Date: May 12, 2008
Time: 6:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Place: YWCA – 4th Floor – Welch Rooms 1 & 2 (535 Hornby Street, Vancouver, BC).
Host: Danika Dinsmore, WIFTV President

The meeting will consist of Elections for WIFTV Board of Directors, Bylaw Revisions, Networking and Prizes from

Fluevog Shoes, The Pottery Barn, Shop About Tours, and Prince of Colour - Print & Design!

GUEST SPEAKER: RINA FRATICELLI  
TOPIC: Women in Media: Canaries in the Coal Mine?

In recent months, feature articles in a wide range of publications from The Harvard Business Review to Maclean's have asked "Whatever happened to equity for women?" After decades of more or less steady progress, employment equity for women has not only stalled, it's actually in decline. Women are “missing in action” at the top echelons  of  virtually every profession - from the floor of the House of Commons to our corporate boardrooms. The legal and medical professions have begun to sound alarms.  As POV editor Barri Cohen put it in a recent editorial: “There’s no way to finesse the words: it appears we women don’t direct features and that’s inexcusable. We have better gender parity in the recent right-wing Federal cabinet, which is down to 18% women.”

Gender inequities in media industries carry a double-barrelled impact: labour inequities behind the scenes leads to increasingly sexist content on screen. The breath-taking shortage of women in positions of authority and content- producing roles plays out powerfully in the narratives that beam out of billions of screens –  large and small – and make their way around the planet.  What we are seeing is more than the simplistic sexism of the 1950’s but a dynamic reflection of an unbalanced world. Are women the 21st century equivalent of the canary in the coal mine?

RINA FRATICELLI is the founder and executive producer of Wild Zone Films. Rina Fraticelli has a written, directed and produced documentaries for over twenty years, both in the independent    sector and as Executive Producer of the NFB's Studio D and, most recently, Pacific/Yukon Production Studio here in Vancouver. 

Her credits as independent producer include the Genie award- winning Jane Rule: Fiction and Other Truths, John Walker’s Changing Ground and David McIlwraith’s Celesta Found and the Lynching of Louie Sam. As Executive Producer of the NFB, her award winning films include Shameless, Forbidden Love, Company of Strangers, Five Feminist Minutes, Scared Sacred and Being Caribou. 

Her writing credits include the internationally acclaimed six-hour documentary series, Women: A True Story as well as a number of shorts for BravoFact.She brings to her film work extensive experience in the arts, and particularly theatre dramaturgy and  translation; as well as in community development.  Rina served as policy advisor to Ontario's Minister of Culture and Communications.  She was the author of an influential study on The Status of Women in Canadian Theatre for the Applebaum-Hebert Commission and an editor of the feminist literary journal, Fireweed. 

We hope to see you all at the AGM!  For more info Log into your member profile at www.womeninfilm.ca

Membership Lapsed?  We will happily process your renewal right at the AGM!

EVERYONE WELCOME!  DOORS OPEN AT 6:30 PM  MEETING STARTS AT 7:00 pm