Weekly Update for November 7: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You

Films About Women Opening

Actress (Docudrama)

Brandy Burre had a recurring role on HBO’s The Wire when she gave up her career to start a family. When she decides to reclaim her life as an actor, the domestic world she’s carefully created crumbles around her. Using elements of melodrama and cinema verité, Actress is both a present-tense portrait of a dying relationship and an exploration of a complicated woman, performing the role of herself in a complex yet familiar story. It’s a film about starring in the movie of your life. This is what happens when we break the rules. (Press materials)

Jessabelle

From the mastermind producer of Paranormal Activity and Insidious comes the ghostly tale of Jessabelle. Returning to her childhood home in Louisiana to recuperate from a horrific car accident, Jessabelle (Sarah Snook) comes face-to-face with a long-tormented spirit that has been seeking her return — and has no intention of letting her escape. (Press materials)

West — Written by Heide Schwochow

Three years after her boyfriend Wassilij’s apparent death, Nelly Senff (Jördis Triebel), while living in East Germany in the late 1970s, plots to escape from behind the Berlin wall in the hope of leaving her traumatic past behind. However, when the Allied Secret Service begins an investigation into Wassilij’s disappearance, Nelly must decide between finding out the truth about her former lover and her dreams of a better future. (Press materials)

The Outrageous Sophie Tucker (doc) — Opens in South Florida

The rags-to-riches story of Sophie Tucker, an iconic superstar who ruled the worlds of vaudeville, Broadway, radio, television, and Hollywood throughout the 20th century. Before Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Bette Midler, Marilyn Monroe, and Mae West, Sophie Tucker was the first woman to infatuate her audiences with a bold, bawdy, and brassy style unlike any other. The woman nicknamed “The Last of the Red Hot Mamas” is rediscovered through 400-plus recently rediscovered personal scrapbooks. Authors Susan and Lloyd Ecker take you on their seven-year journey retracing Tucker’s sixty-year career in show business. (Press materials)

Films About Women Currently Playing

Before I Go To Sleep

Laggies — Directed by Lynn Shelton; Written by Andrea Seigel

Sleeping with the Fishes — Written and Directed by Nicole Gomez Fisher

1,000 Times Good Night

White Bird in a Blizzard

Dear White People

The Golden Era — Directed by Ann Hui

Camp X-Ray

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

Addicted — Co-Written by Christina Welsh

Gone Girl

Annabelle

Tracks

No Good Deed — Written by Aimee Lagos

Wetlands

The Congress

If I Stay

Lucy

Maleficent — Written by Linda Woolverton

Films Directed by Women Opening

Pelican Dreams (doc) — Directed by Judy Irving

Sundance- and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Judy Irving (with her first film since the widely acclaimed and loved The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill) follows a wayward California brown pelican from her “arrest” on the Golden Gate Bridge into care at a wildlife rehabilitation facility, and from there explores the nesting grounds, Pacific coast migration, and survival challenges of these ancient birds, sometimes referred to as flying dinosaurs. The film is about wildness and asks the following questions: How close can we get to a wild animal without taming or harming it? Why do we need wildness in our lives, and how can we protect it? (Press materials)

Read guest post by Judy Irving.

Films Directed by Women Currently Playing

ABCs of Death 2 — Directed by Kristina Buozyte, Jen and Sylvia Soska

Citizenfour (doc) — Directed by Laura Poitras

The Great Invisible (doc) — Directed by Margaret Brown

Awake: The Life of Yogananda (doc) — Directed by Paola di Florio and Lisa Leeman

Art and Craft (doc) — Co-Directed by Jennifer Grausman

I Am Eleven (doc) — Directed by Genevieve Bailey

Land Ho! — Co-Directed by Martha Stephens

Films Written by Women Currently Playing

The Good Lie — Written by Margaret Nagle

Men, Women & Children — Co-Written by Erin Cressida Wilson