Weekly Update for February 2: Women Centric, Directed, and Written Films Playing Near You

Films About Women Opening This Week

A Fantastic Woman

Marina (Daniela Vega) and Orlando (Francisco Reyes) are in love and planning for the future. Marina is a young waitress and aspiring singer. Orlando is 20 years older than her, and owns a printing company. After celebrating Marina’s birthday one evening, Orlando falls seriously ill. Marina rushes him to the emergency room, but he passes away just after arriving at the hospital. Instead of being able to mourn her lover, suddenly Marina is treated with suspicion. Marina is a trans woman and for most of Orlando’s family, her sexual identity is an aberration, a perversion. So Marina struggles for the right to be herself. She battles the very same forces that she has spent a lifetime fighting just to become the woman she is now — a complex, strong, forthright, and fantastic woman. (Press materials)

Winchester

On an isolated stretch of land 50 miles outside of San Francisco sits the most haunted house in the world. Built by Sarah Winchester (Helen Mirren), heiress to the Winchester fortune, it is a house that knows no end. Constructed in an incessant 24 hours a day, seven days a week mania for decades, it stands seven stories tall and contains hundreds of rooms. To the outsider it looks like a monstrous monument to a disturbed woman’s madness. But Sarah is not building it for herself, for her niece (Sarah Snook), or for the troubled Doctor Eric Price (Jason Clarke), whom she has summoned to the house. She is building a prison, an asylum for hundreds of vengeful ghosts, and the most terrifying among them have a score to settle with the Winchesters. (Press materials)

Find tickets and screening info here.

Scorched Earth (Also Available on VOD)

The planet suffered an environmental collapse; the air became dangerous to breathe, the water became toxic, and billions of people died. Generations later, mankind has finally re-established a rudimentary society, in which bounty hunters roam the land in search of wanted eco-criminals. Bounty hunter Attica Gage (Gina Carano) has the chance at the bounty of a lifetime: bringing down the ruthless outlaw, Thomas Jackson (Ryan Robbins). Gage infiltrates Jackson’s gang, and everything is going to plan until she meets a slave girl that reminds her of her dead sister. With her loyalty to only herself now tested, Gage learns that there might be more to life than just survival. (Press materials)

Films About Women Currently Playing

Please Stand By (Also Available on VOD)
Just Charlie — Directed by Rebekah Fortune
Like Me
The Competition — Written by Kelsey Tucker
Desolation
Mary and the Witch’s Flower — Co-Written by Riko Sakaguchi
Mama Africa: Miriam Makeba (Documentary)
Ridge Runners
The Post — Co-Written by Liz Hannah
Proud Mary
Vazante — Co-Written and Directed by Daniela Thomas
My Art — Written and Directed by Laurie Simmons
A Woman’s Life — Co-Written by Florence Vignon (UK)
Pitch Perfect 3 — Directed by Trish Sie; Co-Written by Kay Cannon
In the Fade
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Insidious: The Last Key
In Between — Written and Directed by Maysaloun Hamoud
Molly’s Game
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
Thelma
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Lady Bird — Written and Directed by Greta Gerwig
Novitiate — Written and Directed by Margaret Betts
Jane (Documentary)
The Florida Project

Films Directed by Women Opening This Week

None.

Films Directed by Women Currently Playing

Forever My Girl — Written and Directed by Bethany Ashton Wolf
Kangaroo: A Love-Hate Story (Documentary) — Co-Written and Co-Directed by Kate McIntyre Clere
Freak Show — Directed by Trudie Styler; Co-Written by Beth Rigazio (Also Available on VOD)
Goldbuster — Directed by Sandra Kwan Yue Ng
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

Before We Vanish — Co-Written by Sachiko Tanaka

Three aliens travel to Earth on a reconnaissance mission in preparation for a mass invasion. Having taken possession of human bodies, the visitors rob the hosts of their essence — good, evil, property, family, belongings — leaving only hollow shells, which are all but unrecognizable to their loved ones. Equally hilarious, thrilling, and profound, “Before We Vanish” reminds audiences of the value of the human spirit. (Press materials)

The Music of Silence — Co-Written by Anna Pavignano (Also Available on VOD)

“The Music of Silence” is based on the extraordinary true story of Andrea Bocelli, a blind boy who, against all odds, becomes one of the world’s most renowned opera singers. Born with a serious eye condition that eventually leads to his blindness, Bocelli nevertheless rises above the challenges, driven by great ambitions towards his passion. (Press materials)

Films Written by Women Currently Playing

“The Greatest Showman”: Niko Tavernise/20th Century Fox

The Insult — Co-Written by Joëlle Touma
The Greatest Showman — Co-Written by Jenny Bicks
The Man Who Invented Christmas — Written by Susan Coyne

TV Premieres This Week

2 Dope Queens — Directed by Tig Notaro; Written by Jessica Williams and Phoebe Robinson (Premieres February 2 on HBO)

The hit comedy podcast “2 Dope Queens,” hosted by Jessica Williams and Phoebe Robinson, comes to HBO as a series of four themed hour-long specials. Taped before a live audience at Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre, the show features the fun, fearless queens dishing on “Cocoa Khaleesis,” dating white baes, sex, New York-living, the best borough for pizza, and more. (Press materials)

Absentia — Co-Created by Gaia Violo (Premieres February 2 on Amazon Prime)

FBI agent Emily Byrne (Stana Katic) is found in a cabin in the woods six years after she disappeared while searching for a serial killer. With no memory of what happened during the missing time, she returns home to find her husband remarried, and eventually becomes a suspect in a string of murders. (Press materials)

#MeToo, Now What? — Hosted by Zainab Salbi; Executive Produced by Gina Kim (Premieres February 2 on PBS)

In the current moment, when sexual harassment is at the forefront of the national conversation, “#MeToo, Now What?” aims to take the discussion to another level, engaging both women and men from all generations and walks of life in dialogue about these difficult issues. With the goal of making sense of these tumultuous times, the series seeks to answer this: How did we get here and how can we use this moment to effect positive and lasting change? (Press materials)

Altered Carbon — Created by Laeta Kalogridis (Premieres February 2 on Netflix)

This new series is set 300 years in the future, when human minds are digitized and downloaded from body to body. Based on the classic cyberpunk novel by Richard K. Morgan. (Press materials)

VOD/DVD Releasing This Week

Soul Mate — Co-Written by Lam Wing Sum, Li Yuan, and Wu Nan (VOD, February 5)
All I See Is You (VOD/DVD , February 6)
A Bad Moms Christmas (VOD/DVD, February 6)
Thelma (VOD/DVD, February 6)

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