Looking for stuff to do while you’re at home? Never fear! SWAN Day has gone virtual for 2020. Our FF2 team has gathered recommendations of films celebrating women artists across many categories. And of course, the films are made by women, too! Watch and read at your leisure, or collect all of them to have a marathon on the official SWAN Day weekend of March 28.
The Breadwinner, based on comic books by Deborah Ellis
The Breadwinner is an award-winning animated movie about resilience and family under authoritarian rule. The story is about Parvana, a young Iranian girl, who is resistant to expectations about her gender in Afghanistan under Taliban rule in 2001. However, when her father is arrested and no one to support her family, she decides to cut her hair and dress as a boy to make money and buy food for her family. In her disguise, she finds newfound freedom and friendship as well as joy in narrating a great adventure story based on her own life. However, if she were to be found out by authorities, she and her entire family would be endangered. Parvana seeks to find her father to reunite her family.
The series is based on comic books by Deborah Ellis. Unlike many animated movies, The Breadwinner is not 3D-animated but rather relies on more traditional, though now rarer, animation of Parvana’s world. The rich colors and flat imagery creates the rich world of a city and country under oppressive rule. In an interview with Twomey, she notes that they had a challenge in recreating Afghanistan from 2000 compared to 2017. She says in an FF2 interview: “So we just had to rely on conversations we had with people who had come from Afghanistan during the screenplay stage. We brought on an American-Afghan artist who could advise us as well.Oddly, if I had been able to travel back in time, I doubt I would have seen some of the things the Afghan people we spoke to pointed out. The film is built on their impressions.”
The movie is a beautiful testament to the power of stories to unite people and gives them courage in their darkest hours. Read our full review here.
To stream it: https://www.netflix.com/title/80217121?source=35
Read FF2’s interview with director Nora Twomey here: https://ff2media.com/director-nora-twomey-oscar-nominee-breadwinner/
Top Photo: Parvana is the heroine at the center of The Breadwinner.
Bottom Photo: Parvana and her friend both disguise themselves as boys to provide for their families.
Photo Credit: The Breadwinner | Aircraft Pictures
SWAN Day Poster Design: Emma Werowinski
© Elisa Shoenberger (3/18/20) FF2 Media
