The Association

Women in the Picture Association Founders and Initiators
Naama Prizant Orpaz
Anat Shperling Cohen

Women in the Picture Association Members
Revital Bakshi Preuss
Ronit Kfir
Uri Nave
Dr. Eva Berger
Hadas Ziv
Yoav Kokavi
Sari Nuriel
Dr. Joel Pearl

Association Greeting
Dear guests,

The 'Women in the Picture' Association was founded in 2004 thanks to the unique passion of two women from the world of cinema and television, both possessing a rare social commitment to the promotion of women's creation in the field of cinema: Naama Prizant Orpaz and Anat Shperling Cohen. The International Women's Film Festival is the Association's signature project. It functions as a unique stage for the voices and perspectives of filmmakers from Israel and from around the world. The Festival grants the extraordinary opportunity of direct encounters with and among filmmakers; opportunity for female debate on selected social and humanisticfields; and of course, to watch a variety of films.

Last year the festival gained great success and reached a peak of 10,000 visitors. Therefore the festival was extended this year, 2008, to six days. It is female passion, which was the pivot for the content of the fourth International Women's Film Festival- Women in the Picture. Thus, it is only natural that in the fifth festival, a question will be raised about the relation between food and women. Women in today’s culture allow us to learn about relations between food and surplus, food and hunger, disgust and food, compulsion and body, need and demand (for love), counting and countless, nothingness and too much. Some eat their passion, others eat the nothingness (which is everything too), some serve themselves as food to another’s passion, while others use starvation to absent themselves from the other. Thus, the numberfpossibilities equals that of women and men.

This year the festival will take place between 15-21 September 2008 and will screen over 70 films directed by women from Israel and the world. Israeli artists and directors take part in the festival along side guest artists from abroad, who share their oeuvres with the audience, artist’s workshops, lectures and more. As in every year, there will be an Israeli contest for documentary, feature, experimental and animation artists. Aside from screenings, there will be master’s classes, public encounters and screenings as well as seminars and symposiumsrelating to women and food.

The Women in the Picture Association offers special congratulations to the city of Rehovot for its great achievement of establishing itself as a city that is leading a social change, altering the status of women, and a city which grants opportunities to women artists. The courageous partnership that has developed between the Municipality of Rehovot, the Rehovot Foundation of Culture, and the Women in the Picture Association, has not only made the Festival possible, but has also produced a fascinating model of cultural-social impact on a national level through the daring of a peripheral community. The Association also wishes to thank the Ministry of Science, Culture and Sport, the Council of Cinema, the European Union, and the Pais Council for Culture and Art.

Congratulations and good luck
On behalf of the governance committee, members of the Association
Revital Bakshi-Proyce
'Women in the Picture' Chairperson