This Monday in Leavey Center Conference Room, Luna Bar and the Georgetown Women’s Rugby team will hopefully show why every energy bar should have a film festival. PowerBar’s festival, for example, would stop at auto shows across the country from Detroit to Newark, screening Die Hard and Terminator and giving special honors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jean Claude Van Damme. If you’ve seen the colorful wrapper or just eaten one, you know Luna is no PowerBar. And, in the case of Lunafest, that’s a good thing.
Now in its third year, Lunafest is visiting 22 cities, from Los Angeles to Boulder, setting up at yoga conferences, universities and, most often, REI stores. It features six short films and a speaker who briefly talks about her experience with breast cancer.
While proceeds from the festival go to the Breast Cancer Fund, Georgetown University’s women’s rugby team also benefits. To generate additional funding, the team began officially promoting Luna Bar this year in exchange for sponsorship. Its efforts seem to be paying off already, as the event has already attracted interest from people all over the District.
The success of the festival is due in large part to the award-winning Judy’s Time, the longest of the six films at 40 minutes, which is also of particular interest to residents of the D.C. area. The film tells the story of local hero Judy Flannery. “She was your typical soccer mom from Bethesda, Md. In her 40s, she started doing triathlons and became a world champion,” said rugby team member Amanda House (CAS ‘05.) In 1997, Flannery was killed after being hit by a car while training on her bike. “Her daughter made the film to honor her dedication to her family and her passion for competition,” said House.
Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness is a social and political satire focusing on the current circumstances of reproductive rights packed into 14 minutes. Found footage, animation, and original interviews are spun together to tell the fictional story of a politician, young couple, and activist all linked together through their Chinese dry cleaner.
The last film is Remembrance. This fictional historical film, set during World War II, follows a man cursed with a perfect photographic memory who becomes obsessed with a woman he meets while touring in his one-man memory show.
In contrast to the other films, Barrier Device offers some comedic relief in its depiction of what happens when a researcher in a female condom study realizes that one of her subjects is her ex’s current lover. Similarly light-hearted, Coloforms, an eight minute film about a messy little girl, empowers “the messy little girl in all of us.”
In addition to giving voice to the many talented but under-recognized female directors in the U.S. (only two female directors have even been nominated for Oscars), Lunafest also promotes awareness and funding. Breast cancer now affects one in eight women, and it’s hard to find anyone who has not had a mother, aunt, wife, or friend who has been affected.
Although Lunafest claims to be “Films by … for … about women,” it really is much more. Dave Reid (MSB, ‘07)has competed in more than half a dozen triathlons, says of Judy’s Story, “I would love to see that. Triathlons are different from any other sporting event. It’s not just physical endurance, it’s an amazing mental strength.” In other words, something anyone, man or woman can appreciate-just like Lunafest.
