The Between Women Filmmakers Caravan (BWFC) initiative believes in the concept of the online festival, streaming films and bringing filmmakers together with their audience. Its Carte Blanche programme was launched at the beginning of the year. Every month, a female filmmaker selects a film by another female filmmaker to be screened for a week before a meeting is held with the director on the second Thursday of the month. There are 12 films, in other words, but 24 filmmakers meeting with the audience online.

According to BWFC founder Amal Ramsis, the idea of the network is at the heart of the initiative: “Each director’s choice reveals her cinematic awareness and how she connects with other women’s films. As if we see female directors through the eyes of other female directors.” The programme also implies a great deal of variety, with each filmmaker allowed to choose any woman-made film regardless of nationality, year produced or genre. “Every month, we get to know more about not one but two female directors. The audience gets closer to the worlds of two directors they may not have known much about.”

Nine films have been screened so far:

Saken (2014), a documentary by Palestinian director-actress-writer Sandra Madi was screened in January. The film tells the story of Ibrahim Salameh, a Palestinian freedom fighter who was shot while on duty in Lebanon during the 1980s, leading to his paralysis and ending his career in the resistance. When he crosses paths with Walid, an Egyptian labourer in Jordan, they end up experiencing one of the strongest bonds two human beings could share. Saken premiered at IDFA 2014, and participated in the Bristol Palestinian Film Festival, the Beirut Cinema Days, the Al-Film Arab Film Festival in Berlin, and the FidaDoc Aghadir International Film Festival 2015, where it won the Human Rights Award.