#Films
Hot Docs 2022 Women Directors: Meet Noura Kevorkian – “Batata”
Noura Kevorkian is a Syrian-Lebanese filmmaker who made her filmmaking debut with her first short documentary ” Veils Uncovered” (Official Competition, Amsterdam IDFA) about lingerie and...
Hot Docs 2022 Women Directors: Chloe Sosa-Sims – “Hunting in Packs”
Chloe Sosa-Sims is a Toronto-based director, producer, and writer. Her feature debut, “Dan and Margot,” illuminated the complicated truths of schizophrenia. Sosa-Sims has participated in...
Hot Docs 2022 Women Directors: Meet Olha Zhurba – “Outside”
Olha Zhurba is a Ukrainian filmmaker whose first short fiction film ,”Dad’s Sneakers,” premiered in the short competition at Locarno Film Festival 2021 and won Best Ukrainian Short...
Hot Docs 2022 Women Directors: Jackie Torrens – “Bernie Langille Wants To Know What Happened To Bernie Langille”
Jackie Torrens is an actor, writer, and documentary filmmaker. In 2012, she co-founded Peep Media with producer Jessica Brown, and since then they have completed four television documentaries for the...
Hot Docs 2022 Women Directors: Meet Jasmín Mara López – “Silent Beauty”
Jasmín Mara López is a journalist, audio producer, and documentary filmmaker living between Los Angeles and New Orleans. Born in the U.S. with familial roots in México, her childhood was affected...
Hot Docs 2022 Women Directors: Stacey Tenenbaum – “Scrap”
Stacey Tenenbaum is an award-winning producer and director. In 2014 she founded H2L Productions, a boutique documentary film production company specializing in crafting international character-driven...
Gigi Gaston Talks “9 Bullets,” Her Action Pic About Second Chances Starring Lena Headey
Olympian turned writer-director Gigi Gaston has sold screenplays to Universal, Miramax, New Line, and Fox, and directed music videos, features, and an award-winning Sundance documentary. Gaston made...
Megan Griffiths on Exploring the Freedom That Comes from Personal Acceptance in “I’ll Show You Mine”
Megan Griffiths is a writer-director working in film and television. Her feature credits include “Sadie,” “The Night Stalker,” “Lucky Them,” “Eden,”...
Queer Women Creators Represent: Crowdfunding Picks
As anti-LGTBQIA+ attacks ramp up all over the country, it is more important than ever to pay attention to what LGBTQ people are saying in our own words. As the freedom to discuss the very existence...
Cannes’ Ratio of Women-Directed Competition Films Remains Stagnant at 17 Percent
Update: Cannes announced additional titles April 21. Revised stats can be found below our original post. It’s been nearly four years since Cannes Film Festival head Thierry Frémaux signed...
“Zola” and “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” to Screen at 20th Fusion Film Fest
NYU Tisch School of the Arts’ Fusion Film Festival has booked “Zola,” “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” and both films’ writer-directors for its 20th...
Trailer Watch: Mira Nair’s 1991 Romance “Mississippi Masala” Gets a 4K Restoration
Mira Nair’s “Mississippi Masala” is getting some much-overdue love. A press release has announced that her 1991 tale of romance, racism, and migration has received a 4K restoration...
Deborah Anderson on Highlighting Indigenous Voices in “Women of the White Buffalo”
Deborah Anderson is an award-winning filmmaker and photographer. Of Indigenous, Black, Irish, and Scottish descent, her photographic work has hung in galleries both in Europe and the U.S., including...
Book Excerpt: “Mothers of Invention: Film, Media, and Caregiving Labor”
The following is adapted from “Mothers of Invention: Film, Media, and Caregiving Labor,” edited by So Mayer and Corinn Columpar and set to be published April 5. Copyright (c) 2022 Wayne...
Pick of the Day: “You Won’t Be Alone”
In reviews and ads, “You Won’t Be Alone” is being marketed as a horror pic — which isn’t untrue, but also isn’t exactly accurate. It’s more of a dark...
Trailer Watch: Karen Gillan Must Fight Herself to the Death in “Dual”
When Sarah (Karen Gillan) discovers she’s dying, she does what many others in her situation have done before: she decides to clone herself so that, when the time comes, her double can pick up...
April 2022 Film Preview
As we slip into springtime in the Northern Hemisphere, we witness the world around us transforming. It’s a time of metamorphosis, and April’s film slate is full of titles engaging with...
San Francisco Film Fest 2022: 56% of Films Directed by Women or Non-Binary Filmmakers, 52% by BIPOC Filmmakers
The San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) has announced its 2022 lineup, and 56 percent of this year’s films “are helmed by female or non-binary filmmakers and 52 percent are...
Trailer Watch: Jessie Buckley Is Haunted and Hunted in “Men”
Jessie Buckley is following up her Oscar-nominated turn in “The Lost Daughter,” Maggie Gyllenhaal’s portrait of an ambivalent mother, with a psychological horror pic....
Trailer Watch: Trans Artists Revisit Troubling History and Reclaim Their Stories in “Framing Agnes” Doc
In “Framing Agnes,” “No Ordinary Man” co-director Chase Joynt stages reenactments with fellow trans artists to revisit studies conducted at the UCLA Gender Clinic in the 1950s....
Lena Headey Making Her Feature Directorial Debut with “Violet”
Lena Headey is off the throne and stepping behind the camera. The four-time Emmy-nominated actress, best known for her portrayal of Cersei Lannister in “Game of Thrones,” is set to make...
“CODA,” “Hacks,” and “Maid” Win Big at WGA Awards
“CODA” continued its hot streak, while “Hacks” and “Maid” received some much-deserved love at the WGA Awards Sunday night. Writer-director Siân Heder won the...
Apply Now: The Chimaera Project’s TO.GET.HER Finishing Fund for Women & Non-Binary Filmmakers
The Chimaera Project, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering women and non-binary filmmakers, has announced the Call for Entries for its 2022 TO.GET.HER film production finishing funds program....
Study: Women Made Up 34% of Speaking Roles in 2021’s Top Films, Majority of Those Characters Were White
Earlier this week, we reported on a study from Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative that delved into the number of women and people of color serving as leads and co-leads in...
Scripts About Riot Grrrls, LGBTQ+ Divorce, & Women Filmmakers Selected for 2022 Athena Writers Lab
This year, the Athena Writers Lab is offering virtual mentorship, networking opportunities, and peer-to-peer review sessions to the scribes of an adventure pic about an all-women expedition across...
SXSW 2022 Women Directors: Meet Jessica Edwards – “Skate Dreams”
Jessica Edwards launched Film First in 2010 to produce documentary shorts and feature-length work. Her award-winning debut short, “Seltzer Works,” premiered at SXSW and was broadcast on...
SXSW 2022 Women Directors: Meet Vasilisa Kuzmina – “Nika”
Born in Moscow, Vasilisa Kuzmina is a young Russian filmmaker and scriptwriter. After getting a B.F.A. in acting at the Moscow Drama School, Kuzmina debuted as a film director with the web series...
SXSW 2022 Women Directors: Meet Zara Katz and Lisa Riordan Seville – “A Woman on the Outside”
Zara Katz is currently Photography Director at NBC News Digital and has worked for editorial outlets including The New York Times, Time magazine, and The New Yorker. She was senior photo producer on...
Number of Women & POC Leads/Co-Leads Held Steady in Top Films of 2021, According to New Research
The good news: judging from last year’s box office reports, the number of female and people of color leads/co-leads in popular films hasn’t really decreased during the pandemic. The bad...
SXSW 2022 Women Directors: Meet Gracie Otto – “Seriously Red”
Gracie Otto is currently set-up director on the Netflix Original series “Heartbreak High” and is set to direct the feminist-noir comedy drama “Deadloch” for Amazon Studios....
SXSW 2022 Women Directors: Meet Camille Hardman – “Still Working 9 to 5”
Camille Hardman has produced documentaries and reality TV series in both her native Australia and Los Angeles. She started in TV in Sydney over 15 years ago, making animal and travel documentaries...
SXSW 2022 Women Directors: Meet Julie Cohen and Betsy West – “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down”
Julie Cohen and Betsy West are Academy Award-nominated, Emmy-winning filmmakers who directed and produced the theatrical documentary “RBG.” Their film “Julia” was released...
SXSW 2022 Women Directors: Meet Gretchen Stoeltje – “Shouting Down Midnight”
A Texas-based filmmaker, director Gretchen Stoeltje makes independent documentaries centering on women’s experiences. “Venom in a Jar, a Kiss From the Queen,” explores the role of...
SXSW 2022 Women Directors: Meet Rosa Ruth Boesten – “Master of Light”
Born in Utrecht and based in Amsterdam, Rosa Ruth Boesten, made her first documentary about her grandmother, a single mother and struggling artist who made textile art. She studied directing of...
SXSW 2022 Women Directors: Meet Linda Goldstein Knowlton – “Split At The Root”
Linda Goldstein Knowlton is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker, working in documentary, scripted feature films, and television. Her award-winning documentary “We Are The Radical Monarchs” ...
Ida Rodriguez Joglar Receives Athena Film Fest’s Breakthrough Award for First Feature “Kili Big”
Gearing up for its live and virtual launch tomorrow, March 11, the 2022 edition of Athena Film Festival (AFF) has unveiled its awardees and grant recipients. Ida Rodriguez Joglar, Kelsie Mason Ramos,...
SXSW 2022 Women Directors: Meet Iliana Sosa – “What We Leave Behind”
Iliana Sosa is a documentary and narrative fiction filmmaker based in Austin, Texas. Her documentary short “An Uncertain Future,” co-directed with Chelsea Hernandez, premiered at the 2018...
SXSW 2022 Women Directors: Meet Vanessa Winter – “Deadstream”
Vanessa Winter is a Utah-based writer and director. Practical creature FX with absurd twists are the hallmarks of her and her collaborator and husband Joseph Winter’s viral horror shorts for...
SXSW 2022 Women Directors: Meet Amy Bandlien Storkel – “The Pez Outlaw”
Amy Bandlien Storkel is a documentary filmmaker best known for co-producing “The Legend of Cocaine Island” (Netflix, 2019) and the Emmy Award-winning documentary “Alabama...
SXSW 2022 Women Directors: Meet Nyla Innuksuk – “Slash/Back”
Nyla Innuksuk is the founder of Mixtape VR, which produces film, virtual, and augmented reality content. A writer for Marvel Comics, Innuksuk co-created the character of Snowguard, a teenage...
SXSW 2022 Women Directors: Meet Linda Yellen – “Chantilly Bridge”
Linda Yellen is an Emmy Award-winning director, writer, and producer. She has made over 27 productions for film and television, with premieres at Cannes, Sundance, and Toronto film festivals. Among...
SXSW 2022 Women Directors: Meet Daresha Kyi – “Mama Bears”
Daresha Kyi is an Emmy Award-winning director who also writes and produces film and television in Spanish and English. She made her feature doc directorial debut with “Chavela,” a...
SXSW 2022 Preview: Inuit Girls Take On an Alien Invasion in the Arctic, Gabby Giffords Fights for Gun Control, & More
Kicking off March 11, SXSW will take place in-person for the first time since 2019. With a Feature Competition slate that is majority-women-directed, there are a bunch of films we’re looking...
Under the Radar: Iliana Sosa’s “What We Leave Behind” Is an Intimate Portrait of a Family’s Loyal Patriarch
“Life’s catching up with me.” Shirtless and laid bare in a symbolic display of openness and vulnerability, Julián Moreno speaks to his granddaughter as they so often have for several years –...
Pick of the Day: “Fresh”
Your mileage may vary on “Fresh.” A rom-com-horror hybrid exploring the modern dynamics of power, dating, gender, and sex via a pretty twisted allegory, it’s sure to be polarizing...
Santa Barbara Film Fest 2022 Women Directors: Meet Nancy Svendsen – “Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest”
After two decades in leadership positions in various facets of the healthcare industry, Nancy Svendsen became an independent filmmaker based in Northern California, beginning with the short...
Isabel Castro’s Sundance Doc “Mija” Heads to Disney, FX Acquires Scripted Content Dev Rights
“Mija,” a music documentary from director Isabel Castro, has secured distribution and a potential narrative adaptation. Worldwide rights to the Sundance 2022 title have been nabbed by...
Hollywood Critics Association Film Awards: “CODA” Wins Best Pic, “Power of the Dog’s” Jane Campion Ties for Best Director
“CODA” is gaining momentum leading up to film’s biggest night. Sian Heder’s sophomore feature took home the the top honor at the SAG Awards on Sunday, Outstanding Performance...
“CODA,” “Power of the Dog,” “Eternals,” & “Zola” Among Latest ReFrame Stamp Recipients
ReFrame is recognizing “Black Widow,” “CODA,” “The Power of the Dog,” “Nomadland,” and 24 other films for their gender-balanced casts and crews....
March 2022 Film Preview
Women’s History Month is chock-full of suspenseful thrillers and dark dramas featuring characters either seeking truth from others or harboring deep secrets of their own. We’ll be welcoming...
Pick of the Day: “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America”
For the most part, the documentary “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America” is made up of archival footage, photographs, and recordings. The few talking head interviews included were filmed decades...