Weekly Update for October 28: Women Centric, Directed, and Written Films Playing Near You

Films About Women Opening This Week

The Eagle Huntress (Documentary) (Opens November 2 in NY and LA)

Narrated by Daisy Ridley, “The Eagle Huntress” follows Aisholpan, a 13-year-old girl, as she trains to become the first female in 12 generations of her Kazakh family to become an eagle hunter, and rises to the pinnacle of a tradition that has been typically been handed down from father to son for centuries. (Press materials)

Find screening info here.

Rings

Julia (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz) becomes worried about her boyfriend, Holt (Alex Roe), when he explores the dark urban legend of a mysterious videotape said to kill the watcher after seven days. Julia sacrifices herself to save Holt and makes a horrifying discovery: there is a “movie within the movie” that no one has ever seen before. (Press materials)

The Windmill — Co-Written by Suzy Quid (Also Available on VOD)

Jennifer (Charlotte Beaumont), an Australian girl on the run from her past, washes up in Amsterdam. In a desperate attempt to stay one step ahead of the authorities, she joins a group of tourists embarking on a tour of Holland’s world-famous windmills. When the bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere, she and the other tourists are forced to seek shelter in a disused shed beside a sinister windmill where, legend has it, a Devil-worshipping miller once ground the bones of locals instead of grain. As members of the group start to disappear, Jennifer learns that they all have something in common — a shared secret that seems to mark them all for doom. (Press materials)

Burn Burn Burn — Directed by Chanya Button (Opens in the UK) (Also Available on Netflix in the U.S. and Canada)

Dan (Jack Farthing) dispatches his good friends Seph (Laura Carmichael) and Alex (Chloe Pirrie) on an arduous road trip to hit five disparate UK venues. He’ll even accompany them: not so much backseat driver as wedged into the glove compartment, since the prematurely deceased Dan has assigned the bewildered, emotionally freefalling pair to scatter his ashes in places dear to his heart. Meantime, his funny, often painfully frank video missives map altogether rockier relationship terrain. A crackling, life-affirming voyage of self-discovery.

Read Women and Hollywood’s interview with Chanya Button.

Films About Women Currently Playing

It Had to Be You — Written and Directed by Sasha Gordon
The Handmaiden
Ouija: Origin of Evil
I’m Not Ashamed — Written by Bodie Thoene, Robin Hanley, Kari Redmond, and Philipa Booyens
Recovery (Also Available on VOD)
Certain Women — Written and Directed by Kelly Reichardt
Christine
Aquarius
Miss Hokusai
The Girl on the Train — Written by Erin Cressida Wilson
Under the Shadow (Also Available on VOD)
American Honey — Written and Directed by Andrea Arnold
Denial
Queen of Katwe — Directed by Mira Nair
The Dressmaker — Written and Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse
Girl Asleep — Directed by Rosemary Myers
Sand Storm — Written and Directed by Elite Zexer
Bridget Jones’s Baby — Directed by Sharon Maguire; Co-Written by Helen Fielding and Emma Thompson
As I Open My Eyes — Directed by Leyla Bouzid; Written by Leyla Bouzid and Marie-Sophie Chambon
Cameraperson (Documentary) — Directed by Kirsten Johnson
Author: The JT LeRoy Story (Documentary)
White Girl — Written and Directed by Elizabeth Wood
Mia Madre — Co-Written by Valia Santella
Ixcanul
Florence Foster Jenkins
My King (Mon Roi) — Co-Written and Directed by Maïwenn
Equity — Directed by Meera Menon; Written by Amy Fox
Bad Moms
Ghostbusters — Co-Written by Katie Dippold
Our Little Sister
Finding Dory

Films Directed by Women Opening This Week

By Sidney Lumet (Documentary) — Directed by Nancy Buirski (Opens in NY; Opens November 4 in LA)

Film legend Sidney Lumet (1924–2011) tells his own story in a never-before-seen interview shot in 2008. With candor, humor, and grace, Lumet reveals what matters to him as an artist and as a human being. The documentary features clips from Lumet’s films — 44 made in 50 years — including “Serpico,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “12 Angry Men,” “Network,” and “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.” Filmmaker Nancy Buirski combines these elements to create a portrait of one of the most accomplished, influential, and socially conscious directors in the history of cinema. (Press materials)

Read Women and Hollywood’s interview with Nancy Buirski.

Don’t Call Me Son — Written and Directed by Anna Muylaert (Opens November 2 in NY; Opens November 11 in LA)

After discovering the truth about being stolen by the woman he thought was his mother as a child, Pierre (Naomi Nero ) — aka Felipe — must deal with the consequences of his mother’s actions and try to cope with his biological family. (Press materials)

Find screening info here.

Films Directed by Women Currently Playing

The Whole Truth — Directed by Courtney Hunt (Also Available on VOD)
The Uncondemned (Documentary) — Written and Co-Directed by Michele Mitchell
The David Dance — Directed by Aprill Winney
Portrait of a Garden (Documentary) — Written and Directed by Rosie Stapel (Also Available on VOD)
Newtown (Documentary) — Directed by Kim A. Snyder
The Last Film Festival — Co-Written and Directed by Linda Yellen

Films Written by Women Opening This Week

Hostage to the Devil (Documentary) — Co-Written by Rachel Lysaght (Opens October 31)

A child possessed. An exorcist locked in combat with an ancient evil. Using first-hand interviews, dramatic reconstruction, archival evidence, and Martin’s own words, this film tells the true story of Father Malachi Martin and asks, in the battle for saving a soul, just who really is hostage to the Devil? (Press materials)

Films Written by Women Currently Playing

El Jeremías — Written by Ana Sofia Clerici
Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life — Co-Written by Kara Holden
Being 17 — Co-Written by Céline Sciamma
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children — Written by Jane Goldman
Masterminds — Co-Written by Emily Spivey
Mr. Church — Written by Susan McMartin
Nine Lives — Co-Written by Gwyn Lurie

TV Premieres This Week

Good Girls Revolt — Created by Dana Calvo (Series Premieres October 28 on Amazon)

“Good Girls Revolt” is a perfect storm of things I love: journalism and feminism and 1960s New York City and Nora Ephron (if only briefly). So to claim I’m writing about it impartially would be ridiculous.

That said, I think it’s worth unpacking the notion that it’s the female “Mad Men.” On its surface, sure, same time period, same place, different perspective. But at the risk of offending the “Mad Men” faithful, the early episodes of this show are so much more nuanced than the AMC drama was, at least in the beginning (I just remember watching Don Draper and Co. and thinking, “OK WE GET IT EVERYONE SMOKED EVERYWHERE”).

Besides, “Good Girls Revolt” is telling a story you actually might not be that familiar with, whereas I think we’re all pretty clear on the fact that sexism ran rampant in office culture in the 1960s. This show tells the specific, and fact-based, story of the women of Newsweek (“News of the Week,” in its thinly-veiled incarnation here) who sued for sexual discrimination in 1970 — becoming the first female class action lawsuit — and won. It’s based on a book, “The Good Girls Revolt,” by Lynn Povich, who was one of those women. (Sara Stewart)

VOD/DVD Releasing This Week

I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (Netflix, October 28)
50/50: Rethinking the Past, Present & Future of Women + Power (Documentary) — Directed by Tiffany Shlain; Co-Written by Tiffany Shlain and Julie Hermelin (Refinery29, October 28)
Bad Moms (DVD, November 1)
Nine Lives — Co-Written by Gwyn Lurie (DVD, November 1)

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