LunaFest goes local — Annual Women’s Center event raises money for breast cancer

The University of Idaho Women’s Center expanded their traditional event, LunaFest, this year by accepting short films entered by local Moscow citizens and UI students.

LunaFest is a traveling, national film festival featuring short films by, for and about women. According to Lysa Salsbury, director of the Women’s Center, the festival began 13 years ago by the makers of “LUNA Bar” — a granola bar nutritionally beneficial to women.

Every year, the creators of LunaFest accept submissions from female, independent filmmakers. Salsbury said the films usually range from one to 15 minutes long. Nine films are selected to tour the country and are featured in various locations hosting the festival. 

According to the LunaFest organization, 15 percent of the funds raised go to the Breast Cancer Fund — LunaFest’s main beneficiary. The other 85 percent goes to the organization hosting the festival.

The UI Women’s Center will host LunaFest at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre. There will be a reception to begin the event with food and drink, as well as a raffle containing prizes donated from local businesses. The short films will show at 7:30 p.m. Students will be charged $6 to attend the reception and films, and $3 if they only want to view the films. General admission is $12 for reception and films, and $6 for films only.

As an addition to the festival, the Women’s Center accepted submissions from locals and students. Two short films will be featured at the festival with the other nine. Three UI students made one film and Denise Bennett, assistant professor for the School of Journalism and Mass Media, created the other.

Bennett’s film is titled “Selfie” and focuses on self-representation, specifically whether society is more focused on documenting personal events rather than living the moment. Bennett said she acted in, produced, directed and edited her film, working with five other people. Bennett said because the film focused on herself, the most gratifying moment for her was finishing it.

“It’s really hard to make a film about yourself,” Bennett said. “Always with these documentary challenges it’s good to just finish it and get it done.”

According to Katie Noble, administrative assistant for the Women’s Center, Bennett was the reason she started attending LunaFest in the first place. Noble said Bennett was her teacher while she was a student in the JAMM school.

Noble said because the topics covered are always so broad, there is usually something relevant to everyone who attends LunaFest.

“One year I had a really, really emotional response to one of the pieces, because it talked about Alzheimer’s, and I had just had a grandmother that had passed away from Alzheimer’s,” Noble said. “So for me it was deeply personal to understand those stories and that impact, and to be able to relate to the films in that way.”

A portion of the money raised from LunaFest goes to support the Breast Cancer Fund — a non-profit organization that researches the environmental causes of breast cancer, such as cleaning chemicals and makeup.

Salsbury said in her opinion, many breast cancer foundations get too much press, when their intentions aren’t solely on fighting the disease. 

“I know a lot of survivors of breast cancer are deeply offended by the ‘I heart boobies’ and ‘Save the ta-tas’ type of awareness raising,” Salsbury said. “The pink-ification of everything in October where, you know it’s like you’re selling toilet paper and it’s got a pink ribbon on it. What does that have to do with breast cancer really?”

Salsbury said she thinks it’s a good thing the Breast Cancer Fund researches environmental causes, because it does play a role not many people know about and it is a breast cancer campaign that has
preventative intentions.

Salsbury said there are many reasons both male and female students should come to LunaFest. She said too often people are taught about the negative issues of women, such as the wage gap and oppression by patriarchy — which are important, but LunaFest focuses on celebrating the greatness of women.

“This is a way to really celebrate what women are doing, the way that they’re contributing through art to our society and to advancement of women in a field that’s really dominated by men still,” Salsbury said.

Erin Bamer can be reached at [email protected]

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