Celine Song’s “Past Lives” is a modern romance that is ageless
Filmmaker Celine Song had a unique moment when her childhood sweetheart and her husband met. This moment was very significant to her, and it became the seed of her film, “Past Lives.” The film has been called “a modern romance,” but to me, it is much more than that. “Past Lives” is ageless to me, […]
Dhaka International Film Festival 2023: Female Characters in the Modern Bengali Cinema
The festival year started for me in a most unexpected way, on January 14, 2023, I landed in Bangladesh, a place I’d never been before and would not have normally made it a destination. But I had been invited to serve in the International Film Critics jury at the 21st edition of DIFF after a […]
Answering the Call Amidst the Grief and Pain
Melissa Marquez is the recipient of our “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” submission contest. She was chosen for her unique and passionate perspective. We are also featuring runner up recipient Viridiana López’s thoughts on the film, see below! The film “Wakanda Forever” was such an emotional rollercoaster for this Latina filmmaker. My younger self would have […]
Look Back: Cinema Femme Voices: “Black Panther”
With the release of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” coming this Friday (11/11/22) we bring back snippets of our January 2019 Black Panther issue and our interview with Oscar-Winning Production Designer Hannah Beachler. Earlier this year, we chose “Black Panther” to be our film focus for our January issue (read my editor’s letter here). I chose […]
Look back: A vintage that gets better with age: a celebration of ‘Jennifer’s Body’ 10 years later
Originally posted August 16, 2019. Google “Jennifer’s Body” and let the panning of 2009 begin, from the in–the–gutter critic reviews to the 44% Rotten Tomatoes score. Go on Letterboxd (a site for film geeks like myself who write their own reviews), and you will read passionate, glowing reviews from over the past couple of years. The love that seemed dormant ten […]
Cult Classic Series: The Ambiguous Queerness of Female Friendship in Buddy Films
Cinema Femme will be bringing you essays written by women and non-binary people about films that are cult classics and how they are impacting our world today. Today we feature an essay by contributor Robyn Bacon (The Light Leaks, Film Daze). For women, close female friendships are usually the first type of relationship — outside […]
Cult Classic series: Cronenberg’s “Crash” Under the Lens of Toxic Internet Culture
Cinema Femme will be bringing you essays written by women and non-binary people about films that are cult classics and how they are impacting our world today. Today we feature an essay by Peyton Robinson (RogerEbert.com, JumpCutOnline, and One Perfect Shot). Niche is a delicate, almost laughable word to use to describe David Cronenberg’s 1996 […]
A Look Back: The Women of Wakanda
The message of “Black Panther” is that the potential and influence of women must not be ignored or discounted. From the strategic actions of Nakia as an undercover spy and refugee saviour on a personal mission who will not abandon her calling, to the knowledge centre of Shuri, who has the final words of the film when she says to the injured Westerner Sergeant Barnes, “Come, there is much more for you to learn,” all the women excel as examples of depth and variety of the Black woman.
Kelly Oxford’s feature debut “Pink Skies Ahead” changes the game for mental health representation onscreen
“Breakdown, breakthrough,” Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) says in Cameron Crowe’s film of the same name, in a very cliche way, in a very cookie cutter scenario. Jerry gets inspired to change his life after he has a bad pizza. He wakes up with the sweats as it hits him he needs to make a change, […]
Breaking through the cliché of Poly Styrene: An examination of Celeste Bell’s documentary on her mother
Punk, also called punk rock, is an aggressive form of rock music that coalesced into an international (though predominantly Anglo-American) movement in 1975–80. Often politicized and full of vital energy beneath a sarcastic, hostile facade, punk spread as an ideology and an aesthetic approach, becoming an archetype of teen rebellion and alienation. -Britannica The documentary […]
Look back: Not just Gilda, but Rita too
“Every man I knew went to bed with Gilda . . . and woke up with me.” -Rita Hayworth The following personal essay was posted in November 2019. We’re bringing it back for Mental Health Awareness Month. It’s powerful when you see yourself represented in a real way onscreen for the very first time. I’m […]
Julia Hart reinvents 1970s thriller genre with a female lead in “I’m Your Woman”
I burned it all up, I burned it up until nothing was left, but the fire. And then in Eddie came with the baby. Jean, “I’m Your Woman” Attending Sundance 2016 was a trip on my bucket list that I never thought I’d take, and suddenly it seemed like it was my destiny. I was […]