Weekly Update for January 12: Women Centric, Directed, and Written Films Playing Near You

Films About Women Opening This Week

Proud Mary

Mary (Taraji P. Henson) is a hitwoman working for an organized crime family in Boston. Mary’s life is completely turned around when she meets a young boy whose path she crosses when a professional hit goes awry. (Press materials)

Find tickets and screening info here.

Vazante — Co-Written and Directed by Daniela Thomas (Opens in NY and LA)

The rugged landscape of Brazil’s Diamantina Mountains provides the backdrop for this striking, black and white drama set in 1821. Upon returning from a trading expedition, Antonio (Adriano Carvalho) discovers that his wife has died in labor. Confined to a decadent but desolate property in the company of his mother-in-law and numerous slaves, he marries his wife’s young niece, Beatriz (Luana Nastas). Separated from her family and left alone, Beatriz faces physical and emotional unrest beyond her years, but finds solace in the displaced and oppressed inhabitants around her. (Press materials)

Read Women and Hollywood’s interview with Daniela Thomas.

My Art — Written and Directed by Laurie Simmons (Opens in NY; Opens in LA January 19)

Writer-director Laurie Simmons stars as Ellie Shine, a single artist living in New York City. With a stable teaching job, successful friends, and a loyal, aging dog named Bing, she remains frustrated with her lack of recognition as an artist, a feeling that is growing alarmingly urgent. When she’s offered the summer house and studio of a famous friend in Upstate New York, she seizes the opportunity to hit the reset button on her life and work. (Press materials)

Read Women and Hollywood’s interview with Laurie Simmons.

Lover for a Day — Co-Written by Caroline Deruas-Garrel and Arlette Langmann

After a devastating breakup, the only place 23-year-old Jeanne (Esther Garrel) has to stay in Paris is the small flat belonging to her father, Gilles (Éric Caravaca). But when Jeanne arrives, utterly broken-hearted, she finds her father living with a new girlfriend her own age: Ariane (Louise Chevillotte). Both young women are looking for their own kind of love in a city filled with possibilities. (Press materials)

A Woman’s Life — Co-Written by Florence Vignon (Opens in the UK)

Normandy, 1819. Jeanne (Judith Chemla) is a young woman full of childish dreams and innocence when she returns home after finishing her schooling in a convent. She marries a local viscount, Julien de Lamare (Swann Arlaud), who soon reveals himself to be a miserly and unfaithful man. Little by little Jeanne’s illusions are stripped away. (Press materials)

Inside (Also Available on VOD)

Young mother-to-be Sarah (Rachel Nichols) is trying to rebuild her broken life: recently widowed in a shattering car crash that left her partially deaf, with her baby’s birth uncomfortably long overdue, and alone. She can only just stay afloat. As night descends on her deserted suburban street, Sarah receives a most unwelcome visitor. Alone and carrying her baby, Sarah faces a calculating, cold-hearted, and predatory woman — an adversary who will stop at nothing to snatch her unborn child. Trapped and disorientated, barely able to hear the evil that stalks her, Sarah must unleash all her reserves of strength to protect her baby and survive the night. (Press materials)

Films About Women Currently Playing

In Between — Written and Directed by Maysaloun Hamoud
Molly’s Game
Blame — Written and Directed by Quinn Shephard (Also Available on VOD)
Insidious: The Last Key
Project Eden — Co-Written and Co-Directed by Ashlee Jensen
Pitch Perfect 3 — Directed by Trish Sie; Co-Written by Kay Cannon
In the Fade
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Permanent — Written and Directed by Colette Burson
I, Tonya
The Shape of Water — Co-Written by Vanessa Taylor
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (Documentary) — Written and Directed by Alexandra Dean
The Breadwinner — Directed by Nora Twomey; Written by Anita Doron and Deborah Ellis
Big Sonia (Documentary) — Co-Directed by Leah Warshawski
On the Beach at Night Alone
Thelma
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Lady Bird — Written and Directed by Greta Gerwig
A Bad Moms Christmas
Novitiate — Written and Directed by Margaret Betts
Jane (Documentary)
The Florida Project
Victoria & Abdul

Films Directed by Women Opening This Week

Freak Show — Directed by Trudie Styler; Co-Written by Beth Rigazio (Also Available on VOD)

Billy Bloom (Alex Lawther) is one-of-a-kind: a fabulous, glitter-bedecked, gender-bending teenager whose razor-sharp wit is matched only his by his outrageous, anything-goes fashion sense. When his glamorous mother (Bette Midler) is forced to send him to live with his straight-laced father (Larry Pine), Billy finds himself a diva-out-of-water at his new ultra-conservative high school. Undaunted by the bullies who don’t understand him, the fearless Billy sets out to make a big statement in his own inimitable way: challenging the school’s reigning mean girl (Abigail Breslin) for the title of homecoming queen. (Press materials)

The Polka King — Co-Written and Co-Directed by Maya Forbes (Available on Netflix)

Jack Black stars as Jan Lewan, a Polish immigrant who became the “King of Pennsylvania Polka.” A believer in the American Dream, Jan worked hard and dreamed bigger, but with big dreams come big mistakes. Based on a true story, the film mixes comedy and tragedy showing the world’s only known Polka Ponzi scheme. “The Polka King” co-stars Jenny Slate, Jason Schwartzman, Jacki Weaver, J.B. Smoove, and Willie Garson. (Press materials)

Films Directed by Women Currently Playing

In the Land of Pomegranates (Documentary) — Written and Directed by Hava Kohav Beller
The Strange Ones — Co-Directed by Lauren Wolkstein (Also Available on DirecTV)
Goldbuster — Directed by Sandra Kwan Yue Ng
Almost Paris — Directed by Domenica Cameron-Scorsese (Also Available on VOD)
The Party — Written and Directed by Sally Potter (UK)
Faces Places (Documentary) — Co-Directed by Agnès Varda
Loving Vincent — Co-Written and Co-Directed by Dorota Kobiela

Films Written by Women Opening This Week

The Post — Co-Written by Liz Hannah (Opens in Wide Release)

Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep) is the first female publisher of a major American newspaper — The Washington Post. With help from editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), Graham races to catch up with The New York Times to expose a massive cover-up of government secrets that spans three decades and four U.S. presidents. Together, they must overcome their differences as they risk their careers — and very freedom — to help bring long-buried truths to light. (Press materials)

Read Women and Hollywood’s story on Liz Hannah and “The Post.”

Find tickets and screening info here.

The Insult — Co-Written by Joëlle Touma

In today’s Beirut, a civilian dispute blown out of proportion finds Tony (Adel Karam), a Lebanese Christian, and Yasser (Kamel El Basha), a Palestinian refugee, facing off in court. As the media circus surrounding the case threatens a social explosion in divided Lebanon, Tony and Yasser reconsider their values and beliefs as revelations of trauma complicate their understanding of one another. (Press materials)

A Demon Within — Co-Written by Michelle Beyda-Scott and Helene Gonze (Also Available on VOD)

In 1914 Crestwick, a demonic spirit named Nefas surfaced to prey on a family, ending with the death of an innocent young girl. The mysterious events haunted the community for years. Now, decades later, a skeptical doctor must stop history from repeating itself by confronting his personal demons and fighting to save the life of a teenage girl who has become possessed in his family’s old house. (Press materials)

Films Written by Women Currently Playing

The Greatest Showman — Co-Written by Jenny Bicks
The Man Who Invented Christmas — Written by Susan Coyne
Let There Be Light — Co-Written by Sam Sorbo
Kingsman: The Golden Circle — Co-Written by Jane Goldman

TV Premieres This Week

Victoria — Created and Written by Daisy Goodwin (Season 2 Premieres January 14 on PBS)

Jenna Coleman (“Doctor Who”) returns for a new season as the young queen who wants it all — romance, power, an heir, and personal freedom. Joining the cast in the new season is legendary actress Dame Diana Rigg (“Game of Thrones,” “The Avengers”), who plays the Duchess of Buccleuch, the court’s new Mistress of the Robes — a fount of old-fashioned good sense for the queen, who is now in the throes of motherhood. Tom Hughes (“Dancing on the Edge”) returns to star as the queen’s smoldering consort, Prince Albert. Also returning from last season is Rufus Sewell (“Man in the High Castle”) as Lord Melbourne, Victoria’s first Prime Minister and intimate friend. (Press materials)

Black Lightning — Co-Created by Mara Brock Akil (Premieres January 16 on The CW)

Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams) is a man wrestling with a secret. As the father of Anissa (Nafessa Williams) and Jennifer (China Ann McClain), and principal of a charter high school that also serves as a safe-haven for young people in a neighborhood overrun by gang violence, he is a hero in his community. Nine years ago, Pierce was a hero of a different sort. Gifted with the superhuman power to harness and control electricity, he used those powers to keep his hometown streets safe as the masked vigilante Black Lightning, but he left the superhero days behind. Almost a decade later, Pierce’s crime-fighting days are long behind him… or so he thought. (Press materials)

Morocco: Love in Times of War — Co-Created by Teresa Fernández-Valdés and Gema R. Neira (Premieres January 18 on Netflix)

In 1921, nurse trainees from Madrid’s upper class open a hospital in Melilla for Rif War soldiers, finding friendship and romance while saving lives. (Press materials)

VOD/DVD Releasing This Week

Cook Off! — Co-Directed by Cathryn Michon; Co-Written by Cathryn Michon and Wendi McLendon-Covey (DVD, January 16)
Happy Death Day (VOD/DVD, January 16)
Loving Vincent — Co-Written and Co-Directed by Dorota Kobiela (VOD/DVD, January 16)

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