Special Events

Scenic canal cruise to pre launch the festival!    6:00 PM- 8:00 PM- Meet near Amsterdam Central Station Unlimited Drinks (beer, wine & soda)!! Two tickets are available on our Kickstarter rewards for this epic adventure… Mingle with the Filmmakers be part of the official entourage! Then join all of us on our way over to the acoustic night with Stephen Trask!

During the last few decades in mainstream cinema, it has been prevalent to depict women as powerful action heroes, often seen in acts of unbelievable feats for their body type or skill set. The “Mary Sue” came to be.  However, what is often missing from these female action characters is that which defines the hero (male or female)…discovering inner strength and courage even and most often in times of vulnerability.  To me, the most compelling women (and men) in these genre films are those that must over come obstacles, discover their internal power and develop an arc in the journey the audience shares with them along the way.

I felt Patty Jenkins did a wonderful job in encapsulating that feminine strength in Wonder Woman and Kathryn Bigelow also did so with Angela Bassett’s character, “Mace” in Strange Days.  I am pleased to see women branching out to direct women in action films and as a result;  captures that strength that makes female heroes that resonate in genuine portrayals.  Director, Eva Husson, continues this trajectory in the 2019 Cannes sensation, Girls of the Sun.

Somewhere in Kurdistan, Bahar, commander of the “Girls of the Sun” battalion, is preparing to liberate her hometown from the hands of extremists, hoping to find her son who is held hostage.
A French journalist, Mathilde, comes to cover the attack and bear witness to the story of these exceptional warriors.
Since their lives have been turned upside down, they have all been fighting for the same cause: Women, Life and Liberty.

Kurdistan is our country of focus this year and this film really helps contextualize actual events that inspired this production. On August 3rd, 2014, in the arid Sinjar Mountains of northern Iraq, ISIS troops suddenly poured into Yazidi territory. Sinjar, then the last unconquered area between southern Iraq and Syria, was strategically important to ISIS. Two years of horror follow for the The Yazidis who are a stateless minority. Those two years pushed Yazidi women to take on a degree of societal importance that they never had before, much in the way the WWI brought European women to the forefront.

The Manifesto Film Festival is ecstatic to present Girls of the Sun as our opening night film in partnership with the Rialto Theater.  Actress Zübeyde Bulut, who plays Lamia, will be in attendance for an audience Q and A following the film hosted by Kurdish Director Mazin Sherbayani.

Why is John Williams and other composers of epic scores considered the “classical” musicians of modern times?  What would Star Wars be without the iconic music?  Why do sometimes we a see a film and the music instead upstages the story and is ill-fitting?  The delicate art of scoring music for film or writing diegetic musical number is often under-appreciated by many who have concluded that film is just about image…however, ever since the days of the Silent’s…music has always been utilized to convey emotion and meaning.  What exactly is sound design?  Stephen Trask, the Grammy nominated musician for his work on the musical Hedwig and The Angry Inch, will discuss his process in collaborating with John Cameron Mitchell for writing the film and how flawlessly the dialogue blends with the music to create the powerful resonance we experience when watching. Sound designers and composers Donna Kavanagh, Manifesto alumni all the way from New Zealand, and new member of the festival family with her short Drive, Director Sara T. Gama will join in on the discussion and also take questions from the audience.

All you can drink wine and beer…DJ… at the famous EYE Film Museum located on the scenic IJ river in Amsterdam…this is your chance to chat and get to know the filmmakers and entourage at the Manifesto Film Festival…last year this was the highlight of the festival…so much fun! People are still talking abut it! Everyone is welcome as long as there is space!