FILMS ABOUT WOMEN OPENING
Can You Ever Forgive Me? – Directed by Marielle Heller; Written by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty (Opens in NY and LA)
Rightly renowned for her outrageous physical comedy, Melissa McCarthy shows a different side in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” Based on a true story, the drama sees her playing Lee Israel, a writer who can no longer make a living penning biographies. Desperate for money to pay her cat’s vet bills, Lee stumbles into forging letters by famous literary figures. As director Marielle Heller told us, Lee is “not the type of female character that Hollywood movies tend to focus on.” She’s an unapologetic asshole — most of the time, anyway. And that’s OK. Also noteworthy: Lee is a lesbian, and while it’s refreshing to see a portrayal of an LGBTQ character at the center of a story period, it’s especially so because the biopic isn’t a coming out or civil rights story. Those narratives are undeniably important, but it’s rarer still to see films about LGBTQ characters just living their lives. (Laura Berger)
Read Women and Hollywood’s interview with Marielle Heller.
Find screening info here.
The Hate U Give – Written by Audrey Wells (Opens in Wide Release)
“The Hate U Give”
Starr Carter (Amandla Stenberg) is constantly switching between two worlds: the poor, mostly black neighborhood where she lives and the rich, mostly white prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil (Algee Smith) at the hands of a police officer. Now, facing pressures from all sides of the community, Starr must find her voice and stand up for what’s right. (Press materials)
Find screening info here.
On Her Shoulders (Documentary) – Directed by Alexandria Bombach (Opens in NY; Opens in LA October 24)
“On Her Shoulders”
During their 2014 genocide of the Yazidi people, ISIS killed Nadia Murad’s older brothers and mother. The terrorist group captured Nadia, raped her, and enslaved her — and did the same to thousands of other Yazidi women. Nadia managed to escape and, as “On Her Shoulders” chronicles, became the voice of the Yazidi people and a symbol of the world’s refugee crisis. She’s addressed the UN, visited fellow Yazidi refugees, and advocated to the press and international governments on behalf of her people. Nadia is a hero, but one living in the real world. Despite the global acclaim and the Nobel Peace Prize, her home is gone and so are most of her loved ones. The world is still largely indifferent to the plight of refugees, and even sympathetic governments are slow to approve and enact any change. Yet Nadia has vowed to continue her work until all Yazidis have a peaceful, safe home to call their own. “On Her Shoulders” is honest about social justice: it’s frustrating and moves at a glacial pace, but must be attained. Nadia is willing to give up everything for it, and so should we. (Rachel Montpelier)
Read Women and Hollywood’s interview with Alexandria Bombach.
Find screening info here.
What They Had – Written and Directed by Elizabeth Chomko (Opens in NY and LA)
“What They Had”: Bleecker Street
From first-time writer-director Elizabeth Chomko, “What They Had” centers on a family in crisis. Bridget (Hilary Swank) returns home to Chicago at her brother’s (Michael Shannon) urging to deal with her ailing mother (Blythe Danner) and her father’s (Robert Forster) reluctance to let go of their life together. (Press materials)
Read Women and Hollywood’s interview with Elizabeth Chomko.
Find screening info here.
Change in the Air – Directed by Dianne Dreyer; Written by Audra Gorman (Also Available on VOD)
A charming young woman named Wren Miller (Rachel Brosnahan) moves into a quiet neighborhood, but brings about deep secrets in her new neighbors. Along the way, their story embraces the imperfections that make humans who they are, while offering a way to set them free. (Press materials)
Halloween
“Halloween”: Ryan Green/Universal Pictures
Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago. (Press materials)
Transformer (Documentary) (Currently Playing) (Also Available on VOD)
In the summer of 2015, former U.S. Marine and world record weightlifter Matt “Kroc” Kroczaleski was publicly outed as being transgender. “Transformer” follows Janae as she attempts to find her place in a world where one day she is an alpha male and the next she is a delicate woman. Will her passage from being a male bring her the peace she’s looking for or complicate her own physical and psychological wellbeing? (Press materials)
Find screening info here.
An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn (Also Available on VOD)
Lulu Danger’s (Aubrey Plaza) unsatisfying marriage takes a turn for the worse when a mysterious man from her past comes to town to perform an event called “An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn: For One Magical Night Only.” (Press materials)
Life and Nothing More (Opens in NY October 24)
“Life and Nothing More”
Stressed by the mounting pressures of raising two children and fighting to get by on minimum wage, single mother Regina (Regina Williams) longs to find more to her life than constant work, while attempting to instill in 14-year-old Andrew (Andrew Bleechington) the values that she hopes will prevent him from winding up in prison like his father. Andrew yearns, too, for his absent father and a sense of purpose, driving him towards a dangerous crossroads that threatens to upend the tenuous balance Regina tirelessly endeavors to maintain. (Press materials)
Find screening info here.
Viral Beauty – Written by Elizabeth Lam (Opens in LA) (Also Available on VOD)
After posting a brash dating ad online, Marsha Day (Casey Killoran) is thrown into the limelight when Perez Hilton shares the video with his legion of followers. Becoming a viral hit, Marsha is scooped up by a talent manager who creates a hit online channel based on Marsha’s life and shenanigans. But as Marsha gains fame and fortune, she is forced to wrestle with her sense of identity in a celebrity-obsessed world. Things become hotter and more complicated when she’s wooed by a handsome fitness entrepreneur who challenges her ideas of a fairy tale romance. (Press materials)
Find screening info here.
FILMS MADE BY WOMEN OPENING
“Galveston”
Galveston – Directed by Mélanie Laurent (Also Available on VOD)
A fading hitman (Ben Foster) knows he is living on borrowed time after a set up nearly costs him his life. Now presented with the difficulty of protecting not only himself but newly-befriended prostitute Raquel (Elle Fanning), his hometown of Galveston is the setting for retribution and a dangerously uncertain fate. (Press materials)
Wildlife – Written by Zoe Kazan and Paul Dano
“Wildlife”
Fourteen-year-old Joe played by newcomer Ed Oxenbould, is the only child of Jeanette (Carey Mulligan) and Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal) — a housewife and a golf pro — in a small town in 1960s Montana. Nearby, an uncontrolled forest fire rages close to the Canadian border, and when Jerry loses his job — and his sense of purpose — he decides to join the cause of fighting the fire, leaving his wife and son to fend for themselves. Suddenly forced into the role of an adult, Joe witnesses his mother’s struggle as she tries to keep her head above water. With precise details and textures of its specific time and place, “Wildlife” commits to the viewpoint of a teenage boy observing the gradual dissolution of his parents’ marriage. (Press materials)
The Waldheim Waltz (Documentary) – Directed by Ruth Beckermann (Opens in NY)
“The Waldheim Waltz”: Ruth Beckermann Film
An Austrian diplomat and politician who served as Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1982, Kurt Waldheim ran for the presidency of Austria in 1986. His nation elected him despite a controversy over his previously undisclosed role in the Nazi regime during World War II. It was alleged that Waldheim participated in the deportation of over 60,000 Jews in Greece during WWII — which he and Austria’s political class vehemently and disingenuously denied. The outbreak of anti-Semitism and nationalism along with the country’s collective whitewashing of its Nazi-era past all led to Waldheim’s election. Although discredited by Western nations and placed on the United States’ watch list, Waldheim astonishingly went on to serve with impunity as head of state for six years. The documentary is an extremely timely work of activist filmmaking, one whose questions about collective complicity, memory, and historical responsibility are as important to ask today as they were more than 30 years ago. (Press materials)
Find screening info here.
Caniba (Documentary) – Directed by Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor
“Caniba” is a film that reflects on the discomforting significance of cannibalistic desire in human existence through the prism of one Japanese man, Issei Sagawa, and his mysterious relationship with his brother, Jun Sagawa. (Press materials)
Reach – Written by Maria Capp, Johnny James Fiore, and Grant Harling
A socially awkward band geek, Steven Turano (Garrett Clayton), is planning on killing himself. However, when Clarence (Johnny James Fiore), the new quirky kid in school, befriends him, Steven’s plans are sidetracked and he reaches beyond his comfort zone, forming stronger relationships with his father, friends, and teachers. The boys form an inseparable bond as Clarence finds creative ways to pull Steven out of his depression. (Press materials)
TV PREMIERES
“Wanderlust”
Wanderlust (Premieres October 19 on Netflix)
“Wanderlust” presents an authentic, multi-generational story about the complexities of love, grief, family, and marriage when a relatable couple living a suburban lifestyle tries something unorthodox. Toni Collette plays Joy Richards, a therapist trying to find a way to keep the spark alive with her husband after a cycling accident causes them to reassess their relationship. As we meet her family, friends, neighbors, and clients, remarkable yet relatable stories of love, lust, and forbidden desire emerge. (Press materials)
The Woman in White (Miniseries) – Written by Fiona Seres (Premieres October 21 on PBS)
“The Woman in White”
When Walter Hartright (Ben Hardy), a young drawing master, encounters a ghostly woman dressed all in white on a moonlit road on Hampstead Heath, he is drawn into a web of intrigue that will transform his life forever. Offering his assistance to this distressed, spectral woman, he is later shocked to discover that she had just escaped from a nearby insane asylum. (Press materials)
Stolen Daughters: Kidnapped By Boko Haram (Documentary) – Directed by Gemma Atwal; Written by Karen Edwards (Premieres October 22 on HBO)
“Stolen Daughters”: HBO
In 2014, 276 Nigerian school girls were kidnapped from a school in Chibok, Northern Nigeria, and hidden in the vast Sambisa forest for three years by Boko Haram, a violent Islamic insurgent movement. Granted exclusive access to the 82 girls who were freed last year and taken to a secret government safe house in the capital of Abuja, “Stolen Daughters” reveals how the young women are adapting to life after their traumatic imprisonment and how the Nigerian government is handling their reentry into society. (Press materials)
Personal Statement (Documentary) – Directed by Julianne Dressner and Eddie Martinez (Premieres October 23 on PBS; Available on VOD October 24)
Soccer, yearbook, debate — these are common high school activities, but for three seniors in New York City, the main extracurricular is stress. As Karoline, Christine, and Enoch pursue their dream of attending college, they fight not just for their own admittance into college, but to help their peers navigate the college admissions process. Without adequate support from school guidance counselors and administrators, they become the guides — leaders in a new generation’s fight for educational equity. (Press materials)
Heathers (Premieres October 25 on Paramount)
“Heathers”
Based on the 1989 cult classic film of the same name, “Heathers” is an hour-long pitch-black comedy anthology set in the present day, as heroine Veronica Sawyer (Grace Victoria Cox, “Under the Dome”) deals with a very different but equally vicious group of “Heathers.” Also starring are James Scully as JD, Melanie Field (“Wicked” National Tour) as Heather Chandler, Brendan Scannell (“Funny or Die”) as Heather Duke, and Jasmine Mathews as Heather McNamara. (Press materials)
Legacies – Created by Julie Plec (Premieres October 25 on The CW)
“Legacies” tells the story of the next generation of supernatural beings at The Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted, where 17-year-old Hope Mikaelson (Danielle Rose Russell) and others come of age in the most unconventional way possible, nurtured to be their best selves — in spite of their worst impulses — under the watchful eye of headmaster Alaric Saltzman (Matthew Davis). (Deadline)
VOD/STREAMING RELEASES
“The Judge”
At Your Own Risk (VOD, Available Now)
Don’t Talk About the Baby (Documentary) – Directed by Ann Zamudio (Vimeo, Available Now)
The Judge (Documentary) – Directed by Erika Cohn (VOD, Available Now)
In Between – Written and Directed by Maysaloun Hamoud (Film Movement Plus, October 19)
My Art – Written and Directed by Laurie Simmons (Film Movement Plus, October 19)
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (VOD, October 23)
WOMEN AND HOLLYWOOD IN THE NEWS
‘Twilight’ turns 10: How Bella and Edward’s girl-meets-vampire love story changed Hollywood (USA Today)
PICKS OF THE WEEK FROM WOMEN AND HOLLYWOOD
Photo credit: BFI
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