From violent to V-Day: Women’s Film Festival turns 15

By Deborah Lee Luskin | Special to the Vermont Guardian

posted February 24, 2006

BRATTLEBORO — Judith Hart Fournier stopped to call the police from a gas station on Putney Road on Sept. 15, 1992, when her estranged boyfriend, who was under a restraining order not to approach her, murdered her with a 12-inch knife. In an effort to make a positive and lasting response to this event, the Brattleboro Women’s Film Festival, started in 1991, became an annual event.

Now in its 15th year, the Women’s Film Festival is both a fundraiser for the Women’s Crisis Center and an extension of the WCC’s mission not only to end violence against women and children, but also to provide educational activities to help create a community in which violence is not tolerated.

“Domestic violence is widespread,” says Marilyn Buhlmann, coordinator of this year’s festival and member of the WCC board. A survivor of domestic violence, Buhlmann takes heart from films such as V-Day: Until the Violence Stops, which shows women around the world responding to violence with creativity and courage.

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