No amount of analysis, however, can put all of the films on display at the Women in Cinema Film Festival under one roof, as they are so dissimilar. So let's leave silly gender essentialists of all stripes behind, accept the diversity on display as a happy given, and ratchet the focus up one degree to think less about the movies themselves than about their shared forum. That along the way we get to see some great movies is practically a bonus.
Film festivals generate buzz.
This is why movies get sent to festivals in the first place. But of course buzz can backfire. Alison Maclean's Jesus' Son had been getting good word on the festival circuit, and despite reservations about Maclean's previous effort, Crush , I was really looking forward to her newest. Turns out it's an indifferent mishmash of '70s nostalgia, with failed stabs at visual poetry and black comedy. Film festivals please directors by putting films in a respectable context.