Weekly Update for December 1: Women Centric, Directed, and Written Films Playing Near You

Films About Women Opening This Week

The Shape of Water — Co-Written by Vanessa Taylor (Opens in NY; Opens in LA December 8)

Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is a mute, isolated woman who works as a cleaning lady in a hidden, high-security government laboratory in 1962 Baltimore. Her life changes forever when she discovers the lab’s classified secret — a mysterious, scaled creature from South America that lives in a water tank. As Elisa develops a unique bond with her new friend, she soon learns that its fate and very survival lies in the hands of a hostile government agent and a marine biologist. (Press materials)

Find screening info here.

The Tribes of Palos Verdes — Written by Karen Croner (Also Available on VOD)

When teenager Medina (Maika Monroe) moves with her family to the picture-postcard perfect paradise of Palos Verdes, California, they seem headed for a happy new chapter in their lives. But old troubles soon catch up to them, as Medina’s parents’ marriage disintegrates, her mother (Jennifer Garner) spirals into an emotional free fall, and her twin brother (Cody Fern) turns to drugs. Caught in the middle of it all, Medina must rely on her inner strength to become the stabilizing force in her family, while finding refuge in a new passion: surfing. (Press materials)

Find screening info here.

Love Beats Rhymes — Written by Nicole Jefferson Asher (Also Available on VOD)

When struggling rapper Coco (Azealia Banks) enrolls in a poetry class, she thinks her rhymes will impress her teacher, Professor Dixon (Jill Scott). Instead, Dixon challenges Coco to seek real meaning in her lyrics, setting her on a journey of discovery that takes her to rap clubs and poetry slams, leading her to find her true voice — and true love. (Press materials)

Daisy Winters — Written and Directed by Beth LaMure

“Daisy Winters” is about an 11-year-old girl’s unconventional, yet deeply loving relationship with her mother and what happens when this essential mother-daughter bond is harshly broken. Along her journey, including her quest to discover her father, the courageous, resourceful, and precocious Daisy (Sterling Jerins) learns about embracing every moment with determination and an unrelenting belief in herself. (Press materials)

Find screening info here.

The Dancer — Directed by Stéphanie Di Giusto; Written by Stéphanie Di Giusto and Sarah Thiebaud

In 1887, after the death of her father, 25-year-old Marie-Louise (Soko) leaves her life in the American West to join her mother in New York and pursue her dream of becoming an actress. On stage one night, she avoids falling by spinning the fabric of her long dress in a graceful gesture, and the Serpentine Dance is born. The dazzled audience calls out for more. Marie-Louise becomes Loïe Fuller and leaves New York, where imitators try to steal her radical innovations, for Paris. (Press materials)

Read Women and Hollywood’s interview with Stéphanie Di Giusto.

32 Pills: My Sister’s Suicide (Documentary) — Directed by Hope Litoff (Opens in NY) (Also Premieres December 7 on HBO)

She’s beautiful, artistic, loved, and can’t stand to be alive. “32 Pills” traces the fascinating life and mental illness of director Hope Litoff’s sister, New York artist and photographer Ruth Litoff, and Hope’s struggle to come to terms with Ruth’s tragic suicide. (Press materials)

Find screening info here.

Inoperable

A young woman (Danielle Harris) wakes up in a seemingly evacuated hospital with a hurricane approaching that has awakened malevolent forces inside. She realizes she must escape the hospital before the hurricane passes, or she will be trapped there forever. (Press materials)

Kepler’s Dream — Directed by Amy Glazer; Co-Written by Amy Glazer and Sylvia Brownrigg (Also Available on VOD)

An 11-year-old girl searches for a missing rare book from her grandmother’s (Holland Taylor) library and tries to understand why her family is fractured during a memorable summer at an isolated New Mexico adobe. While her mother (Kelly Lynch), like astronaut Michael Collins, goes to the dark side of the moon for a leukemia treatment, Ella (Isabella Blake-Thomas) must journey on her own to the strange moon of her grandmother’s world. (Press materials)

Find screening info here.

Slumber

Alice (Maggie Q) is a rational-minded sleep doctor, haunted by the mysterious nocturnal death of her younger brother. Whilst performing a routine examination on a traumatized family with sleeping problems, Alice is attacked by the father in his sleep. The father is arrested and blamed for causing the family’s sleep issues, but when he is thrown into jail and the problems get progressively worse, Alice is forced to abandon scientific rationale and accept that the family is being terrorized by a parasitic demon who feeds on the weak whilst they sleep: the Night Hag. (Press materials)

Find screening info here.

Drawing Home — Co-Written by Donna Logan

Boston in the 1920s. A young East Coast debutante (Julie Lynn Mortensen) is dating the most eligible bachelor in the world, John D. Rockefeller III. Her future seems set: a dream life in the upper echelons of society. But when she least expects it, she meets a young painter from one of the most beautiful places on Earth, the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Their worlds are polar opposites, and as their attraction turns their lives upside down, they soon face a universal question: Can you find “home” in another person? (Press materials)

Find screening info here.

Rosa Chumbe

Rosa Chumbe (Liliana Trujillo) is a seasoned police officer with both a gambling and a drinking problem. She lives with her daughter, Sheyla (Cindy Díaz), who has a little baby. One day, after a big fight between them, Sheyla steals her mother’s savings and storms out of the house, leaving her baby behind. Rosa is forced to spend some time with her grandson and something changes inside her heart of stone. However, everything takes a turn one night — only a miracle can save her. (Press materials)

Films About Women Currently Playing

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (Documentary) — Directed by Alexandra Dean
The Breadwinner — Directed by Nora Twomey; Written by Anita Doron and Deborah Ellis
Big Sonia (Documentary) — Co-Directed by Leah Warshawski
Mr. Roosevelt — Written and Directed by Noël Wells
On the Beach at Night Alone
Thelma
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Lady Bird — Written and Directed by Greta Gerwig
Wait for Your Laugh (Documentary)
The Light of the Moon — Written and Directed by Jessica M. Thompson
A Bad Moms Christmas
Mansfield 66/67 (Documentary)
Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami (Documentary) — Directed by Sophie Fiennes (UK)
Félicité — Co-Written by Delphine Zingg
The Divine Order — Written and Directed by Petra Volpe
Novitiate — Written and Directed by Margaret Betts
Tragedy Girls
Jane (Documentary)
I Am Not a Witch — Written and Directed by Rungano Nyoni (UK)
Happy Death Day
The Florida Project
Dina (Documentary)
My Little Pony: The Movie — Co-Written by Meghan McCarthy and Rita Hsiao
Chavela (Documentary) — Directed by Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi
Battle of the Sexes — Co-Directed by Valerie Faris
Victoria & Abdul
Friend Request
Leap! — Co-Written by Carol Noble
The Teacher
Lost in Paris — Co-Written and Co-Directed by Fiona Gordon

Films Directed by Women Opening This Week

Badsville — Directed by April Mullen (Opens in NY and LA)

A violent greaser gang is ripped apart when their leader (Ian McLaren) finds love and is determined to leave Badsville, a forgotten town on the outskirts of LA where love doesn’t exist, in order to fulfill the promise he made to his dying mother. (Press materials)

The White King — Co-Written and Co-Directed by Alex Helfrecht (Opens December 5)

Djata (Lorenzo Allchurch) is a carefree 12-year-old growing up in a brutal dictatorship. When the government imprisons his father, Peter (Ross Partridge), and Djata and his mother, Hannah (Agyness Deyn), are labeled traitors, the boy will not rest until he sees his father again. (Press materials)

Find screening info here.

Bill Frisell: A Portrait (Documentary) — Written and Directed by Emma Franz (Opens December 6)

A character portrait of “musician’s musician” and anti-archetypal guitar hero Bill Frisell. This film traces the development of Frisell’s music and provides rare insight into the shaping of one of the significant musicians of recent decades. Full of live music and following various projects from development to fruition, the film features a variety of collaborators, including Paul Motian, Jim Hall, Hal Willner, Joey Baron, Jason Moran, Nels Cline, Mike Gibbs, Jack DeJohnette, John Zorn, John Abercrombie, Paul Simon, Bonnie Raitt, Lucinda Williams, Jim Woodring, Greg Cohen, and Tony Scherr. (Press materials)

Read Women and Hollywood’s interview with Emma Franz.

Films Directed by Women Currently Playing

“Eric Clapton: A Life in 12 Bars”: AccuSoft Inc.

Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars (Documentary) — Directed by Lili Fini Zanuck
Mudbound — Co-Written and Directed by Dee Rees (Also Available on Netflix)
Rebels on Pointe (Documentary) — Written and Directed by Bobbi Jo Hart
The Party — Written and Directed by Sally Potter (UK)
Faces Places (Documentary) — Co-Directed by Agnès Varda
Loving Vincent — Co-Written and Co-Directed by Dorota Kobiela
Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World (Documentary) — Co-Written and Co-Directed by Catherine Bainbridge

Films Written by Women Opening This Week

None.

Films Written by Women Currently Playing

“The Man Who Invented Christmas”: Kerry Brown/Garlands Films

The Man Who Invented Christmas — Written by Susan Coyne
Song of Granite — Co-Written by Sharon Whooley
Let There Be Light — Co-Written by Sam Sorbo
Kingsman: The Golden Circle — Co-Written by Jane Goldman

TV Premieres This Week

Michelle Wolf: Nice Lady (Comedy Special) — Written by Michelle Wolf (Premieres December 2 on HBO)

Comedian Michelle Wolf (“The Daily Show with Trevor Noah”) stars in her first HBO special — an hour of stand-up featuring her observations on feminism, dating, and other social issues. (Press materials)

The Carol Burnett 50th Anniversary Special (Premieres December 3 on CBS)

“The Carol Burnett Show” turns 50 and to celebrate the momentous occasion, CBS will honor the groundbreaking comedy series with “The Carol Burnett 50th Anniversary Special.” The one-night event, which will film at the series’ original soundstage at CBS Television City in Los Angeles, will feature Burnett, original cast members Vicki Lawrence and Lyle Waggoner, costume designer Bob Mackie, and a slew of special guests, including Kristin Chenoweth, Jane Lynch, Bernadette Peters, Maya Rudolph, Stephen Colbert, Harry Connick Jr., Bill Hader, Jay Leno, Jim Carrey, and Martin Short. (Press materials)

Dian Fossey: Secrets in the Mist (Docuseries) (Premieres December 6 on National Geographic)

Culled from over 40 hours of rare archival footage, this three-part special allows the pioneer researcher to narrate her own tale, with excerpts from Dian Fossey’s writings read by Sigourney Weaver (who previously portrayed Fossey in “Gorillas in the Mist”). (Press materials)

VOD/DVD Releasing This Week

Better Watch Out (DVD, December 5)
Happy Hour (DVD, December 5)
Princess Cyd (VOD/DVD, December 5)
The Women’s Balcony — Written by Shlomit Nehama (DVD, December 5)

Women and Hollywood’s 10th Anniversary Trailblazer Awardees — London

Credit: Bronac McNeill Photography & Film

Women and Hollywood held its final 10th anniversary event in London this week and presented the London Trailblazer Awards. The London awardees (pictured above from left to right) are Robert Fox Ltd theater producer Zelda Perkins, director Gurinder Chadha (“Viceroy’s House,” “Bend it Like Beckham”), producer Alison Owen (“Harlots,” “Suffragette”), Bechdel Test Fest’s Simran Hans, BFI London Film Fest director Clare Stewart, producer Elizabeth Karlsen (“Carol,” “Made in Dagenham”), and Bechdel Test Fest’s Corrina Antrobus.

Check out this wrap up of the London event, and thanks to everyone who joined us to celebrate!

Follow. Women and Hollywood on Twitter @WomenaHollywood and Melissa Silverstein @melsil.

To contact Women and Hollywood, email melissa@womenandhollywood.com.