Radar

THIRTY-SIX YEARS after co-founding the St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival, Noreen Golfman says the event is “as necessary as it ever was.”

According to the World Economic Forum’s 2023 Global Gender Gap Report, it would take 131 years to achieve full gender parity across the board, Golfman notes. And in Canada’s film industry, it could take even longer. One study found that 2215 is when women will occupy 50 percent of key creative positions. About 1,000 submissions flood in each year for the St. John’s film event, which is one of Canada’s longest-running women’s film festivals, and Golfman is very proud of that legacy. “Every time I experience the festival, I get more and more emotional about what it’s achieved and…the collateral effects of sending women back into their communities all over the planet, feeling inspired and confident that they can stay in the industry — [that] there’s a place for them.” Although she passed along the reins of the festival five years ago, Golfman remains involved as an honorary board member and founding director. It’s just one of the many ways she champions the arts in Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2023, she was awarded the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador for her work in film, literary and academic forums.

She holds a slew of job titles — vice-chair, Newfoundland and Labrador Film Development Corporation; board chair, Winterset in Summer literary festival; and founder, MUN Cinema Series (while working as an English professor at Memorial University, where she was the first woman provost and vice-president, academic).

Golfman is also the founding director and co-chair of Business & Arts NL, which facilitates partnerships between artists and the broader community. One of the goals of the group is to dissuade businesses from viewing arts organizations as charities, instead urging them to explore how the two sectors benefit each other. It’s a concept that works in St. John’s because the arts are fundamental to the Newfoundland and Labrador identity. “This place is a really creative space with lots of possibility, which is why I’ve been able to do so much,” says Golfman. “There was an appetite for…new ideas, for rolling up your sleeves and getting ’er done. And that’s the kind of thing I like to do.”