Films About Women Opening This Week
The Divergent Series: Allegiant
The third installment of the blockbuster Divergent series franchise, “Allegiant” takes Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) into a new world, far more dangerous than ever before. After the earth-shattering revelations of “Insurgent,” Tris must escape with Four and go beyond the wall enclosing Chicago. For the first time ever, they will leave the only city and family they have ever known. Once outside, old discoveries are quickly rendered meaningless with the revelation of shocking new truths. Tris and Four must quickly decide who they can trust as a ruthless battle ignites beyond the walls of Chicago which threatens all of humanity. In order to survive, Tris will be forced to make impossible choices about courage, allegiance, sacrifice and love. (Press materials)
The Bronze — Co-Written by Melissa Rauch
A foul-mouthed former gymnastics bronze medalist (Melissa Rauch) must fight for her local celebrity status when a new young athlete’s star rises in town. (Press materials)
Krisha
When Krisha (Krisha Fairchild) shows up at her sister’s (Robyn Fairchild) Texas home on Thanksgiving morning, her close and extended family greet her with a mixture of warmth and wariness. Almost immediately, a palpable unease permeates the air, one which only grows in force as Krisha gets to work cooking the turkey and trying to make up for lost time by catching up with her various relatives, chief among them her nephew, Trey (Trey Edward Shults). As Krisha’s attempts at reconciliation become increasingly rebuffed, tension and suspicion reach their peak, with long-buried secrets and deep-seated resentments coming to the fore as everyone becomes immersed in an emotionally charged familial reckoning. (Press materials)
Films About Women Currently Playing
Lolo — Directed by Julie Delpy; Written by Julie Delpy and Eugenie Grandval
About Scout — Written and Directed by Laurie Weltz (Also Available on VOD)
Hello, My Name is Doris — Co-Written by Laura Terruso
Marguerite — Co-Written by Marcia Romano
10 Cloverfield Lane
Eye in the Sky
Miracles From Heaven — Directed by Patricia Riggen
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Trapped (Documentary) — Directed by Dawn Porter; Written by Sari Gilman and Dawn Porter
Zootopia
Camino
Emelie
The Other Side of the Door
Ava’s Possessions (Also on VOD)
Cemetery of Splendour
The Witch
Neerja — Co-Written by Sanyukta Shaikh Chawla
How To Be Single — Co-Written by Dana Fox and Abby Kohn
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
The 5th Wave — Co-Written by Susannah Grant
The Boy
The Lady in the Van
The Forest — Co-Written by Sarah Cornwell
Joy — Story by Annie Mumolo
45 Years
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Sisters — Written by Paula Pell
Janis: Little Girl Blue (Documentary) — Directed by Amy Berg
The Danish Girl — Written by Lucinda Coxon
Carol — Written by Phyllis Nagy
Mustang — Directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven; Written by Deniz Gamze Ergüven and Alice Winocour
Brooklyn
Films Directed by Women Opening This Week
Sweet Bean — Written and Directed by Naomi Kawase (Opens in NYC)
The manager of a pancake stall (Masatoshi Nagase) finds himself confronted with an odd but sympathetic elderly lady looking for work (Kirin Kiki). A taste of her home-made bean jelly convinces him, starting a relationship that is about much more than just street food. (Press materials)
The Brainwashing of My Dad (Documentary) — Directed by Jen Senko; Written by Jen Senko, Melodie Bryant, Fiore Derosa and Kala Mandrake (Also Available on DVD)
As filmmaker Jen Senko tries to understand the transformation of her father from a non political, lifelong Democrat to an angry, right wing fanatic, she uncovers the forces behind the media that changed him completely: a plan by Roger Ailes under Nixon for a media takeover by the GOP, The Powell Memo urging business leaders to influence institutions of public opinion, especially the universities, the media and the courts, and under Reagan, the dismantling of the Fairness Doctrine. (Press materials)
Thank You For Playing (Documentary) — Co-Directed by Malika Zouhali-Worrall
When Ryan, a video game designer, learns that his young son Joel has cancer, he and his wife begin documenting their emotional journey in the form of an unusual and poetic video game. The result is a game called “That Dragon, Cancer” — an astoundingly honest and innovative work of art about the universal complexity of grief. “Thank You For Playing” follows Ryan and his family over two years, offering an intimate, revolutionary glimpse into how the fusion of art and technology — in this case, a video game — can document profound human experiences in the modern age. (Press materials)
Read Women and Hollywood’s interview with Malika Zouhali-Worrall
Films Directed by Women Currently Playing
City of Gold (Documentary) — Directed by Laura Gabbert
Yalom’s Cure (Documentary) — Written and Directed by Sabine Gisiger
They Will Have To Kill Us First (Documentary) — Co-Written and Directed by Johanna Schwartz
Here Come the Videofreex! (Documentary) — Co-Directed by Jenny Raskin
Marguerite and Julien — Co-Written and Directed by Valerie Donzelli
Songs My Brothers Taught Me — Written and Directed by Chloé Zhao
King Georges (Documentary) — Directed by Erika Frankel (Also Available on VOD)
Kung Fu Panda 3 — Co-Directed by Jennifer Yuh
Films Written by Women Opening This Week
The Preppie Connection — Co-Written by Ashley Rudden
How to win friends: smuggle $300,000 of uncut cocaine into your snooty prep school. Based on the wild story of a teen drug trafficker who rocked headlines in 1984, this true crime caper stars Thomas Mann as Toby, a blue-collar scholarship student at an elite boarding school who finds an in with the cool crowd by supplying them with cocaine. But things spiral out of control when Toby goes from small-time dealer to international drug trafficker, culminating in a trip to Colombia and a daring deal with a cartel. “The Preppie Connection” is a stranger than fiction look at the price of popularity. (Press materials)
My Golden Days — Co-Written by Julie Peyr
“My Golden Days” is the story of Paul Dédalus (Quentin Dolmaire and Matheiu Amalric), an anthropologist preparing to leave Tajikistan. Reflecting on his life, he has a series of flashbacks starting from his childhood in Roubaix, his mother’s attacks of madness, his father’s alienating depression. He remembers university life, and returning to his hometown to party with his sister and her best friend, his shifting circle of friends and their casual betrayals. And most of all he remembers Esther (Lou Roy-Lecollinet), the beautiful, rude, haughty soul and love of his life. (Press materials)
Kapoor & Sons — Co-Written by Ayesha Devitre Dhillon
Rahul (Fawad Khan) and Arjun (Sidharth Malhotra) have returned back home to Coonoor to be with their grandfather in what they think will be his last few days. Rahul, for his age, seems to have built a pretty good life for himself; a good looking man, doing very well professionally, living in a swanky apartment in London and also planning to pursue architecture along with writing. On the other hand, his younger brother, Arjun, is an aspiring writer living in New Jersey and clearly struggling to make ends meet. The awkwardness and tension between them is apparent from the beginning and their arrival in India quickly reveals their individual relationships with their parents as well. (Rotten Tomatoes)
Films Written by Women Currently Playing
The Young Messiah — Co-Written by Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh
London Has Fallen — Co-Written by Katrin Benedikt
Race — Co-Written by Anna Waterhouse
In the Shadow of Women — Co-Written by Caroline Deruas and Arlette Langman
Concussion — Co-Written by Jeanne Marie Laskas
The Good Dinosaur — Written by Meg LeFauve
Room — Written by Emma Donoghue
TV Premieres This Week
Everything is Copy (Documentary) (Premieres March 21 on HBO)
The new HBO documentary about the inimitable Nora Ephron is a lovely, wide-ranging portrait, with as many high-profile talking heads as you could possibly want (Meryl Streep analyzes her; Rob Reiner shares delicious “When Harry Met Sally” anecdotes; Carl Bernstein rather grudgingly talks”Heartburn”). Directed by Ephron’s son, the journalist Jacob Bernstein, “Everything is Copy” pays tribute to her legacy as an author, playwright and director, while exploring her complicated relationships with her family members and the maddening — for many — way in which she kept her cancer diagnosis from most of her friends until the very end. (Sara Stewart) Read More
Read Women and Hollywood’s tribute to Nora Ephron
The Catch (Premieres March 24 on ABC)
From Shondaland, this thriller centers on the strong, successful Alice Vaughn (Mireille Enos). She is LA’s top private investigator — and the one woman you don’t want to mess with. But when her fiance cons her out of millions and disappears, Alice goes on a private mission for payback. (Press materials)
VOD/DVD Releasing This Week
My Beautiful Broken Brain (Documentary) — Directed by Sophie Robinson and Lotje Sodderland; Written by Sophie Robinson (Netflix, March 18)
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (DVD and VOD, March 22)
The Letters (VOD, March 22)
Consumed — Co-Written by Zoe Lister-Jones (VOD, March 22)
