Lynn Shelton’s Laggies, Doris Dorrie’s Que Caramba Es La Vida, and Ronit Elkabetz and Shlomi Elkabetz’s Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem are among the nearly three dozen women-directed films that will be featured at the 37th Mill Valley Film Festival (October 2–12) in Marin County, California.
The MVFF will also celebrate the careers of Elle Fanning and Laura Dern, who will each attend and participate in onstage conversations. Fanning, who is currently in theaters in The Boxtrolls (voicing the kind of highly intelligent and delightfully morbid girl character that’s never seen in mainstream children’s movies), will be feted with a screening of her latest film, Low Down, in which she plays the daughter of troubled jazz-pianist Joe Albany (John Hawkes).
Laura Dern’s long and distinguished career will also be honored at the festival, which will screen previews of Wild, in which she co-stars as Reese Witherspoon’s mother. Yes, it’s unfortunate that Dern is only nine years younger than her onscreen daughter, but the Oscar-nominated actress — who also played mom roles with warmth and humanity in The Fault in Our Stars and When the Game Stands Tall earlier this year — has already received rave reviews for her supporting role.
Here are the MVFF’s women-directed films:
13 / USA (Director: Cynthia Pepper)
Ahco on the Road / South Korea/USA (Director: Soyeon Kim)
American Gladiators / USA (Director: Lara Gallagher)
Art is the Tree of Life / USA (Director: Christine Weicher and Geoffrey Quinn)
Bella / Mexico (Director: Maricarmen Marino)
Casting a Stone / USA (Director: Tiffany Farmer)
Counting the Dead / USA (Director: Catharine Axley)
Demolition: Troll / USA (Director: Megan McHugh)
Diary of a Fridge / France (Director: Josephine Derobe)
Disaster Preparedness / USA (Director: Melissa Finell)
Dying to Know: Ram Dass & Timothy Leary / USA (Director: Gay Dillingham)
Finding the Gold Within / USA (Director: Karina Epperlein)
F R E E / USA (Directors: Suzanne LaFetra and David Collier)
Freestyle / USA (Director: Lexi Lefkowitz)
From the Ground to the Cloud / US, Tanzania (Director: Denise Zmekhol)
The Future Starts Here / USA (Director: Tiffany Shlain)
Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem / Israel, France, Germany (Directors: Ronit Elkabetz and Shlomi Elkabetz)
Gnosis / USA (Director: Tamara Hahn)
Hide and Seek / UK (Director: Joanna Coates)
How I Got Over / USA (Director: Nicole Boxer)
Hula Hoop / USA (Director: Tess Martin)
In Plain Sight / USA, India, Guana, Tibet (Director: Erica Jordan)
Laggies / USA (Director: Lynn Shelton)
Madam Armande / Canada (Director: Laurence Christen, Frederique Dallaire, Catherine Picard, Alexandra Thibault)
Miriam’s Kite / Estonia (Director: Riho Unt)
Ni-Ni / USA (Director: Melissa Hickey)
The Patent Wars / Germany (Director: Hannah Leonie Prinzler)
Que Caramba Es La Vida / Germany (Director: Doris Dorrie)
Riding My Way Back / USA (Director: Robin Fryday)
The Right to Love / Slovenia (Director: Barbara Zemljic)
States of Grace / USA (Director: Helen S. Cohen)
Sure Thing / USA (Director: Deborah Reinisch)
Tin Can / Russia (Director: Tatiana Kiseleva)
Tu Dors Nicole / Canada (Director: Stephane Lafleur)
Yalom’s Cure / Switzerland (Director: Sabine Gisiger)
