt   GUERILLA MIDWIFE Is a culturally mesmerizing, heart-wrenching documentary, you will discover why we must reinvent our protocols for pregnancy and childbirth in order to preserve our Planet’s Humanity.

Screening 7 p.m. Sat. May 30, 2009

@ The Long Center

Director Wenhwa Ts'ao :   ARITHMETIC LESSON illustrates the story of Gracie, a seven-year-old Chinese-American girl, who finds the courage to defy and survive.

Screening 7 p.m. Friday. May 29, 2009

@ The Long Center

Director Jazzmen Joy Lee-Johnson “BLACK, WHITE, WHATEVER…”  In a vibrant fusion of still photography, animation, and in-camera performance, “Black, White, Whatever...” sticks it to American politicians to see beyond black and white via the lyricism of acclaimed spoken word poet Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai.

Screening 7 p.m. Friday May 30, 2009

@ The Long Center

Director Carol Jacobsen    CENSORIOUS! is a funny, provocative, feminist view of the Culture Wars narrated by artists Carolee Schneeman, Martha Wilson, Holly Hughes, Renee Cox, Barbara DeGenevieve and others who have fought major battles against censorship of their politically charged work.

Screening 7 p.m. Sat. May 30, 2009

@ The Long Center

Director Ashley Phelps: BLANK CANVAS is a tribute to the restorative power of art, shown through portraits of women artists battling addiction. The story follows six women as they embrace creative sensitivity to overcome personal afflictions that have lead to substance abuse.

Screening 11 a.m. Sun. May 31, 2009

@ Cafe Mundi

Director Pamela Green: COMPACT ONLY  A day in the life of a busy grocery store parking lot. “I was always fascinated and amused by what goes on in parking lots and how people interact with each other. It is amazing how everyone without knowing at times can affect one another and create a domino effect.

Screening 7 p.m. Saturday. May 30, 2009

@ The Long Center

Director Gabriela Yepes: DANZAK  The life of a 10-year old girl, Nina, changes dramatically when her father and Master Dancer asks her to fulfill his last wish. “Using Jose Maria Arguedas’ story ‘The Agony of Rasu Niti’ as a starting point, this film aims to create a non-stereotypical representation of the daily life and cultural practices inside a community of Indigenous artists who migrated from the countryside of Southern Peru to the shantytowns around Peru’s capital city, Lima.”

Screening 7 p.m. Saturday. May 30, 2009

@ The Long Center

Director Ulrike Molsen: DIE BESUCHER (THE VISITORS)  Karla hosts a couple in trouble. The visitors occupy her apartment as if it was their own. She can't find out who is telling the truth, but gets forced to help either one or the other.  “My story became real while shooting it. Suddenly lonely after a sponsor jumped out, I lost my crew. Within one week I found a new crew. The last night of shooting my apartment got robbed... sometimes movies write life.”

Screening 7 p.m. Saturday. May 30, 2009

@ The Long Center Sat.

Director Maru Buendia:  'Entre Lineas’ is a story about two friends that live on different sides of the Mexican-American border. As we follow Caroline and Ricardo we get a close look at the lifestyle of Mexican and Mexican-Americans and the universal struggle to maintain and find our own identities in a multicultural society.

Screening 7 p.m. Thursday. May 28, 2009

@ The Austin Youth Hostel 

Director- Elizabeth Lidow, Congratulations: You've Won The Lottery!

A tender loving lady, in her declining years, is rescued by two outlandish angles. They escort her royally and with vim and vigor to a life of bliss in the seventh heaven. Leza Lidow has been a painter all her life. She travels the world and observes its people, its motivations and progress. She feels the world is oppressed, bigoted, selfish and intolerant. She decided to try and help.

Screening 11 a.m. Sun. May 31, 2009

@ Cafe Mundi

Director- Robyn Yannoukos, Alice Attic

“Alice’s Attic” is a stop-motion animation film about a fragile character who has to face her fears that lie waiting in the silence of the darkness. In giving power to objects surrounding her and allowing them to overpower her, the result of her actions has unforeseen results.

Screening 3 p.m. Sun. May 31, 2009

@ Austin Youth Hostel

Director- Nadirah Bell- Living Peterson

Meet Martin and Carolyn Peterson, the perfect couple. Carolyn is a loving housewife while Martin pays the bills. However, this loving home is incomplete. They decide to adopt a baby girl. Living Peterson tells her story. Meet Elizabeth Marianne Peterson, a young African American girl being raised by Caucasian parents.

Screening 7 p.m. Friday. May 29, 2009

@ The Long Center

Director- Charise Studesville - The Hands

The Hands is a story of the love between a father and daughter that can’t last in its original pure state. As the grown-up daughter now sits at her father’s bedside in his final hours, she becomes fixated upon his hands and how they have come to represent all of who he was, as a man and as a father. Each glance connects her to the man she knew—

Screening 7 p.m. Thursday. May 28, 2009

@ The Austin Youth Hostel 

Director - Rossella De Venuto- Wanted In Rome

Jacqueline, a foreign composer in Rome, is in search of a house where she can practice her piano in peace. She finds a room at Louise’s who is encouraging with her work. She now has to move her piano but after she takes the decision to insist in her career and her boyfriend leaves her for this it seems that nobody is going to help her, except Luca, Louise’s son…

Screening 11 a.m. Sun. May 31, 2009

@ Cafe Mundi

Director: HsinYin Sung- The Red Shoes

May, a westernized Taiwanese bride-to-be, is getting married. Her mom is happy with everything but May's white sandals. Because for May’s mom, it brings a bride bad luck if she wears white sandals to her own wedding.

Screening 3 p.m. Sun. May 31, 2009

@ Austin Youth Hostel

DIR: Rita Blitt, KS, CAUGHT IN PAINT

Caught in Paint' is a 6 minute video capturing painter/sculptor Rita Blitt painting on four by eight foot transparent surfaces while choreographer David Parsons and members of the Parsons Dance Company are seen in mid-air, through the painting, imitating the dancing lines of Blitt's paint strokes.

Screening 3 p.m. Sun. May 31, 2009

@ Austin Youth Hostel

DIR: Tiana Hailey,  TX, CAUGHT IN PAINT

FLYING SOLO is a family viewable independent movie filmed in Beaumont, TX.

The comedy takes place in a small city of  the rural south, where Hailey plays an aspiring singer/songwriter, Tayana Riley, who struggles to maintain a dead-end career at a carwash and a relationship with a dead beat boyfriend, Sammie (David Wesson).  After envious rivals conspire to have Tayana kicked out of her own band, she repeatedly finds herself getting the short end of the stick.

Screening 11 a.m. Sun. May 31, 2009

@ Cafe Mundi

DIR: Linda Garica & Maritza Nazario

A 45 min doc telling the stories of the women from

Dulce Palabras. Stories of urban life, intergenerational connections, empowered sexuality and growing older

with a bang.