Films From 18 Nations Will Screen at Festival

The films are coming by way of Brazil, Morocco, Mexico and the United States. Some are arriving from France, Great Britain, Canada, Greece and Egypt. In the spirit of glasnost, there are cinematic works from the Soviet Union, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria.

It’s not unusual to get films from all those countries at one festival, but in a business that has been universally male-dominated, it is a feat to get films from all those countries that have been written, produced or directed by women.

The collection has been put together for the fifth annual Women in Film Festival, which takes place Thursday through Sunday at the Directors Guild Theatre. The festival, celebrating cinematic achievements by women around the world, is sponsored by Women in Film, a young and aggressive organization established to improve the lot of women on both sides of the camera.

The festival opens Thursday at 7:30 p.m. with the presentation of the Film Actress Tribute to Oscar- and Emmy-winning actress Lee Grant. The tribute will be followed by a premiere screening of the dramatic comedy “Staying Together,” which Grant directed.

In all, 50 feature films, documentaries, short subjects, animation pieces and TV miniseries are scheduled. The productions entered in competition were chosen from more than 400 submissions from 18 countries.

Two unusual programs distinguish this year’s event. In association with the French Cultural Institute, “Liberte, Egalite, Sororite” celebrates the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution and screens intermittently Friday. The program comprises films by Coline Serreau, Camille de Casabianca and Leslie Porter--three French film makers who portray contemporary French women in cinema.

On Sunday, a body of work from the Eastern Bloc contains subjects that range from prison camps that incarcerated women during Stalin’s reign of terror (“Coma”) to the devastating effects of pesticides on Soviet children (“The Cry”). Visiting guests from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union will follow up with a symposium called “The Thawing of the Eastern Film Bloc.”

The festival offers the West Coast premieres of 20 films, including Binka Zhelyazkova’s “The Captive Balloon,” a 20-year-old critically acclaimed Bulgarian film about greed and violence that has never been shown in the United States.

Seminars will be presented on aspects of the entertainment industry of special significance to women. Among the panelists are producer Lila Garrett, Emmy-winner for “Mother of the Bride”; Barbara Boyle, president of Sovereign Pictures, and Penny Finkleman-Cox, producer of “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.”

The festival ends with presentation of the Lillian Gish Award for the most outstanding project in each of the 11 categories of competition.

Tickets and schedules: (213) 463-6060.