Tag Archive for 'Isabel Coixet'

Festival Spotlight: Bird’s Eye View in London Begins March 4

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on February 9, 2010
in Feminism and Festivals
. 0 Comments

Just wanted to remind you all that the 6th Annual Bird’s Eye View Film Festival kicks off in London next month.

This is one of the most prestigious festivals that highlights films directed by women.

Here’s festival director Rachel Millward talking about why the festival is important:

Birds Eye View is the UK’s only festival celebrating international women filmmakers, founded as a positive response to the still startling fact that women make up only 7% film directors and 12% screenwriters. We passionately believe that a healthy culture requires a balanced perspective and we want to see that on screen. So, we celebrate the talented women making great work today, inspire, encourage and equip more women to make more films, and show the industry and our audiences that without a female perspective in cinema, they’re really missing out!

Birds Eye View keeps working all year round, with a First Weekenders Club, promoting the opening weekend of cinema releases written or directed by women, and bespoke training labs which hothouse exceptional female writers in order to get more commercial features from women into production.

They have a wide variety of films including: Amreeka directed by Cherien Dabis; and Lourdes by Jessica Hauser.

Director Susanne Bier (who directed Brothers which was remade into a horrible Hollywood version) will hold a masterclass, and the festival will close with the London premiere of Whip-It, directed by Drew Barrymore.

More from Rachel Millward:

This is the 6th Birds Eye View Film Festival and it’s a hum-dinger of a programme, celebrating such amazing women filmmakers as Drew Barrymore (Whip It), Jessica Hausner (Lourdes), Isabel Coixet (Map of the Sounds of Tokyo), Kim Longinotto (Rough Aunties), Wanuri Kahiu (From a Whisper) and Susanne Bier (with a retrospective and masterclass).

Plus Blonde Crazy: a celebration of dazzling iconic blondes from the silent era to the present day, and special live music commissions from female artists to silent film, including the first ever animated feature film The Adventures of Prince Achmed from pioneering artist Lotte Reineger. All this with BEV’s usual sprinkling of celeb presence… It looks set to be one to remember.

Support women directed films by attending this festival.

PS- If anyone is planning on attending and wants to write a report for all of us, just get in touch with me. Thanks.

Bird’s Eye View Film Festival

Drew Barrymore debut at Birds Eye View Fest (Hollywood Reporter)

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Tags: Amreeka, Bird's Eye View, Cherien Dabis, Drew Barrymore, Isabel Coixet, Susanne Bier, Whip-It

Cannes Watch

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on May 18, 2009
in Movies and Women Directors
. 1 Comment

Here are some of the women directors and films about women that are rolling out in Cannes.

Map of the Sounds of Tokyo- Isabel Coixet

Synopsis: Ryu is a solitary girl whose fragile appearance is in stark contrast with the double life she leads, working nights at a Tokyo fishmarket and sporadically taking on jobs as a hit-woman.

Mr Nagara is a powerful impresario mourning the loss of his daughter Midori, who has committed suicide. He blames David, a Spaniard who runs a wine business in Tokyo.

Mr Nagara’s employee, Ishida, was silently in love with Midori and hires Ryu to murder David.

A sound engineer, obsessed with the sounds of the Japanese city and fascinated with Ryu, witnesses this love story which searches the shadows of the human soul, reaching deep into places where only silence has the power of eloquence.

Map of the Sounds of Tokyo

H/T FirstShowing.net

Agora-Alejandro Amenabar

Description (from Rope of Silcon): The film tells the story of the legendary astronomer Hypatia (Rachel Weisz), trapped in the legendary Library of Alexandria, and her fight to save the old world’s wisdom from the religious riots sweeping the streets of Alexandria.

I think this film is pretty interesting considering we’ve seen so many movies like Alexander and Troy about male heros.  It’s about time we heard about a woman from ancient times.  The film does not yet have US distribution.

‘Agora’ Clip, Pics and Cannes Reactions (The Rope of Silicon)

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Tags: Isabel Coixet, Rachel Weisz

Women at Cannes- Not Enough

Published
by
Melissa Silverstein
on April 24, 2009
in Festivals
. 4 Comments

The Cannes Film Festival kicks off on May 13th with actresses Isabelle Huppert as the head of the jury and of the 20 films in the official competition only three are directed by women:

Fish Tank directed by Andrea Arnold (a teenage girl drama)

Bright Star directed by Jane Campion about the poet John Keats

Map of the Sounds of Tokyo directed by Isabel Coixet

There is only one woman director featured in Un Certain Regard, Mia Hansen-Love for Pere de mes Enfants.  Lee Daniels’ Precious (formerly Push) will also play.

Where are the women directors?

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Tags: Andrea Arnold, Cannes Film Festival, Isabel Coixet, Jane Campion