As the year winds down and awards season heats up, Variety is looking onward and celebrating rising talents. The trade just announced its 2020 Directors to Watch list, and of 10 filmmakers featured, five are women: Mati Diop, Shannon Murphy, Radha Blank, Janicza Bravo, and Nicole Riegel.
Diop made history earlier this year as the first black woman director to screen a feature in Competition at Cannes. A supernatural star-crossed love story told against the backdrop of the migration crisis, “Atlantics” took home the fest’s Grand Prix, and has since been named as Senegal’s pick for the 2020 Oscars’ Best International Feature Film race.
Murphy’s “Babyteeth” premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival, where it was one of just two titles directed by women included in the main competition. The coming-of-age pic centers on a seriously ill highschooler who falls head over heels for a local drug dealer.“On the Ropes,” “Rake,” and “Sisters” are among Murphy’s small screen credits.
A writer for TV, stage, and film, Blank is set to make her feature directorial debut with the Lena Waithe-produced “The 40-Year-Old Version.” She also penned the comedy about a struggling playwright who decides to reinvent herself as a rapper at the age of 40, and will star. Blank has written eps of “She’s Gotta Have It” and “Empire.”
Bravo made her feature debut with 2017’s “Lemon” and will follow it up with Riley Keough-starrer “Zola,” a drama inspired by the viral Twitter thread about a stripper named Zola who embarks on an action-packed road trip to Florida. In between features, Bravo has directed eps of series such as ” “Divorce,” “Dear White People,” and “Love.”
Riegel’s feature version of her 2016 short “Holler” will hit the festival circuit in 2020. Here’s the logline: “A gritty and tender coming of age story about a young woman in Southern Ohio who joins a scrap metal crew to earn money for college, but soon finds herself torn between a promising future and the family she would leave behind.”
The directors featured on this year’s list will be honored at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, where Variety is set to host a brunch in their honor on January 3.
