#Religion
DOC NYC 2022 Women Directors: Meet Sharon “Rocky” Roggio – “1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture”
Sharon “Rocky” Roggio has been honing her expertise in film and television producing for two decades and has worked on award-winning films and series, including “House of Cards,” “Parks and...
Trailer Watch: Sarah Polley Tackles Religion, Community, and Sexual Assault in “Women Talking”
“It was all waiting to happen before it happened,” we’re told in a new trailer for “Women Talking.” “You could look back and follow the breadcrumbs along the path...
Pick of the Day: “Medusa”
I can’t lie: At this point in time, I’m not above indulging in schadenfreude when I hear about people who have played an active part in rolling back women’s rights — white...
Ruth Wilson Will Lead BBC and Showtime Thriller “The Woman in the Wall”
Ruth Wilson is set to lead a gothic thriller inspired by a long, dark chapter in Ireland’s history. Deadline reports that the “Luther” and “The Affair” alumna will...
Trailer Watch: Anita Rocha da Silveira Follows a Religious Girl Gang in “Medusa”
A student at a Christian college questions whether she’s been possessed in “Medusa.” A new trailer for Anita Rocha da Silveira’s satire introduces us to Mari (Mariana...
Trailer Watch: “You Can Live Forever” Follows A Forbidden Romance Between Teen Girls
“Do you recognize yourself as a sinner?” a teenage girl is asked in a new trailer for “You Can Live Forever.” Set to debut at Tribeca Film Festival tomorrow, June 11, the...
Tribeca 2022 Women Directors: Meet Nausheen Dadabhoy – “An Act of Worship”
Nausheen Dadabhoy is a Pakistani-American director and cinematographer whose work spans fiction and documentary. She lensed an Oscar-nominated live action short film, an Emmy-winning feature...
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...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Tania Anderson– “The Mission”
Tania Anderson is a British, American, and Swiss filmmaker based in Helsinki, Finland. She has worked as a writer and journalist, most recently as a writer for National Geographic, where she...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing – “Midwives”
Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing has worked as a freelance filmmaker in Myanmar since 2006, acting as director, producer, editor, and sound recordist. Her short “Burmese Butterfly” played festivals in...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Adamma Ebo – “Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.”
Adamma Ebo is a Nigerian-American writer, director, and producer who works alongside her identical twin, Adanne Ebo. Both wrote on “Mrs. & Mrs. Smith,” an upcoming Amazon series. They...
Tribeca 2021 Women Directors: Meet Shannon Post – “Building a Bridge”
Shannon Post is a queer documentary filmmaker from Florida. She attended college in Orlando, and Pulse nightclub was a safe place for her and her friends to have fun and be out and proud. Her first...
Trailer Watch: Jessica Chastain Transforms into Tammy Faye Bakker in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”
“You follow blindly. In the end, all you are is blind,” Jessica Chastain is told in a new trailer for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.” The biopic sees the two-time Oscar nominee...
Trailer Watch: A Jehovah’s Witness Has a Crisis of Faith in Oscar Hopeful “Beginning”
A Jehovah’s Witness reckons with an extremist attack and a crisis of faith in “Beginning,” writer-director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s feature debut. A trailer has arrived for the...
TIFF 2020 Women Directors: Meet Emma Seligman – “Shiva Baby”
Emma Seligman is a Canadian filmmaker based in New York. She graduated from NYU’s Undergraduate Film & TV program in May 2017, where she made her first two short films, including her thesis,...
Karen Maine Talks “Yes, God, Yes,” Her Coming-of-Age Comedy About Female Self-Pleasure
Karen Maine wrote and directed the 2017 short “Yes, God, Yes,” which premiered as a Vimeo Staff Pick and received 2.9 million views. It won Best Short at the St. Louis International Film...
Pick of the Day: “Blessed Child”
If, in 2020, you’ve ever even heard of the Moonies — i.e. the followers of the Unification Church, founded by Reverend Sun Myung Moon — it’s probably been as a punchline:...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Ali Weinstein – “#BLESSED”
Ali Weinstein is a documentary director and producer based in Toronto. Her directorial debut “Mermaids,” about a group of women who strongly identify with the powerful aquatic archetype,...
Teaser Watch: Natalia Dyer Loves God and Internet Porn in Karen Maine’s “Yes, God, Yes”
Described by writer-director Karen Maine as “a love story between one woman and her vagina,” “Yes, God, Yes,” stars “Stranger Things'” Natalia Dyer as a teenage girl who...
Catholic Nun Drama “Lambs of God” Lands at Topic
Award-winning Australian drama “Lambs of God” is heading stateside. First Look Media’s streaming service, Topic, snagged North American rights to the gothic drama about Catholic...
Rachel Bloom and Betsy Sodaro Score Pilot Order from Pop TV for “Mother Mary”
Our favorite crazy ex-girlfriend is set to play the mother of the Antichrist. Rachel Bloom will follow-up her beloved CW musical series “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” with “Mother...
Trailer Watch: A Jewish-Israeli Human Rights Lawyer Is an “Advocate” for Her Palestinian Clients
Lea Tsemel is, in her own words, “a very angry optimistic woman.” A new trailer for “Advocate” sees the controversial Jewish-Israeli human rights lawyer reflecting on her...
DOC NYC 2019 Women Directors: Meet Cara Jones – “Blessed Child”
Cara Jones is an Emmy Award winning journalist who founded the production company Storytellers for Good. Her short films include “Surfing Possibility,” “Mama Hope,” and...
TIFF 2019 Women Directors: Meet Jorunn Myklebust Syversen – “Disco”
Jorunn Myklebust Syversen works across film, video-art, and photography. Her first feature was 2017’s “The Tree Feller.” Since 2005, her work has been shown at several international...
Trailer Watch: “Sister Aimee” Is an Evangelist With a Hell of a Story to Tell
“I’m just an entertainer, that’s all,” says Aimee Semple McPherson (Anna Margaret Hollyman, “20 Weeks”) in a new trailer for “Sister Aimee.” “I...
Trailer Watch: Progressive Politics Get Religious Leaders Labeled “American Heretics” in New Doc
“I came to build a liberal Protestant church in Oklahoma, but I made the mistake of using the word liberal. In Oklahoma you can be a Democrat or a Christian, but you can’t be both,”...
Trailer Watch: Alice Englert Questions Her Faith and Faces a Snake in “Them That Follow”
Set deep in Appalachia, “Them That Follow” tells the story of Mara (Alice Englert), a young woman preparing for her wedding day. Mara’s got a lot more than floral arrangements and...
SXSW 2019 Women Directors: Meet Karen Maine – “Yes, God, Yes”
Karen Maine wrote and directed the 2017 short “Yes, God, Yes,” which premiered as a Vimeo Staff Pick and received 2.9 million views. It won Best Short at the St. Louis International Film...
Sundance: “Knock Down the House,” “Them That Follow,” and More Land Distribution
Sundance doesn’t just present filmmakers with the opportunity to have their films seen — the fest is also a great place to have your work seen by someone who wants to buy it. Gurinder...
Sundance 2019 Women Directors: Meet Britt Poulton – “Them That Follow”
Britt Poulton is a writer and director. After studying International Relations at UC Berkeley, she left politics to pursue film and completed her MFA at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. She wrote...
Sundance 2019 Women Directors: Meet Minhal Baig – “Hala”
Minhal Baig is a writer and director. In 2017, she was chosen as a directing mentee for Ryan Murphy’s Half Foundation Directing Mentorship. Currently, she is a story editor on Netflix’s...
Sundance 2019 Women Directors: Meet Penny Lane – “Hail Satan?”
Penny Lane has previously directed feature documentaries “The Pain of Others,” “Our Nixon,” and “Nuts!” Her work has screened at International Film Festival...
Exclusive: Bliqis Abdul-Qaadir Explores “Life Without Basketball” in a Clip of the DOC NYC Film
Set to premiere at DOC NYC, “Life Without Basketball” offers an intimate look into the triumphs and struggles of Bliqis Abdul-Qaadir, a record-breaking basketball player from Springfield...
Martha Conley on “Boy Erased,” Sharing Her Son’s Story, and Being Played by Nicole Kidman
When Martha Conley and her husband found out their son, Garrard, was gay 14 years ago, they consulted members of their Baptist community about what to do and were advised to send him to a conversion...
Trailer Watch: Faith Drives a Wedge Between a Daughter and Mother in Nijla Mu’min’s “Jinn”
Seventeen-year-old Summer (Zoe Renee, “The Quad”) is having a hard time connecting with her mother, Jade (Simone Missick, “Luke Cage”), in the trailer for “Jinn.”...
Cannes Trailer Watch: Nuns Get High and Grow Weed in “Breaking Habits”
Prepare to meet nuns who worship at the altar of Cheech & Chong. A trailer has dropped for “Breaking Habits.” Currently screening at the Cannes market, the documentary follows nuns...
Trailer Watch: Rooney Mara Refuses to Be Silent in “Mary Magdalene”
“God made you to be a mother,” Rooney Mara is told in a new trailer for “Mary Magdalene.” But she insists that she’s “not made for that life,” and instead decides that she’ll commit...
Trailer Watch: Rooney Mara Embarks on a Spiritual Journey in “Mary Magdalene”
Rooney Mara steps into Biblical times in the first trailer for “Mary Magdalene.” The film promises to tell “the untold story” behind one of Jesus’ most famous followers. We’re told the...
Trailer Watch: Three People Struggle to Leave Hasidic Judaism in Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady’s “One…
Trailer Watch: Three People Struggle to Leave Hasidic Judaism in Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady’s “One of Us” “One of Us” “I called my mom and I said, ‘Hey, Mom. Can I talk to...
Trailer Watch: There’s Something within “Thelma”
Thelma (Eili Harboe) has just left her religious family and small hometown to attend university in Oslo. It’s not long before she finds herself thrown by two unexpected and seemingly unrelated...
Trailer Watch: Melissa Leo Resists Change in the Church in Maggie Betts’ “Novitiate”
Piercings, door-slamming, and mouthiness are some of the more common ways teens rebel against their parents. “Novitiate” sees 17-year-old Cathleen (Margaret Qualley, “The Leftovers”) bucking...
Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady Doc About Hasidic Judaism Lands at Netflix
Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s portrait of an Evangelical Christian summer camp earned them an Oscar nomination, and the “Jesus Camp” directors’ latest project, “One of Us,” explores...
Guest Post: How Writing “The Women’s Balcony” Made Me Rethink My Relationship with Judaism
Guest Post by Shlomit Nehama My debut screenplay centers on the aftermath of an accident at a synagogue. The women’s balcony collapses, leaving the synagogue in shambles. When repairs are made...
Trailer Watch: “Jeanette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc” Is a Musical Ode to Martyrdom
Chances are you’ve heard of Joan of Arc — the famous martyr and feminist icon who disguised herself as a man in order to fight in the Hundred Years’ War and was eventually burned at the...
Trailer Watch: Alison Brie and Aubrey Plaza are Raunchy Nuns in “The Little Hours”
Nuns are usually depicted as stern, stoic, and cloistered away from the debauchery of the wider world. A NSFW trailer has landed for “The Little Hours,” and never before have we seen the likes...
Trailer Watch: Melissa Leo Is an Atheist with a Cause in “Most Hated Woman in America”
Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins — these are the names most closely associated with atheism in the United States. But this wasn’t always the case. It was in fact a woman who...