Baltimore Women's Film Festival 2008

Abby wanders up a hill with her boyfriend Will, lost deep in her own thoughts as Will complains about their relationship. Where Abby is in her life all of a sudden seems insignificant, unfulfilled, empty. She's been here before. In a city that never seems to stop, walking up a hill that never seems to end, Abby reflects on who she is and what she wants.

In the summer of 2005 the doctors said they were 99% sure filmmaker Phoebe Brown did not have ovarian cancer. She turned out to be the 1%. Two years later Phoebe is cancer free but not without scars. In 99 to 1: Ovarian Cancer and Me, the filmmaker takes us on a journey through her diagnosis, her grandmother's death from ovarian cancer, her physical and emotional reactions to chemotherapy treatment and her hopes for the future. Shot, edited and narrated by Ms. Brown, 99 to1 is a vulnerable, intimate, funny and quirky self-portrait of a survivor. Using experimental technique and the fragments of her cancer archive, Phoebe delivers a powerful narrative of hope and brings awareness to the often-overlooked issues of ovarian cancer.

This is a story about a struggle for acceptance. The film follows AI, an alien, as he tries to find acceptance in this world. A visual effects short film, made with a documentary/day-in-the-life style.

Alma, the teenager of undocumented Mexicans and her friend, Lupita, try to score beer. They end up with sodas instead. Alma wants Lupita's red high heels. She bets her friend, if she can drink all of the sodas, she gets the heels. Successful, Alma parades around in her newly won shoes, sick to her stomach.The evening turns serious when the Border Patrol pulls up and Alma is almost arrested. She runs home but is locked out. Her parents think that she is drunk. Alma tells them about the arrest of her father's migrant friend and accepts that will have to sleep outdoors. Inside, her parents argue about when Alma should be told of her illegal status. In the morning Alma's young life will change.

Assault In Brooklyn is a story of domestic violence and abuse. The film starts out with Marta telling the story of how she came to America with Jimmy her husband of twenty years. Suddenly, we hear through the doors the abuse she is suffering once again by her husband, but this time it’s a little different because she is fighting back. The doors swing open and we see Marta running for her life to escape her abuser. As she is running she enlists the help of her neighbors who want to have nothing to do with her or her problems. It is obvious that they have heard the fighting of Marta and Jimmy many times and have become immune. We see her frantically trying to escape with terror and fear in her eyes. She is a desperate woman who will do anything to get out of this tourmentous world of abuse. Somehow she escapes and makes it to a cab that opens her to a different world of tenderness and compassion. These are feelings she has not known since she was a child. This Jamaican cab driver tells her of love, kindness, caring and most of all God’s love. He shows her how this is what the world is missing and this sparks memories in Marta which cause her to tell her story.

A young widow tries to distract herself on the year anniversary of her husband's death. Her spontanesou trip to the beach crashes her (lterally) into a stranger and the reclamation of her own life.

The year is 1921 and the village of Ballyvaughan in Western Ireland is engulfed in the Irish War of Independence with the British. When the IRA devises the assassination of two British marines, the life of a 13-year-old Irish girl is changed forever. When retaliation forces from Britain arrive, she must save Ballyvaughan from a horrible fate. The army wants to burn the village down, and she is one of the few people who knows where gasoline is kept. It is only a matter of time before the British army discovers the gasoline’s hiding place. When the girl realizes her home might be destroyed, it is up to her to prevent this horrible calamity. Based on a true story told by Jim Hyland, a resident of present- day Ballyvaughan, Ireland.

In post-WWII Los Angeles a young woman is determined to recover from a break-up with the man who she thought was 'the one'. Unable to shake the beautiful memories of their past, she visits his home to return his belongings. There she finds that her memories are not all she thought they were, and, in fact, this man was never the one. He has moved on without her, and though angry and confused, the young woman soon finds that even though the relationship was not all she believed it to be, that doesn't mean that our memories are not sacred and beautiful for what they were.