Films About Women Opening This Week
Vessel (doc) — Directed by Diana Whitten
Vessel begins with a young doctor who lived by the sea — and an unlikely idea. Rebecca Gomperts, horrified by the realities created by anti-abortion laws around the world, felt compelled to challenge this. Her method: to provide abortions on a ship in offshore waters. Her project, Women on Waves, begins as flawed spectacle, a media frenzy, faced with governmental, religious, and military blockades. But with each setback comes a more refined mission, until Rebecca has the revelation that she can use new technologies to bypass law — and train women to give themselves safe abortions using WHO-sanctioned protocols with pills. We witness the creation of an underground network of emboldened, informed activists, working at the cutting edge of global reproductive rights, who trust women to handle abortion themselves. Vessel is Rebecca’s story: one of a woman who heard and answered a calling, and transformed a wildly improbable idea into a global movement. (Press materials)
Read Women and Hollywood’s interview with Diana Whitten.
Something, Anything
When a tragedy shatters her plans for domestic bliss, a seemingly typical Southern newlywed (Ashley Shelton) gradually transforms into a spiritual seeker, quietly threatening the closest relationships around her. (Press materials)
Films About Women Currently Playing
Beloved Sisters
Annie — Co-Written by Aline Brosh McKenna
Ask Me Anything
Two Days, One Night
Big Eyes
Free the Nipple — Written and Directed by Lina Esco
Life Partners — Directed by Susanna Fogel; Written by Susanna Fogel and Joni Lefkowitz
She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry (doc) — Directed by Mary Dore
Zero Motivation — Written and Directed by Talya Lavie
The Babadook — Written and Directed by Jennifer Kent
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1
Beyond the Lights — Written and Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood
Dear White People
Films Directed by Women Opening This Week
Druid Peak — Written and Directed by Marni Zelnick (Opening in LA)
Druid Peak is a coming-of-age story about a troubled teenage boy (Spencer Treat Clark) who finds his place in the world tracking wolves in the wild lands of Wyoming. (Press materials)
Farewell, Herr Schwarz (doc) — Directed by Yael Reuveny
Winner of the Best Documentary Prize at the Haifa International Film Festival, director Yael Reuveny’s Farewell, Herr Schwarz is a cinematic journey about buried family secrets, the Holocaust (from a third generation perspective), and how it is never too late to reclaim your heritage. Siblings Michla and Feiv’ke Schwarz survived the Holocaust but never reunited after the war. Michla moved to the soon-to-be-founded Jewish state in the Middle East and started a family there. Her brother Feiv’ke, considered dead, returned to East Germany, married a German woman, and inexplicably lived amidst the concentration-camp ruins where he was once a prisoner. The Israeli and German sides of the family lived unaware of each other for half a century until first time filmmaker Yael Reuveny probed exactly what happened to her family in 1945. (Press materials)
Read Yael Reuveny’s guest post for Women and Hollywood.
It’s All So Quiet — Written and Directed by Nanouk Leopold
Helmer (Jeroen Willems), a single farmer in his fifties, lives with his aged, bedridden father in the Dutch countryside. His working days are marked by the visits of milk collector Johan, a man of his own age for whom Helmer holds a secret fascination. One day Helmer decides to renovate the house, buying himself a new double bed and moving his father upstairs. His life gains even more momentum when adolescent farmhand Henk (Martijn Lakemeier) comes to help him out. (Press materials)
Films Directed by Women Currently Playing
If You Don’t, I Will — Written and Directed by Sophie Fillières
Selma — Directed by Ava DuVernay (opens wide)
Unbroken — Directed by Angelina Jolie
Citizenfour (doc) — Directed by Laura Poitras
Awake: The Life of Yogananda (doc) — Directed by Paola di Florio and Lisa Leeman
Films Written by Women Currently Playing
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies — Co-Written by Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh
Winter Sleep — Co-Written by Ebru Ceylan
The Good Lie — Written by Margaret Nagle
On DVD and VOD This Week
Fight Like a Girl (doc) — Co-Written and Directed by Jill Morley
Gone Girl — Written by Gillian Flynn
Honeymoon — Co-Written and Directed and Leigh Janiak
Middle of Nowhere — Written and Directed by Ava DuVernay
