Europe
Spain
Hitting the Bottom
Room-mates Marta and Mar share a tiny apartment with two others in Barcelona, and regularly rummage through waste bins in the back streets to find food and clothing. They're typical of the 'new poverty' affecting young people in the Spanish region of Catalonia today who struggle with soaring rents, irregular work and unemployment. Twenty per cent of Catalonia's population is either poor or living on the fringes of society - the majority young people, the elderly and immigrants. But Marta and her friends are making a virtue of necessity - sharing out the household chores during the day, and combing Barcelona's streets at night for what they call "recycling".
Production company links/email: Televisio de Catalunyna TVC (Spanish only) or email Production Manager Montserrat Tarrés
France
Paris Parity
Former Socialist MP Françoise Gaspard and her colleagues campaigned for gender parity in the 1970s - in a radical attempt to ensure equal numbers of male and female candidates at French elections. The 'parity' principal was finally written in to the French Constitution in 1999, and a new law passed obliging political parties to include 50/50 male and female representation on candidate lists - or face being penalised. In spite of this, the French parliament still has only 71 female MPs to 506 male MPs, and political parties choose to pay million Euro fines rather than comply with the law and put forward equal numbers of women candidates for election.
Production company links/email: Gender Company (French only) or email Gender Company
Related links: Assemblee Nationale, France
Italy
‘Rosa’
Rosa Carlucci and her two teenage sons fled their home in the south of Italy to escape her abusive ex-husband and seek protection from the social services in the northern town of Turin. But they refused to believe her, and instead gave custody of the two boys to her violent former truck-driver husband. Rosa’s problems with the authorities stem from deep-rooted prejudices about women that survive in southern Italy - she’s a separated woman, and her own natural mother sold her at birth to a childless couple who adopted her; she’s seen as unreliable, and untrustworthy – even when the two boys put in her husband’s charge suddenly disappear.
Production company links/email: RAI The Italian Public Television (Italian only) or email Writer/Director Barbara Carfagna's or Producer Mariolina Bronzini
Austria
Mama Bock
A former social worker, Ute Bock enjoys almost cult status in Austria. She isn’t rich, she’s no supermodel, and she doesn’t have her own TV show. But through the ‘Verein Ute Bock’ charity she founded in 2002, she’s become a mother figure to human rights activists and asylum seekers alike, tirelessly working to ensure that refugees who come to Austria have access to food and shelter, are treated with dignity – and above all don’t lose hope. “She inspires me - such idealism at her age!” says fellow refugee care worker Ibrahim Ari, “I want to be just like her. She’s so dedicated and she puts her whole heart into her work.”
Related links: Ute Bock Website (German only)
Czech Republic
Choosing Life
Lawyer Marie Vodickova already looks after eight adopted children. Now she’s started a network of 20 ‘safe houses’ across the Czech Republic catering for poor and disadvantaged mothers - evicted from their homes, or escaping violent relationships - who might otherwise be forced to give up their children. After a rise in the number of abandoned babies, the Czech Republic passed a controversial law in 2005 allowing mothers to leave their new born babies anonymously in designated ‘baby boxes’. Maria believes the government should instead provide more welfare centres that would help mothers bond with their children and keep their families together.
Production company email: Gabriela Převrátilová or Writer and Director Bronislava Janečková
Related links: The Fund for Children in Need (Fond Ohrožených Dětí) or email FOD, email Civic Association STATIM (The creator of baby - boxes)
Bosnia
Speaking Out
In 2005 young Bosnian film director Jasmila Zbanic produced 'Grbavica', a powerful drama about the relationship between a raped woman Esma, and her teenage daughter Sara, who after 14 years silence finds out that she is the product of her mother’s rape. Between 20,000- 50,000 women were raped in the war in Bosnia & Herzegovina from 1992-’95: there are no exact statistics as many women were too afraid of being stigmatized and shunned by their neighbours to speak out. Now the release of ‘Grbavica’ has helped banish the taboos and prejudice, and empowered rape victims to campaign for official recognition as 'victims of war'.
Production company links/email: Public Broadcasting Service of Bosnia-Herzegovina (Bosnian only) or email BHRT
Related links: 'Grbavica', Zena Zrtva Rata ('Women War Victims') (Bosnian only)
Kosovo
Women of Krusha
Nineteen year old Ardiana Shehu has worked on her family’s farm in the village of Krusha e Vogel, in south west Kosovo, since she was 12. Ardiana, her mother and sisters do all the farm jobs usually regarded as man’s work – driving tractors, ploughing, crop picking. But the Shehu family’s situation is not unusual. Almost 70 per cent of Krusha’s male population is still missing - taken away during the 1999 Serbian military offensive in Kosovo when over 100 men aged from 13 to 80 were executed, and the women and children expelled from the village. Today, with training and support, Krusha’s women are courageously rebuilding their lives.
Production company email: Producer and Director Birol Urcan
Macedonia
Biljana from ‘Alcatraz’
Biljana Smileva worked 12 hour shifts at the local textile factory to support her three children. Like the 30,000 other women paid one or two Euros a day in Macedonia’s textile industry, she felt there was no choice but to put up with the long hours, low pay and inhuman conditions. While independence from the former Yugoslavia has created a raft of new business tycoons, over a third of Macedonians are now unemployed and poverty is widespread. Biljana was finally fired from her job after she publicly criticised the working conditions at the factory. Now she is suing for unpaid overtime and unfair dismissal.
Production company links/email: A1 TV - (Macedonian only) or email A1
Latvia
Born to be in Business
Vija Ancane runs her own bakery, shop and bread Museum business in the quiet rural village of Aglona, south of Latvia’s capital Riga. It’s one of 300 small and medium sized businesses to benefit from a new loan scheme started by Latvia’s Land and Mortgage Bank to encourage more women to go into business. Latvia was the first country in Eastern Europe to elect a woman Head of State. But 44 per cent of women entrepreneurs still have problems starting their own businesses. “A person with a natural talent for business must be given the opportunity,” says bank CEO Juris Cebulis, “and there are a lot of women who should be in business.”
Related links: Association of Rural Women of Latvia, The Public Policy site
Lithuania
Girls don’t Cry
Aiste Paskauskaite was shocked when her boyfriend broke off their relationship after she told him she was a feminist. Feminism in Lithuania today is seen as outdated, aggressive, man-hating. “If we look at the kind of feminine image advocated in our women’s magazines,” says Margarita Jankauskaite at the Center for Equality Advancement, “they are very materialistic, most of the time [women] are presented as beautiful dolls – gorgeous, sexy and passive.” But for Aisha and her friends, the equality debate is ongoing. “For me,” says one, “feminism is connected with change. I call myself a feminist consciously, because I am working towards change.”
Production company links/email: Era Film or email Era Film
