The Festival just keeps getting more and more loaded. (Descriptions are by the festival)
I’m sure I’m missing a bunch but here are some highlights of films by women and some not by women but about women. Hopefully we will be able to see most of them in the near future. Some already have releases scheduled.
Midnight Madness
Jennifer’s Body written by Diablo Cody, directed by Karyn Kusama
According to Jennifer’s Body, high school isn’t the best time of one’s life. It’s actually hell on earth, awash with teenage angst, hormones and fountains of blood. Penned by Juno scribe Diablo Cody and directed by Karyn Kusama (responsible for the acclaimed Girlfight), Jennifer’s Body is the shocking flipside to Cody’s slacker teen romance.
Contemporary World Cinema
Lourdes directed by Jessica Hausner
In order to escape her isolation, wheelchair-bound Christine makes a life-changing journey to Lourdes, the iconic site of pilgrimage in the Pyrenees Mountains.
My Year With Sex directed by Sarah Watt
A tender story from Australia highlights the realistic ups and downs of an Australian family in the year following a parent’s emergency medical procedure.
Discovery
The Angel directed by Margareth Olin
A young mother (played brilliantly by Maria Bonnevie) struggles with a history of drug abuse in this exquisitely rendered and deeply compassionate piece, the first fiction film from one of Norway’s most respected documentary filmmakers.
Applause directed by Martin Pieter Zandvliet
Paprika Steen delivers a tour-de-force performance in this devastating drama about an alcoholic actress trying to put her life back together.
Beautiful Kate directed by Rachel Ward
In order to make peace with his combative, dying father, a writer must return to his childhood home and confront long suppressed memories of the mysterious deaths of his brother and twin sister.
The Day Will Come directed by Susanne Schneider
Thirty years after giving her daughter up for adoption to join the terrorist underground in Germany, Judith is tracked down by her nowadult daughter Alice to a vineyard in the Alsace where she is living with a new family and a new identity.
A Brand New Life directed by Ounie Lecomte
Impressive debut by French-Korean filmmaker Ounie Lecomte who, inspired by her childhood, recounts the emotional journey of a little girl abandoned by her father in an orphanage.
Eamon directed by Margaret Corkery
A family holiday brings to a head the destructive love triangle between Eamon, a little boy with behavioural problems, his selfish mother Grace and his sexually frustrated father Daniel.
The Happiest Girl in the World directed by Radu Jude
Family conflict produces comedy in this story of a young girl who wins a car in a lottery and her scheming parents who insist on selling it.
My Dog Tulip directed by Paul Fierlinger | Sandra Fierlinger
Christopher Plummer and Isabella Rossellini voice this vividly animated, touching tale of friendship between an elderly bachelor and his German shepherd.
La Pivellina directed by Tizza Covi | Rainer Frimme
A small abandoned girl is sheltered by a circus woman in this tale of courage, loss and togetherness.
Shirley Adams directed by Oliver Hermanus
Intimate, precise portrait of a “coloured” mother in Cape Town, South Africa whose son is disabled in a neighborhood shooting.
The Unloved directed by Samantha Morton
Morton shifts from actor to director in this stark, intimate portrait of a young British girl thrown from an abusive family into the hands of government care.
Special Presentations
Bright Star- Jane Campion
A drama based on the secret love affair between 23-year-old English poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and the girl next door, Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), an outspoken student of fashion. Intensely and helplessly absorbed in each other, they rode a wave of romantic obsession that deepened as their troubles mounted. Only Keats’s illness and untimely death proved insurmountable.
An Education- Lone Scherfig
A coming-of-age story about a teenaged girl in 1960s suburban London and how her life changes with the arrival of a playboy nearly twice her age. Torn between her parents’ dream of going to Oxford University and a more tempting kind of life, she must decide if the new path is one that will trap her or set her free.
Glorious 39- Stephen Poliakoff
This tense conspiracy thriller set on the eve of World War II and based on disturbing real events, focuses on a young woman who stumbles across evidence of a sinister Nazi appeasement plot. As her close friends begin to die in suspicious circumstances, she finds her own life in danger from an increasingly menacing and powerful enemy.
London River- Rachid Bouchareb
This intimate drama tells the story of two people, a Muslim man and a Christian woman, who are immediately affected by the July 2005 London bombings. Both of them are drawn to the British capital when their children go missing on the day of the attacks. Putting aside their cultural differences, they will give each other the strength to continue the search for their children and maintain their faith.
Mother- Bong Joon-ho
A unique noir thriller that digs into the secrecy surrounding a terrible murder and the mystery of a mother’s primal love for her son. The films of director Bong Joon-ho regularly, and brilliantly, break with convention, thanks to an imagination that is not confined to the accepted parameters of humour, suspense or horror – Mother is no exception.
Partir- Catherine Corsini
Suzanne (Kristin Scott Thomas) is a well-to-do married woman and mother in the south of France. Her idle bourgeois lifestyle gets her down and she decides to go back to work as a physiotherapist. Her husband agrees to fix-up a consulting room for her in their backyard. When Suzanne and the man (Sergi López) hired to do the building meet, the mutual attraction is sudden and violent. Suzanne decides to give up everything and live this all-engulfing passion to the fullest.
The Vintner’s Luck- Niki Caro
Set in early 19th century France The Vintner’s Luck tells the compelling tale of Sobran Jodeau, an ambitious young peasant winemaker and the three loves of his life—his beautiful and passionate wife Celeste, the proudly intellectual baroness Aurora de Valday and Xas, an angel who strikes up an unlikely friendship with Sobran. A fantastical creature with wings that smell of snow, Xas turns out to be an unconventional mentor. Under his guidance Sobran is forced to fathom the nature of love and belief and in the process, grapples with the sensual, the sacred and the profane—all in pursuit of the perfect vintage.
Whip-It- Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut stars Ellen Page (Juno) as Bliss, a rebellious Texas teen who throws in her small-town beauty pageant crown for the rowdy world of roller-derby. Marcia Gay Harden (Mystic River, Pollock) plays Bliss’s disapproving mother, while Drew Barrymore, Kristen Wiig (Saturday Night Live) and Juliette Lewis (Old School) play roller-derby stars. Whip It also stars Eve, Jimmy Fallon, Daniel Stern, Alia Shawkat, Ari Graynor, Andrew Wilson, Zoe Bell and singer-songwriter Landon Pigg.
Women Without Men- Shirin Neshat
Shirin Neshat’s first feature-length film is based on a magic-realist novel written by Iranian author Sharnush Parsipur. The narrative interweaves the lives of four Iranian women during the summer of 1953, a pivotal moment in Iranian history when an American led coup d’état brought down the democratically elected prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh and reinstalled the Shah to power. The film chronicles each woman’s quest for change and their mysterious encounter in a magical orchard.
Vanguard
Fish Tank- Andrea Arnold
Andrea Arnold’s assured follow-up to Red Road is a taboo-breaking love story about a violent teenaged girl transformed by desire for her mother’s new boyfriend.
My Queen Karo- Dorothée van den Berghe
A young girl witnesses the moral dilemmas of free love when her parents join a squatter community in 1970s Amsterdam.
“isolation, wheelchair-bound… life-changing journey to Lourdes…”
“realistic ups and downs… parent’s emergency medical procedure…
“a history of drug abuse”
“…devastating drama about an alcoholic…
“…a little girl abandoned by her father in an orphanage…”
“…the destructive love triangle between a little boy with behavioural problems, his selfish mother …and his sexually frustrated father…
“…abandoned girl is sheltered by a circus woman…”
“… a mother in …South Africa… son is disabled in a neighborhood shooting.”
“…stark, intimate portrait …girl thrown from an abusive family into the hands of government care…”
——
Does anyone see a pattern with these movies?
Most appear to be small, dark, depressing dramas.
This line up of films directed by women highlights something I find disturbing. Over and over women filmmakers complain about not being given opportunities in the industry, and yet they continue to make dark dramas that no one wants to see. I’m a woman and I don’t want to see most of the films described here.
This is just one yr at one festival, but I’ve seen this trend before.
If women want to change things for themselves within the industry, they need to make films that audiences want to see. Period. That means making FUN, ENTERTAINING movies, not ones that make you want to slit your wrists.
It’s not a coincidence that the most successful women in the industry over the past 15 yrs or so– Ephron, Meyers, Marshall– make moslty comedies.
Women filmakers– Please make more ENTERTIANING movies!
PLEASE!