Program features entries from the Madcat Women's International Film Festival

Curator Ariella J. Ben-Dov traveled from San Francisco to Kingston to show a 90-minute presentation of short films in the Chafee Social Science Center at 4 p.m.

The program shown was titled "Truth of the Matter," and each of the eight films was the director's response to her government and its policies. The films were directed by women from the United States, Germany and Japan.

"I was really inspired by the amount of political work I received, especially with everything going on right now in the world," Ben-Dov told the audience.

Ariella Ben-Dov

Ben-Dov, who attended Hampshire College, created MadCat in 1996 while living in San Francisco. MadCat has 12 programs to show at its festival this year, with films of different lengths and plots.

"I don't have a theme for festivals until looking at the work. I look for interesting stories which challenge sound and visual," Ben-Dov said.

The only guideline to enter films for MadCat each year is that the director or co-director must be a woman.

Each film was compelling and unique in its own way. The program began with a five-minute film titled "Which Way," created by Claudia Herbst of Germany. The film was based on the Dachau concentration camp during the Holocaust. The MadCat website describes the film as "relentless yet enticing drum beats combined with rapid fire editing of animation, still photographs and live-action sequences."

One of the most interesting yet heart-breaking features was a silent film titled "Good Morning, Night," directed by Kiyoko Segawa of Japan. It was a three-minute film of a Japanese family -- a mother, father and baby -- sitting down to dinner while bombs are exploding outside their home. The adults pretend to be unaware of the war outside while the baby is very alert to the sights and sounds, pointing and trying to get the adults' attention. Eventually their home is hit, and the next scene is the family on a train ride to heaven, accompanied by fallen soldiers. Although this film was without sound, the fantastic imagery was sufficient to tell the story.

Some of the films, such as "Travis" by American Kelly Reichardt, showed an array of colors while voices recite a story in the background.

Reichardt had taken parts of an interview from a mother talking to NPR radio about the death of her son Travis, who was killed in Iraq. In the film the mother is telling her story, but it is edited to repeat lines and then include more information as the story progresses.

Throughout the entire film, she repeats, "You have to swear to me nothing will happen. We went in on a premise, if that's what it was." The story leaves the audience with chills as they learn her son has died and she is reliving the day she found out.

Another emotional film focused on an African-American woman's eyes that began to shed tears as a story was told through a sound clip. Lori Hiris of the United States titled the film "Cross Examination."

It is based on testimony during the Senate hearings on the Clarence Thomas nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court. Anita Hill, a law professor, said she was sexually harassed by Thomas, who had been nominated by former President George Bush. The case basically broke down as an African-American woman making a claim against an African-American man. Thomas said Hill was not worth that type of risk and claimed that he was the victim of black stereotypes. In the video it mentioned it was "black male sexism with black female resistance."

You can read more about the MadCat Film Festival on its website.