JINHA

CATALAN - Catalan filmmaker Alba Sotorra, now in Kurdistan researching a documentary portrait of YPJ women, discussed her interest in Kurdish women's struggle and the philosophy of women's solidarity that informs her workin a field dominated by men.

Albahas previously created documentary portraits of Kurdish human rights lawyer Eren Keskin and others. She is currently based in Berlin.

Alba was born in Catalonia to a family that had survived the Spanish civil war and the fascist dictatorship that followed. Hers was the first generation able to freely speak Catalan and exercise Catalan culture.

"Our generation is very sensitive, because since our parents could not exercise that freedom, they taught us the value of being able to experience the freedom of speaking our language," explained Alba. This experience, along with the ongoing lack of territorial freedom for Catalonia, most recently blocked by the Spanish government's undemocratic refusal of a popular referendum on Catalan independence, has made Alba feel "deeply engaged" with the Kurdish struggle, she says.

But it was when she read a news story about Kurdish women fighters struggling against ISIS in Kobanê that she was truly inspired, says Abla. She began to closely follow the news from Kobanê. She decided she wanted to focus in her next film on YPJ fighters. Now, she has come to Kurdistan for the March 8 season to start researching and shooting the film with YPJ women.

"I'm very interested in what are their motivations and how they work as a team. I think one of the interesting things in general with women is that when they fight for an idea, they fight together. They are not egocentric as men are. They are able to establish links of camaraderie, to collaborate and fight together for an idea. This is something really powerful that we women have."

Coming together as women has also been an important principle of Alba's work as a filmmaker. Long accustomed to the gender equality among Catalan and Spanish filmmakers, of whom only 14% are women, Alba was surprised when she moved to Berlin recently to encounter the same ratio, which she had thought was limited to southern Europe because of economic underdevelopment and gender inequality.

"I think it's our duty as filmmakers and as women to work with women and make women's films," said Alba. 

"It's not that we don't like men. It's awesome to work with men. We respect the work of men. But we think we need to support ourselves," said Alba. "Men already have their club. They find work for each other." She related the experience of a female colleague who brought her short film to Cannes, where she found that every single film in the feature length competition was directed by a man. Gender inequality structures many film festivals, where men tend to select films made by other men for competition.

Not so at the International Women's Film Festival of Barcelona (Mostra Internacional de Films de Dones de Barcelona), organizedby the Catalan women's filmmaking association Drac Magic. Alba described the festival, which took place for the 22^nd year in 2014, as a non-competitive space where women could come together around and discuss film.Drac Magic also operates the Observatory of Women's Representation in the Media to critically track representations of women.

"Films and all media that we consume on television create reality. I have always been very worried that the reality we are creating is only half of the reality," the men's half, said Alba.

Drac Magic and the tradition of women filmmakers' solidarity in Catalonia goes back before her birth, says Alba, to 1970. She says these types of associations are beginning to appear in Germany as well.

Alba has been dealing with themes of women's struggle, as well as racialized stereotypes, since her first film, 2008's "Unveiled Views." The documentary follows five women in Muslim-majority countries—an artist and mine remover in Bosnia, a poet in Afghanistan, a successful filmmaker in Iran, a dancer in Pakistan and lawyer and human rights activist Eren Keskin in Turkey.

"My idea with the film was to try to break the Western stereotype of Muslim women as weak and victims," said Alba. "I wanted to show the strength of women." The women of "Unveiled Views" not only have plans and ideals, she said, but they are succeeding in reaching them.

Alba's other current project is Masters of Earth, focusing on climate change from a feminist perspective. "We need to relate to earth from the philosophy of taking care and not from the philosophy of exploiting the earth," said Alba, who is working on the film withwomen ecological philosophers and sociologists across Europe and North America.

Alba plans to begin shooting film on the YPJ on March 8 (International Women's Day), in concert with the World March of Women that is beginning in Nusaybin, in Northern Kurdistan.

"It's very important that women take a role in their future, so that they make the decisions," said Alba, speaking of the YPJ. "To make decisions you also have to take risks. And that is what they are doing."

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