Interview with Waltraud Grausgruber by Vox feminae

Can you tell us about the history of the Tricky Women festival - how and why it started? It started because we were interested in how the legacies of transgression against patriarchal power manifest in cinema, so we’ve been organising festivals that focus on films made by women* since 1992. Our focus on animation started with a program curated by Jayne Pilling: Wayward Girls and Wicked Women. We saw that animation was incredibly effective at creating the tools of expression to discuss what struggles to be reduced to words. So we’ve been exploring the wide horizon of womens* animated film practice since 2001.

The festival has been running since 2001. In what ways (in terms of techniques, style, themes, etc.), has the international animation scene changed in the last 20 years? The international animation scene is less niche than it was 20 years ago, which is a good thing. The techniques have evolved, relative to the transmutation of software and computers. Every year, we’re discovering new talents who establish new ways of navigating tricky realities. The themes, however, have remained consistent. For example, women were making films about domestic violence in 2001 and the urgency of this topic continues today. We welcome films that revisit what the festival has already discussed, as the conversations are evolving and filmmakers are finding new ways to tell their stories.

Due to the pandemic, last year's festival was organized online for the first time. How was this experience different than the usual, live festival? What are you planning for 2022? For 2022, we’re planning a hybrid version. We’ll have in-person events and some of our films will be available online. It’s still in discussion and subject to change, relative to COVID-19. There are pros and cons to both. Being online makes our programs more accessible to an international audience: people tuned in to the 2021 edition of the festival from Mexico, Uganda, Norway and Japan (amongst others). Having events in person leads to more dynamic conversations between audiences and our guests and of course, watching films in cinemas will always be better than doing so at home. The hybrid version will allow us to capitalise on the advantages of each format, build a wider audience and develop new ways of showcasing tricky realites.

Aside from the film programme, what other activities or events do you organize? During the festival we organise exhibitions, artist talks, workshops and lectures in conjunction with the film programmes. Outside of our festival season, we remain active and try to bring our films to a wider audience. To people who may not be involved in, or have access to, artistic communities. This could mean distributing films to employment services, women's organisations, educational institutions, government bodies and/or galleries. We often present our films in partnerships with civil society organisations. Tricky Women/Tricky Realities is a statement, wherever and whenever we show our films we are immediately in discussions about gender equality.

As part of last year's festival, there was a lecture by film critic Amanda Barbour entitled Animation as Tool to Destroy the Patriarchy. In what ways can animated film be feminist, which strategies can it use to fight patriarchal concepts and practices? The strong suit of animated film practice is that it’s dislocated from the laws of physics and basks in the laws of the imagination. This means that directors can materialise alternative ways of being and seeing their past, present and future. Amanda’s 2020 lecture looked at womens work in the independent animation scene. Their challenges to patriarchal storytelling were often found in a film's aesthetics and structure. Female animators often render what they experience as reality in visceral, abstract and/or surreal forms on a non-linear narrative. However, you can’t always apply this framework of understanding. Amanda’s 2021 lecture looked at communism and feminism in the Soviet Union. Here, studios were state-owned and socialist realism was mandatory. This meant that there wasn’t an independent animation scene and Soviet citizens and society had to be drawn in a very specific way. So feminist filmmaking was less about aesthetics and more about a womens subjectivity: her subject formation within a films narrative arc. A feminist film will disrupt gendered hierarchies in some way, how this manifests often depends on the socio-political context of the filmmaker.

Maria Lassnig at the Tricky Women opening in 2003 / © TrickyWomen

Outstanding Artist Award 2010 Ceremony at the ORF Radio Kulturhaus / © BMKOES

Apart from a few privileged examples (such as Lotte Reiniger or Mary Ellen Bute), women animators started gaining visibility as late as the 1970s. What happened in that period that allowed for the greater visibility of women authors? Women have been making live action and animated films for as long as men have. The difference the 1970’s made was that women started running film festivals and their programs started to re-write a film historiography that would normally privilege the contributions of men. It was around this time that there was renewed interest in Lotte Reiniger’s work. Interestingly, Reiniger made the world's first feature length animation with The Adventures of Prince Achmed in 1926. Walt Disney Studios released their first feature 10 years later, and yet if Reiniger applied for a job at Walt Disney Studios she would have received a rejection letter stating that, “Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen.” Disney didn’t let a woman direct a feature length film until 2013, when Jennifer Lee co-directed Frozen with Chris Buck.

Nowadays, many "mainstream" festivals include in their programme films by women, LGBTIQ+ or other heretofore marginalized authors. Does it make sense to still have a festival focused exclusively on women* authors? Filmmakers are incredibly diverse and we welcome any initiatives from mainstream festivals that celebrate that diversity. A central tenet of the Tricky Women/Tricky Realities Film Festival is disrupting gendered hierarchies. People at the top of any hierarchy have a limited capacity to undermine it, as their experiences are so different from those who are marginalised. As long as there is a patriarchy, there will be room for counter-patriarchal artistic creativity. Films with a LGBTIQ+ lens are a part of our program and call for contributions every year.

You collaborate with the Q21|MQ residency programme. Can you tell us more about it? It’s a three months residency where recipients will live in an apartment at the MuseumsQuartier, have access to a studio and be paid 1050€ per month. We connect artists to the Austrian art world, relative to the “theme” of their project. Last year we were the partner organisation for two Fullbright artists in residence

Do you follow the Croatian animation scene? Are there any women authors that you find interesting? Animafest has been running since 1972 and is the second oldest animation film festival in the world. As such, Croatia has a vibrant animation scene as well as a historical legacy that’s been relevant to our interests for a long time. In our inaugural festival that focused on animation, in 2001, Ivana Miskovic from Zagreb Films curated a series of short films for us that included works by Magda Dulčić, Ana Marija Vidaković and Ljubica Heidler (among others). After 20 years of Tricky Women/Tricky Realities, we’ve shown a lot of amazing Croatian animated films.

Croatia in 2021 / voxfeminae.net (Croatian only)