Bahamian filmmaker, attorney and author Marion Bethel grew up watching female family members and neighbours actively involved in the women’s suffrage movement in the 1950s and 60s.“I was very young when women got the vote in 1962,” she said. “As I got older I realised I grew up in that very rich environment of women who were visionaries and grew up with a sense of justice and fair play and what it meant to work to make The Bahamas a better place.”To honour and celebrate these women and as a way to raise their profile in both the regional and international community, Ms Bethel has co-created a documentary about the decade long struggle for women’s right to vote in The Bahamas.The award-winning film ‘Womanish Ways: Freedom, Human Rights and Democracy’ will be showing as part of the Bermuda Documentary Film Festival on Thursday, October 17 at 8.30pm.Ms Bethel will be flying to the Island for the local premiere and will also be taking part in a ‘Q and A’ session immediately afterwards.She said she was “really looking forward” to the screening in Bermuda and seeing the reaction of local viewers.After finding out about the Bermudian film festival from close friend, Ombudsman for Bermuda, Arlene Brock, Ms Bethel thought the Island would be a great place to screen the film considering the close connection and some shared history of the two islands.“It will be a great event to compare and contrast the suffrage movement in Bermuda and the one in The Bahamas,” she added.Ms Bethel started to research the project in the 1980s and had originally set out to write a book about the subject.But seeing how dramatically technology has changed and how accessible TV and film had become in early 2000s, she decided to shift focus.“I met two Bahamian filmmakers Maria Govan and Kareem Mortimer and worked with them on the film,” she said.“I thought the documentary medium would be much more accessible to younger people and the wider public in that format, as well as the book, which I am still working on.”It was her first time stepping into the role of producer and director; and she described it as an “incredible experience”.She said it was inspiring to pour over some of the historical documents and petitions from the 40s, 50s and 60s.She was surprised and fascinated to learn how politically sophisticated and savvy the women from that era were.“They had international connections and alliances with women’s groups within Canada, Britain and the Caribbean and I didn’t know that before,” she added.The director said it was rewarding to meet some of the women directly involved in the movement and hear the stories directly from the mouths of those who lived it.“It made me more aware of their legacy and just grew my own sense of gratitude to them as a beneficiary of their hard work, which they did against great odds of limited education and resources.“I think they were successful because their vision and focus was very clear and their goal was suffrage, justice and advancing human rights and freedom.“Their vision was big and the opposition was evident, but they knew what they were fighting for and what they were fighting against.”Ms Bethel said she hopes viewers will walk away from the film with a richer and broader understanding of The Bahamas as a Country.In many ways the island is often seen from the tourist perspective as a place of ‘sun, sand and sea’, but she hopes the film raises awareness about the people living in such places and their history.“At an international level I want persons that come to visit The Bahamas to have a better understanding of our own struggle for social justice, which was very much like the civil rights movement of the US, which seems to have the higher profile.”Tickets to ‘Womanish Ways: Freedom, Human Rights and Democracy’ will go on sale online tomorrow at www.bdatix.bm.Trailers for the film and others screening at the Bermuda Documentary Film Festival, can be watched at www.bermudadocs.com.