Aaina - South Asian Women's Films

This past Friday (March 16, 2007), we went to the Aaina Film Festival at the lovely Central Cinema. Aaina is an annual Seattle film festival, a forum for the creativity of the women of South Asian origin. Aaina (which means 'mirror' or 'looking glass' in Urdu and Hindi) is a joint presentation of Tasveer, a group dedicated to bringing South Asian cinema to the Northwest, and Chaya, which is a grassroots organization aimed at fighting domestic violence in South Asian households in the area.

Aaina had various film and stage offerings over three days. As per their flyer (we could only attend the first evening), one of the films screened was "Mukhtar Mai - The Struggle for Freedom", a documentary featuring the woman who was brutally gang-raped in a Pakistani village, and who has since emerged as a very strong and dedicated voice for the empowerment of women in the region. Another fascinating entry they had planned was "ManjuBen Truckdriver", about the sole woman truck driver in India, with a post-film discussion led by Trikone.

The festival (at least Friday evening) was well-attended by Seattleites and Eastsiders, of South Asian origin and otherwise. Hopefully, blog readers who checked out the festival on Saturday and Sunday will post comments to let us know how it went.