SXSW 2021: “See You Then” tells a universal tale from a trans Asian American filmmaker
With the atrocities that happened this week in Atlanta that resulted in the deaths of Asian American women, and with the hashtag #StopAsianHate streaming through social media, a film like “See You Then” is more important to see then ever. A trans woman meets with an ex-girlfriend she hasn’t seen for a decade. They go […]
Amina Maher’s “Letter to My Mother” is a courageous and unflinching self-portrait
Amina Maher is brave. Her short film “Letter to My Mother” is a triumph and a courageous way for the filmmaker to break her silence about the abuse she endured as a child. She has spoken out about it in the past, and her mother is now aware of the sexual abuse that was done […]
Marion Hill puts her own spin on a cinematic romance in the Sundance hit “Ma Belle, My Beauty”
I am in love. I’m in love with Marion Hill’s ‘Ma Belle, My Beauty.’ This film is a romance that involves many people, but at the heart of it is the love between Bertie (Idella Johnson) and Lane (Hannah Pepper). At one time, Bertie and Lane were both in a polyamorous relationship with Fred (Lucien […]
Isabel Sandoval beautifully elevates the marginalized in “Lingua Franca”
“Every image or sound is a vessel for emotion: rapture, despair, sensuousness, fury, a combination of these. That makes cinema a kind of legerdemain: the art of sculpting such seemingly artificial elements to create a singular, genuine emotional experience.” –excerpt from Isabel Sandoval’s director’s statement Isabel Sandoval is not just about making great films, she […]
To Be a Free Person: Ksenia Ivanova on “Jack and Anna”
“For many years, I had to confront the cruel system in my home country that does not tolerate people with a different mindset. People judged me for my ideas as if I was a traitor. The desire to work in another country was born when I realized that my stories and my screenplays would never […]
Filmmaker Anna Kerrigan takes us on the heartfelt journey of a father and his trans son in “Cowboys”
I like that idea that when you’re in nature you can be your true self, and not influenced by the constructs of your society. It’s a really interesting way to re-appropriate nature, sort of nodding to a genre which is so heteronormative and so male as some sort of backdrop. I have to admit I […]
A cult classic is in our midst with Jennifer Reeder’s teen noir ‘Knives and Skin’
“Knives and Skin” follows the investigation of a young girl’s disappearance in a rural Midwest town. The coming-of-age film has been described as a mix of Lynchian thriller and high school musical.
A religious experience with Molly Hewitt’s ‘Holy Trinity’
I am ready to share with the world that I am a freaky queer femme sex worker domme and I am also a fucking filmmaker. —Molly Hewitt/Glamhag June, 2019 Molly Hewitt. Jennifer Reeder. Sofia Coppola. Three directors with different styles, but three directors that completely pull me in by their aesthetic and original cinematic art […]
Emily Lape brings a rawness to the filmmaking and acting process with ‘Mercy’s Girl’
“Four years ago when I was trying to make “Mercy’s Girl,” it was so hard. Now, I don’t know if it’s because I know more people, but it’s very ripe. It’s a great time to be a filmmaker.”
Filmmaker Christina Raia is creating empathy through film
I met filmmaker and Seed&Spark’s head of education and outreach Christina Raia in March at the 2019 Girl Power Film + Media Summit, where she gave a presentation about film distribution. Hearing Christina talk about her passion for helping filmmakers get their projects funded and distributed was inspirational. We spoke in April on the phone […]