Breaking stereotypes

A short film, Atelier, tells the story of two women who lived in the same house on an island. The younger one prefers isolation and serenity, but the elder woman is an experimental sound artist and likes conversations. At the end of the 30-minute film, the younger woman is shown turning on a tap to submerge her co-tenant's stereo equipment in water, which forces her to leave.

The film was a graduation work of Icelandic Elsa Maria Jakobsdottir, who studied at the National Film School of Denmark. Atelier won Iceland's Edda Award for best short film in 2018, and received more than 200,000 views online in just two to three days.

Huang Ying, 24, a cashier in Beijing, says as an office worker, she can understand one of the character's longing for quietness, but the film's ending left her "a little confused".

Jakobsdottir says she aims to create female characters that challenge stereotypical portrayals of women on screen.

There is a tendency in popular culture to show major female characters as "superhuman".

"It causes a lot of social pressure if those are the pictures of women we are going to depict," Jakobsdottir says.

"I also want to see films with female characters who are complicated, broken, selfish, don't do the right thing and make terrible choices."

Eric Messerschmidt, director of the Danish Cultural Center, says the event aims to discuss gender equality, and in particular, the role and condition of women in art and culture.

"More than any other creative industry, the film industry ... is undergoing a major shift in the recognition, redistribution and representation of women in front of and behind the camera," he adds.