With Kathryn Bigelow’s nomination for best director at the Academy Awards in 2010, the minds behind the annual Chiaroscuro foreign film series decided it was time to explore the idea of women behind the camera.

“We thought it would be a good idea to try to tell the U.S. and Grand Rapids that there are other things going on beyond the confines of U.S. territory,” said founder Gretchen Minnhaar. “Female directors are far, far more common outside of the United States.”

This Sunday, the sixth and final film in the series, the 2000 film “The Day I Became a Woman,” will play at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids, and like all films in this year’s series, it was directed by a woman – in this case, an Iranian woman named Marzieh Makhmalbaf.

“The Day I Became a Woman” tells three stories about Iranian women and the pressures put on them by the Iranian culture. One of the stories deals with a young child, who must lose her best friend, a boy, on her ninth birthday because she “becomes a woman.” Another tells the story of a cyclist whose husband wants her to forfeit a race. The final story is of a widow who inherited money and wishes to buy all of the possessions she was never able to own before.

“We chose this film because Iran in general is sort of an unknown place in the world despite its long history.” Minnhaar said. “Women are treated like second-class citizens there. Not just in the way they dress but also by the career options available to them.”

After the screening of the film, a panel of experts, including a professor from Grand Valley State University, will take questions from the audience and discuss the social conditions in the film.

Minnhaar founded the film series in 2005 alongside Grand Valley State University professor Zulema Moret with hopes to broaden the horizons of filmgoers in Grand Rapids by exposing them to foreign films.

“I would like the audience to become enamored with foreign films,” Minhaar said. “ … I’d like people to see that these films are not so complicated, and you can enter a very beautiful world and see things that are completely lost to many people.”

A locally-made independent film, “Public Museum,” will be screened prior. The event will begin at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday and admission is free.

The UICA is located at 41 Sheldon SE in Grand Rapids.

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