A double bill of feminist cinema runs at the VIFF Centre from March 7 to 17

Housewife of the Year unpacks a long-running Irish TV show, while There’s Still Tomorrow follows a working-class Italian woman in the 1940s

SPONSORED POST BY VIFF

Housewife of the Year.

Two award-winning films coming up at the VIFF Centre will illuminate the historical expectations placed on women and the courage it takes to defy them.

Irish filmmaker Ciarin Cassidy’s Housewife of the Year reminds viewers that times have changed (even if some politicians may want to turn the clock back). This mind-boggling documentary reveals how 30 years ago, women in Ireland would compete for the honour of Housewife of the Year—and a $500 stove—on a long-running and very popular TV show of the same name. Key attributes for a contestant included culinary skills, an affable personality, and even temperament.

The show ran for nearly three decades, but ironically fizzled out very quickly once its creators adopted a gender-neutral Homemaker of the Year stance. In her 2024 film, Cassidy tracks down many of the winners, most of whom are as bemused as the viewers about their own participation in this ritual. Their stories are often poignant, sometimes heartbreaking, and also droll. The result is a work that secured the Best Documentary Jury Award at Newport Beach Film Festival in California and Best Irish Feature Documentary at the Galway Film Fleadh.

There’s Still Tomorrow.

Writer-director Paola Cortellesi’s There’s Still Tomorrow, a box-office sensation in Italy, has a style that evokes the neo-realist cinema that put Italian films on the map in the 1940s. The recipient of six David di Donatello Awards (Italy’s equivalent of the Academy Awards), this powerful feminist melodrama immerses viewers in bitter emotional truths.

Shot in black and white and focusing on the unending labours of working-class wife, mother, and daughter-in-law Delia (played by Cortellesi), the film at first seems like a parody due to the sheer weight of the sexist drudgery she suffers. But when Delia’s teenage daughter Marcella announces she’s soon to be engaged to a handsome young man from an upwardly mobile family, the film turns to a more subtle register.

Housewife of the Year and There’s Still Tomorrow will screen multiple times at the VIFF Centre from March 7 to 17.

Tickets and more details are available through VIFF.

Post sponsored by VIFF.

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