#Festivals
Tribeca 2021 Women Directors: Meet Gaysorn Thavat – “The Justice of Bunny King”
Gaysorn Thavat began her film career in 1995 working in the camera department. Starting as a clapper loader, she worked her way up to 1st AC before making the switch to directing with television...
Tribeca 2021 Women Directors: Meet Amber Sealey – “No Man of God”
Amber Sealey is an award-winning filmmaker. She is attached to direct “The Education of Shelby Knox” and a comedy pilot she wrote called “Sistered.” She has written scripts...
Tribeca 2021 Women Directors: Meet Hannah Marks – “Mark, Mary & Some Other People”
Hannah Marks made her feature co-directorial debut with the independent film “After Everything,” which she also co-wrote. The film premiered in competition at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival....
Human Rights Watch Film Fest 2021 Women Directors: Meet Jana Matthes and Andrea Schramm – “Tacheles – The Heart of the Matter”
Jana Matthes and Andrea Schramm work as directors and producers for arte, 3sat, ARD, and ZDF. After studying journalism in Leipzig and directing in Potsdam-Babelsberg, they founded Schramm Matthes...
Human Rights Watch Film Fest 2021 Women Directors: Meet Brooke Swaney – “Daughter of a Lost Bird”
“Daughter of a Lost Bird” is Brooke Swaney’s first feature documentary. She recently made the Blacklist’s Inaugural Indigenous List with “Tinder On The Rez” along with...
Human Rights Watch Film Fest 2021 Women Directors: Meet Ashley O’Shay – “Unapologetic”
Ashley O’Shay is a Chicago-based DP and documentarian whose work focuses on illuminating marginalized voices. Most recently, she filmed the final episode of Dr. Martens’ “Tough As You”...
Trailer Watch: Five Frontline Camerawomen Share Their Stories in Tribeca Title “No Ordinary Life”
Heather O’Neill’s documentary “No Ordinary Life” centers on five pioneering frontline and combat camerawomen: Maria Fleet, Jane Evans, Cynde Strand, Mary Rogers, and Margaret...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Maria Carolina Telles – “You Are Not a Soldier”
Maria Carolina Telles is a showrunner, director, screenwriter, and journalist. Telles is known for creating and directing the docu reality series “Reto Imposible” for Natgeo Latin...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Chris J. Russo – “Lady Buds”
Chris J. Russo’s award-winning short films have screened all over the world, including at the Sundance Film Festival, and have been broadcast on Showtime, PBS, IFC, LOGO, and Netflix. She is a...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Bobbi Jo Hart – “Fanny: The Right to Rock”
Bobbi Jo Hart is an award-winning American/Canadian documentary filmmaker with Adobe Productions International, based in Montreal. Her most recent feature documentary, “I Am Not a Rock...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Shannon Walsh – “The Gig is Up”
Shannon Walsh has written and directed feature documentaries “The Gig is Up,” “Illusions of Control,” “Jeppe on a Friday,” “À St-Henri, le 26 Août,” and “H2Oil,” as well as...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Svetlana Rodina – “Ostrov – Lost Island”
Svetlana Rodina has worked as a reporter and host for various television programs on the RTR channel. In 2011, she became the editor-in-chief of the documentary department of United Media Group, one...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Luciana Kaplan – “The Spokeswoman”
Argentina-born, Mexico-based Luciana Kaplan has dedicated her career to documentary filmmaking and teaching. Her films have won support grants from the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes,...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Irene Vélez-Torres – “Bajo Fuego”
Irene Vélez-Torres is a professor at the University of Valle who specializes in socio-environmental conflicts and ethno-racial inequalities. While engaging in research, she frequently applies...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Roser Corella – “Room Without a View”
Berlin-based independent filmmaker Roser Corella started her career as video-journalist for Catalan television, but her interest in the human stories behind global issues moved her to self-produce...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Ann Shin – “A.rtificial I.mmortality”
Ann Shin is an award-winning writer and filmmaker. Her debut novel, “The Last Exiles,” was published earlier this year by Harper Collins. The book is partly based on her experience...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Celina Escher – “Fly So Far”
Celina Escher is a Swiss-Salvadorean filmmaker telling stories about women as well their pursuits of empowerment, artistic processes, and their sociopolitical contexts. Her film “Verde Olivo” was...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet the Team Behind “Only the Ocean Between Us”
Khaldiya Amer Ali is Syrian filmmaker living in Za’atari Refugee Camp, Jordan. Her short film “Another Kind of Girl” premiered at Sundance; screened at Cannes and SXSW; was featured on The New...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Mia Halme – “People We Come Across”
Director and writer Mia Halme has a background in journalism. Her documentaries have been screened in various festivals around the world. “Forever Yours” (2012) was awarded the...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Annabel Verbeke – “Four Seasons in One Day”
Annabel Verbeke is a documentary filmmaker whose film “Les Enfants de la Mer/Mère” won eight international awards and was selected by over 20 global film festivals. “We Will Remember Them”...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Maéva Ranaïvojaona – “Zaho Zay”
Maéva Ranaïvojaona is a French filmmaker with Malagasy origins, living and working in Paris and Vienna. She wrote, produced, and directed two short films that have been shown and awarded at several...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Anaïs Taracena – “The Silence of the Mole”
Documentary filmmaker and producer Anaïs Taracena has directed short films “Los Médicos de la Montaña,” “Entre Voces,” and “Desenredar el Ser,” which have been screened at...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Jessica Beshir – “Faya Dayi”
Jessica Beshir is a Mexican-Ethiopian director, producer, and cinematographer based in Brooklyn, New York. She made her directorial debut with her short film “Hairat,” which premiered at...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Sheona McDonald – “Dead Man’s Switch: a crypto mystery”
Sheona McDonald is an an award-winning filmmaker who worked in the Canadian film and television industry as a writer, producer, and director for over two decades. Her recent films include “Into...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Yasmine Mathurin – “One of Ours”
Yasmine Mathurin is a Haitian-Canadian writer, director, and award-winning podcast producer. She produced the audio-fiction podcast “The Shadows,” which won Gold in the fiction category at the...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Jennifer Redfearn – “Apart”
Jennifer Redfearn is an Academy Award-nominated director. She directed and produced “Sun Come Up” about a small island community losing their land to rising seas. “Sun Come...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Margaret Byrne – “Any Given Day”
Margaret Byrne is an award-winning filmmaker. She directed and produced “Raising Bertie,” a feature documentary following the lives of three African American boys growing up in rural...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Louise Detlefsen – “It Is Not Over Yet”
Louise Detlefsen’s latest documentary feature film, “Fat Front,” had its international premiere at IDFA 2019. Her films have been shown on both television and at festivals all over...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers – “Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy”
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers is a writer, director, producer and actor. She’s a member of the Kainai First Nation — Blood Tribe, Blackfoot Confederacy — as well as Sámi from Norway. Her...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Chloe Fairweather – “Dying to Divorce”
Chloe Fairweather is an award-winning director who specializes in observational documentary and the telling of complex true stories. The Welsh-born filmmaker started out in TV production over 10...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Caitlin Durlak – “Dropstones”
Caitlin Durlak is an award-winning Canadian filmmaker whose non-fiction work has spanned media such as web series, short film, feature film, and VR storytelling. Her short film “Persistence of...
Hot Docs 2021 Women Directors: Meet Jennifer Ngo – “Faceless”
Jennifer Ngo is an award-winning journalist who believes that true stories will always matter. For over five years, she wrote for the South China Morning Post, where her reporting earned her a Human...
Exclusive: Mental Health & the Criminal Justice System Collide in Trailer for Hot Docs’ “Any Given Day”
“When half the mental health clinics in Chicago closed, the jail population exploded,” director Margaret Byrne informs us in an exclusive trailer for “Any Given Day,” her...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Meet Manal Khaled – “Trapped”
Manal Khaled is an Egyptian filmmaker who studied Philosophy at the University of Alexandria. She worked at Misr International Films and has collaborated with award-winning directors such as Saad...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Meet Megan Park – “The Fallout”
Megan Park is an actress, writer, and director. She starred in seven seasons on “The Secret Life of the American Teenager.” She is the recipient of the Toronto International Film Festival’s...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Meet Sonia Kennebeck – “United States vs. Reality Winner”
Sonia Kennebeck is a Malaysian-born, New York City-based independent filmmaker and investigative journalist with 17 years of directing and producing experience. Her most recent documentary thriller,...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Mei Makino – “Inbetween Girl”
For three years, Mei Makino taught filmmaking to youth in the Austin area, inspiring her to tell honest stories about kids and teens. She’s written and directed short films that have played at The...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Meet Mallory Everton – “Recovery”
Mallory Everton is best known for being one of the original writer-actors on the sketch comedy show “Studio C” and for her role in the Purple Mattress Raw Egg Test commercial. She also...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Meet Ursula Macfarlane – “The Lost Sons”
Emmy and BAFTA-nominated director Ursula Macfarlane is known for making films which combine the epic with the intimate, often focusing on marginalized communities or victims of trauma. Her feature...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Mary Wharton – “Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free”
Mary Wharton has dedicated her career to making documentaries about music. Her work includes “Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound,” which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Meet Lissette Feliciano – “Women is Losers”
Lissette Feliciano is a writer, director, producer, and a graduate of Tisch School of the Arts. She is a Tribeca Film Institute AT&T Untold Stories grant recipient, was named as one of Shoot...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Meet Emily Cohen Ibáñez – “Fruits of Labor”
Emily Cohen Ibañez is a Latinx Colombian-American filmmaker who earned her doctorate in Anthropology with a certificate in Culture and Media at New York University. Her film work pairs lyricism with...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Meet Mari Walker – “See You Then”
Mari Walker is an award-winning director, writer, and editor. Films she has worked on have been screened at numerous film festivals including Sundance, SXSW, Frameline, and Outfest. Walker’s...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Meet Leah Purcell – “The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson”
Leah Purcell is a proud Goa-Gungarri-Wakka Wakka Murri woman from Queensland, Australia. She is an internationally acclaimed playwright, screenwriter, director, novelist, actor, cultural icon, and...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Meet Danielle Kummer & Lucy Harvey – “Alien On Stage”
Danielle Kummer is a director, producer, and editor from London who studied film and media at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Producer and director Lucy Harvey spent 17 years as a stylist...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Meet Alba Sotorra Clua – “The Return: Life After ISIS”
Alba Sotorra Clua has worked in Syria, Afghanistan, Korea, Bosnia, Cuba, the US, Guatemala, England, Iran, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, and Qatar, and has lived long periods in the Middle East. Her films...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Meet Emily & Sarah Kunstler – “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America”
Sisters Emily and Sarah Kunstler are the founders of Off Center Media, a documentary production company dedicated to racial justice and social change. Shortlisted for the Best Documentary Academy...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Meet Hannaleena Hauru – “Fucking with Nobody”
Hannaleena Hauru is a Finnish screenwriter and director. Her debut feature, “Thick Lashes of Lauri Mäntyvaara” (2016), was developed at Torino Film Lab and Cannes Cinéfondation...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Meet Paola Calvo – “Luchadoras”
Paola Calvo is a Venezuelan director and cinematographer. In 2012, Calvo directed “A Tale of two Islands,” a two-channel video installation that was shown at Berlinale Forum Expanded. Wanting to...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Meet Andrea Nevins – “Hysterical”
Andrea Blaugrund Nevins is an Academy Award-nominated, Emmy-winning director, producer, and writer. Her credits include “Still Kicking,” “The Other F Word,” “Play It...
SXSW 2021 Women Directors: Meet Stacey Gregg – “Here Before”
Stacey Gregg is a Belfast and London based writer, director, and performer working across film, TV, and theater. She is currently developing several original television drama series including...