Posts Tagged ‘LUNAFEST’

This Sunday, March 29th at Simmons College, the national LUNAFEST film festival will be stopping by with this year’s collection of short films made by, for, and about women. The festival, which began in 2000 helps support the Breast Cancer Fund, which aims to help reduce the environmental causes of breast cancer. To date, LUNAFEST has raised over $360,000 for the Breast Cancer Fund.

This year’s 10 selected films range from documentaries to a number of animated clips covering topics as heavy as the story about a teenager in Africa living with AIDS. The directors come from as far away as the United Kingdom, while many are based here in the US.

The festival will also be stopping by the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut on April 12, and the Sconset Casino in Nantucket, Massachusetts on May 28.

Coinciding with the arrival Lunafest in Boston, as well as women’s history month, “Women Take The Reel” is a film festival celebrating women’s history month. This festival kicked off earlier this month and will last until its conclusion, with screenings being held at area colleges and universities, including the Fong Auditorium at Harvard, Boston College, Northeastern,  and MIT, as well as Boston University. The screenings feature films that cover issues that are important to women. The screenings are followed by discussions sessions with local academics that are open to the audience for their participation. Also, this Saturday, March 26, the WAM! Boston Film Festival will be taking place at the MIT Stata Center in Cambridge. This one-day film festival will feature short and feature length films. For more information on any of these screenings, check out the website here.

On Wednesday, November 10 at the Liberty Hotel in Boston, the LUNAFEST short films festival will be premiering in New England this year at 7PM. This annual event travels the country, highlighting the best in short films created by women, intended for women, or about women.

The festival was first created in 2000 by the makers of a nutrition bar, or all things. The festival is funded by the LUNA company so that 100% of all the proceeds got to charity, including 15% to the Breast Cancer Fund. The remaining proceeds are distributed among charities in the particular communities that host LUNAFEST events. The 2010/2011 festival has already had stops in San Francisco in September and Chicago in October before arriving here in Boston. The Liberty Hotel, which was formerly known as the Charles Street Jail until 1990, is a unique venue to host the red carpet premiere. The hotel still stays true to its unique roots by maintaining a jail-like motif throughout its interior.

This year’s films include 10 shorts of varying topics from around the world, such as the award-winning The Translator from Toronto, Canada, about a foreign film translator finding a story on the subway; Irene, from the United Kingdom, about a 92-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s; and  Thembi’s Diary, from California, about a 19-year-old living a life with AIDS.

The Liberty Hotel is located at 215 Charles Street, Boston near the Charles/MGH red line T stop. Tickets can be purchased for $40 in advance online at their website. Tickets at the door will be available for $45.