Femme International Film Festival

Scope

Brand Identity
Art Direction
Animation
Video Editing
Website Design

Introduction

Brand Identity for Femme International Film Festival – an intersectional celebration of women in film

Purpose

Femme International Film Festival is dedicated to celebrating all female-identifying individuals working in the film industry, on and off screen, especially women of color, queer women, and trans women. It advocates for equality in the industry not only in terms of gender but also in other intersectional representation: race, LGBTQ+, disability, age, body size, etc.

Trailer

The trailer includes films that I curated for the festival. The film footage are accompanied by branded festival graphic and animation. The trailer credit can be found at the bottom of this page.

Festival Trailer

The Logo

I specifically choose a cursive, calligraphic font for 'Femme' because it is traditionally considered "feminine" - it's curvy and flowy. Throughout the history of feminism, there has been separation of femininity from feminism - things like makeup are denounced and rejected by Second Wave feminists. In Hollywood, there are still tropes that demonize ultra-femininity. Using a font like this is a way of taking back that power.

I then pair it with a rigid, sharp sans-serif font, which looks more traditionally "masculine", because the point of the festival is any form of representation of femininity, or lack thereof, is valid for a female-identifying individual.

In the acronym logo, the two Fs resemble flags. They signify growth, change and revolution.

The System

The graphic language is inspired by the quote below by Laura Mulvey in the essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," where she first coined the term 'the male gaze'. In films under the male gaze, according to Mulvey, women are portrayed only as fragments and pieces, not whole.

Taking this idea, I use these fragmented / glass-like shapes but bringing them together to interact. Together, they form an architectural structure that is grand and resembles a place of worship. I balance the sharpness of the fragments with curves that flow through them, again juxtaposing feminine and masculine energy.

“One part of a fragmented body destroys the Renaissance space, the illusion of depth demanded by the narrative, it gives flatness, the quality of a cut-out icon rather than verisimilitude to the screen.”

– Laura Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’

Application

Asides from the curved lines, I incorporate part of the F in 'Femme' into the posters as a visual element. The purple gradient adds a sense of depth to the posters and the glass-like pieces.

Main poster featuring multiple films

For this series of individual film posters, the fragments connect through the posters when they're placed in the right order.

For some posters, I reverse the idea of fragments containing the imagery - the films are now in the background.

The poster series can be displayed as a triptych...

...or a series of six. They can be in the correct order so that the posters connect...

...or jumbled so they don't line up at all. The system works regardless.

Another display of the posters

Billboard

Badge ID

Tickets

Wristbands

T-shirt Merch

Website Demo

Trailer credits:

Music: Tempelhof - Yann Tiersen
Films used (in order of appearance):
Náufraga - Juh Almeida, Nomadland - Chloé Zhao, Empty By Design - Andrea Walter, Little Women - Greta Gerwig, The perfect Candidate - Haifaa al-Mansour, Born to Be - Tania Cypriano, Murmur - Heather Young, The 8th - Aideen Kane, Maeve O'Boyle, Lucy Kennedy, Adam - Rhys Ernst, Rocks - Sarah Gavron, Pick - Alicia K. Harris, Butterfly - Alessandro Cassigoli, Casey Kauffman, The Kall - Barbara Mamabolo, Hatsu - Rita Iris Prieto Matzuki, BGK - Blayre Pichon, This Little Land of Mines - Erin McGoff, Carmen & Lola - Arantxa Echevarría, Way Back Home - Park Sunjoo, Harriet - Kasi Lemmons, Sanctuary - Andrea Cordoba, Pier Kids - Elegance Bratton, The Shepherdess - Katie Falkenberg, Bodies Like Oceans - KC Cory, Frida - Julie Taymor, Daisies - Věra Chytilová, Legally Blonde - Robert Luketic, Thelma & Louise - Ridley Scott