Byline: MATTHEW FRASER

Montreal PQ -- BY MATTHEW FRASER The Globe and Mail MONTREAL IT IS REMARKABLE enough that Britain's Channel 4, a private network, invested in The Gold Diggers. An offbeat feminist film by Sally Potter, it was destined to have virtually no commercial appeal, certainly not on television. More remarkable, though, is the presence of Julie Christie, whose lissom beauty has made her a Hollywood sex symbol, in an experimental film that examines, among other things, women on the screen as sexual icons.

Released in England two years ago, The Gold Diggers was received poorly and criticized as "anti-male" - no doubt because the few men in the film are presented as stiff and morally vacant bureaucrats who attempt to impede two women searching for their feminine identity. However, the film has found a more enthusiastic audience at Cinemama, the film festival running at the National Film Board's Cinema on weekends until Dec. 14.

The warm response - perhaps better described as ideological embrace - given Gold Diggers and other films in the festival is not surprising. Cinemama, in its second year, is devoted exclusively to the work of women and has, in like manner, attracted an almost entirely female audience. And judging from some of the discussion panels that follow screenings, the films are attracting the same 100 or so committed and vocal feminists, as well as such guest speakers as artists Joyce Wieland, Tanya Mars and Kay Armatage, and women filmmakers from...