LUNAFEST benefits breast cancer fund

Emily Grum can’t wait for you to see the short film “Backseat Bingo.”

“It’s an animated film about the romantic lives of senior citizens,” she says. “Sex and seniors is usually a topic that class discussions skim over. But in less than 5 1/2 minutes the amazingly fun characters in the film are built and you can really understand their relationships.”

Grum is a senior in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She is also an intern with LUNAbar in Berkeley, Calif., and the Madison coordinator of LUNAFEST, a one-night- only film festival celebrating women.

This will be the first time in its five-year history that the national festival will visit Madison, which it will do on Thursday, Dec. 8.

“Madison’s reputation as an active, spirited and progressive place drew the attention of the Luna team,” Grum says. It also spawned her internship. “Only seven other university campuses across the country were selected for the internship program,” she says.

Grum says that the films underscore and add extra dimensions to what she’s learning in some of her classes.

“For example, I knew that the issue of female circumcision is highly controversial, but I didn’t understand the intense emotional struggle that surrounds it until I saw ‘Tahara.’ Important issues come alive in these films,” Grum says.

The six other films are:

• “One Weekend a Month.” A single mother in the National Guard frantically searches for child care when her unit is activated to Iraq.
• “Blessing.” Mother and daughter come to a new understanding.
• “Twilight.” One woman’s ceaseless search for her daughter, who disappeared three years before. The action takes place during the White Nights of Russia, when the sun never sets.
• “Perfection.” A board game provides the metaphor for an Asian-American woman’s struggle to achieve success and win her parents’ approval.
• “Laying Down Arms.” A wrong number joins a troubled young woman and a Holocaust survivor.
• “Mabel’s Saga/Le Voyage de Mabel.” Aging as an exciting adventure.

“Each film is so unique. I was amazed at the variety of topics the films cover and the interesting angles each film explores,” Grum says. “The films put a human (or cartoon) face on many issues and makes those issues more real.”

LUNAFEST 2005 will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 8, in Memorial Union’s Great Hall. Tickets, $5, are available at the door and benefit the Campus Women’s Center and its Breast Cancer Fund.

For more information, visit http://www.lunabar.com.