Nailah Jefferson on Her Empowering Documentary, “Commuted”
To celebrate the release of the film, we bring back our 2023 New Orleans Film Festival interview (originally posted on 11/2/23) with filmmaker Nailah Jefferson about her feature documentary “Commuted,” coming to PBS on April 1st. “Commuted” by Nailah Jefferson, which follows Danielle Metz, as she is freed by decree of President Obama after spending half […]
Tribeca 2022: “Battleground” Director-Producer Cynthia Lowen discusses her approach to documentary filmmaking
Driven by curiosity and a passion for social justice, Emmy-nominated filmmaker Cynthia Lowen uses the power of story to investigate difficult issues that often go overlooked; her debut documentary feature, 2011’s “Bully”, investigated a crisis of suicide motivated by bullying in American schools. It was nominated for two Emmys, shortlisted for the Oscars, screened at The White House and […]
Celebrating Juneteenth, a look back: A conversation with documentarian Dawn Porter
February 2021 Cinema Femme had the honor of speaking with documentarian Dawn Porter about her impactful films. We bring back our interview with her to celebrate Juneteenth weekend. *Not an updated biography, biography from February 2021. Learn more about Dawn Porter’s latest work here. DAWN PORTER Biography Award-winning filmmaker, producer, and mental health/social justice advocate […]
A mental breakdown breaks through stigmas in Maria Judice’s feature debut, “Elephant”
We had the opportunity to speak with activist and filmmaker Maria Judice about her directorial feature debut “Elephant,” which will have its in-person premiere at the Ann Arbor Film Festival on Sunday, 3/27 at 3:15 PM ET. You can watch it at the fest virtually now. Buy tickets here. It all started four years ago, around the […]
A Look Back: Luchina Fisher’s “Mama Gloria” brings a hopeful outlook to the young trans community
For Women’s History Month and Trans Visibility Day approaching on March 31, we bring back our interview from the Chicago International Film Festival in October 2020. We are proud to support “Mama Gloria” – an intimate profile of Chicago’s trailblazing Black transgender icon and activist Gloria Allen. Now streaming on PBS. Visit mamagloriafilm.com for more […]
Dawn Porter captures an awe-inspiring legacy in “John Lewis: Good Trouble”
We featured this interview on July 1st, 2020 before John Lewis passed. Dawn Porter won Mind the Gap (California Film Institute and Mill Valley Film Festival) Documentarian of the Year on 11/25/20. Black Lives Matter. There is a man named John Lewis, who has fought for that for over 60 years, and is still fighting […]
Shalini Kantayya shows how sci-fi is becoming reality in her AI doc “Coded Bias”
I have found myself in the midst of discovering another hero of mine. Shalini Kanyayya is my hero because she elevates, through her own work, trailblazing womxn in the AI industry. “Coded Bias” follows Joy Buolamwini through her investigation of implicit bias in face recognition technology. Joy has a PhD from the MIT Media Lab […]
Maya Zinshtein explores the complicated “love” between Evangelical Christians and Israelis in “‘Til Kingdom Come”
It is difficult for me to write an introduction for this piece, not because of the amazing interview I had with Maya Zinshtein about her documentary “‘Til Kingdom Come’, but how I’m having to grapple with some of the sad truths that my religious background paved for me, and how these shared “truths” have given […]
Iryna Tsilyk talks about the making of her doc “The Earth is Blue as an Orange”, an ode to the healing power of cinema set in Ukraine’s turbulent “red zone”
We had the opportunity to chat with Ukrainian filmmaker Iryna Tsilyk, director of the successful documentary “The Earth is Blue as an Orange”. The movie follows the lives of single mother Anna, her two daughters, her old mother and two sons in the “red zone” of the troubled region of Donbass, a theater of the […]
Diane Paragas tells a timely and timeless story in her narrative feature debut “Yellow Rose”
“Yellow Rose” is the timely story of a Filipina teen from a small Texas town who fights to pursue her dreams as a country music performer while having to decide between staying with her family or leaving the only home she has known. I was fortunate to speak with the director of the film, Diane Paragas […]
Nancy Miller on “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark”, Michelle McNamara, and the true crime of sexual assault
I had no particular interest in crime aside from reading the occasional Nancy Drew book growing up. Yet two days after the killing, without telling anyone, I walked to the spot near our house where Kathleen had been attacked. On the ground I saw pieces of her Walkman. I picked them up. I felt no […]
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 […]