Dir: Anne-Laure Folly

Togo/France/1994/52 mins/French/Local languages with English subtitles

In Femmes Aux Yeux Ouverts, award-winning Togolese filmmaker, Anne-Laure Folly presents portraits of contemporary African women from four West African nations: Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal and Benin. The film shows how African women are speaking out and organizing around five key issues: marital rights, reproductive health, female genital mutilation, women’s role in the economy and political rights. It has screened to enthusiastic women’s audiences across West Africa, reinforcing their demands for a place at the center of the development process. African American feminist Alice Walker said of the film: “It takes courage to see the true condition of women in the world and to speak out about it. Courage and a strong stomach. The women in this film possess the necessary radical vision that neither romanticizes nor renders remote the obvious consequences of female enslavement.”

Bawso, Clarence House, Clarence Rd, CF10 5FB: 30th  November from 1800