
Femme Film Series: June
Chicago is buzzing with energy this month as we celebrate the incredible impact of women-led and women-owned businesses in the film community. The Independent Film
Read our most recent issue with stories that validate, inspire, and change the way we see— and make — film.
Chicago is buzzing with energy this month as we celebrate the incredible impact of women-led and women-owned businesses in the...
I had the honor of speaking with Emmy-winning writer and executive producer Simran Baidwan, who has helped shape The Pitt...
Upending an audience’s expectations has become one of the most joyous experiences to have in a movie theater, especially when...
This is a living record of underrepresented brilliance in film. Dive into our archive of stories and hear from bold voices that paving the industry forward.
2 min read
by Rebecca Martin
December 23, 2018
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by Alison Marcotte
December 21, 2018
6 min read
by Marjorie H. Morgan
November 16, 2018
1 min read
by cinemafemme
November 10, 2018
Thank you all who came out last tonight to our launch at the Music Box Theatre! Here are some photos for the event. If you have any photos you took
3 min read
by Rebecca Martin
November 9, 2018
3 min read
by Rebecca Martin
November 9, 2018
Statistics about Female Film Critics A September 2018 report from Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative (and conducted with Time’s Up Entertainment) used reviews of 300 top-grossing
7 min read
by Amy Wasney
November 8, 2018
5 min read
by Rebecca Martin
November 8, 2018
5 min read
by Rebecca Martin
November 8, 2018
12 min read
by Rebecca Martin
June 10, 2026
I had the honor of speaking with Emmy-winning writer and executive producer Simran Baidwan, who has helped shape The Pitt into one of television’s most distinctive medical dramas. Much like
24 min read
by Matt Fagerholm
June 8, 2026
Upending an audience’s expectations has become one of the most joyous experiences to have in a movie theater, especially when so many releases from mainstream studios are content to remain
14 min read
by Rebecca Martin
June 5, 2026
Some films seem to find you when you’re finally ready for them. In 2023, I spoke with filmmaker and writer Guinevere Turner about her memoir, When the World Didn’t End,
8 min read
by Emily Jacobson
May 21, 2026
When I first watched “Go Fish,” Rose Troche’s 1994 film, it was in the middle of lockdown during 2020. I was watching at least three movies a day, using my
3 min read
by Rebecca Martin
May 20, 2026
When I sat down with director Nora Kirkpatrick, she described her latest feature, “Couples Weekend,” as “The Breakfast Club for adults.” It’s a comparison she credits to actor Josh Gad,
9 min read
by Rebecca Martin
May 19, 2026
We are living in a culture right now where we are constantly feeding ourselves, and not only with food. The content constantly competing for our attention on all sizes of
6 min read
by Davide Abbatescianni
May 16, 2026
Franco-Costa Rican filmmaker Valentina Maurel returns to Cannes with “Forever Your Maternal Animal,” premiering in Un Certain Regard four years after her Critics’ Week-bound debut “I Have Electric Dreams.” Set
12 min read
by Rebecca Martin
May 15, 2026
Kate Cragg’s filmmaking begins with a refusal: a rejection of the “proper way” of doing things. Where conventional cinema prizes structure, coverage, and clarity, Cragg has built a practice grounded
10 min read
by Rebecca Martin
May 8, 2026
In “Magic Hour,” filmmaker and actor Katie Aselton returns to the intimate, emotionally raw storytelling that first defined her career. Premiering last year at the South by Southwest film festival,
16 min read
by Matt Fagerholm
January 28, 2026
Sundance has always been a festival I had admired at a distance. How Robert Redford had gone about using his platform to launch the careers of countless filmmakers for over
13 min read
by Matt Fagerholm
November 17, 2025
As I sat in my favorite movie palace, the Music Box Theatre, waiting for my wife—Cinema Femme founder Rebecca Martin—to arrive for that evening’s eagerly awaited Chicago International Film Festival
14 min read
by Anna Pattison
November 1, 2025
When a laid-off sex worker falls for a mail carrier in a world frozen by pandemic unknowns, it will take the help of an astrologer, cinema guru, cam model, retired dungeon owner,
14 min read
by Matt Fagerholm
October 25, 2025
With the 61st Chicago International Film Festival nearly in the rearview mirror, there are so many memories from the past several days that I know I will be cherishing for
20 min read
by Veronica Miles
October 10, 2025
In 2019, I crashed the Cannes Film Festival. Well — not really. I went legitimately with a pass I applied for (if you work in the film industry, you usually
11 min read
by Matt Fagerholm
September 30, 2025
“If you can’t play with the language, you are not reinventing the language.” This is what Argentine director Gaspar Noé told me when I interviewed him fifteen years ago about
12 min read
by Matt Fagerholm
July 8, 2025
I was ten years old when Danny DeVito’s euphoric screen adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1988 novel Matilda arrived in theaters. I had read the book so many times that the
14 min read
by Matt Fagerholm
June 24, 2025
As annoyed as I was about Barry Jenkins, one of the greatest filmmakers working today, recently helming a prequel to the worst Disney remake in history, the Oscar-winning director of
41 min read
by Matt Fagerholm
May 23, 2025
It’s difficult to put into words the gratitude I have for Sabrina S. Sutherland. The collaborations she forged with filmmaker David Lynch, particularly over the last decade, have transformed my
8 min read
by Rebecca Martin
August 26, 2023
“I feel like we’ve watched so many male anti-hero stories, whether they’re comedies or dramas or mysteries, and it’s crazy that in 2023, we’re still so hungry for shitty, flawed
9 min read
by Rebecca Martin
August 1, 2023
We need authentic stories, even in the rom-com genre. New Zealand filmmaker Anna Rose Duckworth agrees with this! She beautifully paints the line between romantic comedy and elevating humanity within
11 min read
by Rebecca Martin
June 23, 2023
Trauma and pleasure. Two things that are different, yet when it comes to sex, the one sometimes can bring shame to the other. One is not our fault, the trauma
6 min read
by Rebecca Martin
May 23, 2023
I had the opportunity to speak with Lillah Halla (she/her/them) about her beautiful film “Levante,” which centers on a promising 17-year-old volleyball player named Sofia, who is faced with an
7 min read
by Rebecca Martin
November 15, 2022
Last week Chicago’s Asian Pop-Up Cinema Film Festival wrapped up its 15th season showing eight Hong Kong productions. I was fortunate to interview one of the filmmakers behind one of
3 min read
by Rebecca Martin
October 11, 2022
Buy your tickets: https://www.chicagofilmfestival.com/film/art-and-pep/ Cinema Femme kicks off its 2022 ChiFilmFest coverage by speaking with filmmaker Mercedes Kane about her doc “Art and Pep”. We talked about why
10 min read
by Matt Fagerholm
August 11, 2022
Bringing back our Sundance interview for the film’s theater release today. One of my favorite movies I’ve seen at this year’s Sundance Film Festival is easily the Finnish coming-of-age drama,
7 min read
by Rebecca Martin
May 20, 2022
As I watched the films for Short Block 3 at our virtual film festival a few weeks ago, we just finished Heidi Neff’s “The Long Goodbye”, an animated short film
14 min read
by Rebecca Martin
May 6, 2022
With the recent news of the Supreme Court leak detailing their plan to overturn Roe vs. Wade, we wanted to bring back our interview with Kelly O’Sullivan about her film
6 min read
by Rebecca Martin Fagerholm and Matt Fagerholm
June 12, 2026
Chicago is buzzing with energy this month as we celebrate the incredible impact of women-led and women-owned businesses in the film community. The Independent Film Exhibition Conference (IND/EX), running June
5 min read
by Rebecca Martin
May 18, 2026
“That’s the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they’re not much to look at, or even if they’re sort of stupid, you fall half in
12 min read
by Rebecca Martin
May 5, 2026
This month’s lineup leans heavily into documentaries, with “The Invite” as the lone outlier. Watching these films, I kept circling back to my own life—each one opening up a different
8 min read
by Rebecca Martin
April 16, 2026
Some films invite passive observation; others refuse distance altogether, demanding a more intimate kind of surrender. The selections in the April 2026 Femme Film Series—”The Chronology of Water,” “My NDA,”
9 min read
by Rebecca Martin
March 8, 2026
For me, movies and meaning are inseparable; I process my daily life through this art form. The cinema is not just entertainment—it’s a vital lens through which I understand the
4 min read
by Matt Fagerholm
February 13, 2026
There is no filmmaking duo whose work I await with greater anticipation than Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson. In 2019, Thompson made his debut feature, “Saint Frances,” written by and
8 min read
by Peyton Robinson
February 9, 2026
Whether a creator or observer, one’s relationship with art dictates a host of qualities: values, ambitions, fantasies, etc. That umbrella term – art – can be composed of so many
6 min read
by Emily Jacobson
February 5, 2026
For my final dispatch of Sundance 2026, I talk about three films I screened virtually from home (though I originally saw “The Musical” in Park City, but I enjoyed it
8 min read
by Peyton Robinson
February 3, 2026
For many women, sexual discovery is a kind of reckoning. It comes in waves. Answering the question of “what was your first sexual experience?” can be immensely complex when bearing
2 min read
by Anna Pattison
November 1, 2025
Dear Cinema Femme Readers, Let’s celebrate: our talents, passions, our goals, and dreams. Let’s support: to ensure these dreams are made a reality. Let’s thrive: in spaces where we
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Chicago is buzzing with energy this month as we celebrate the incredible impact of women-led and women-owned businesses in the film community. The Independent Film

I had the honor of speaking with Emmy-winning writer and executive producer Simran Baidwan, who has helped shape The Pitt into one of television’s most

Upending an audience’s expectations has become one of the most joyous experiences to have in a movie theater, especially when so many releases from mainstream

Some films seem to find you when you’re finally ready for them. In 2023, I spoke with filmmaker and writer Guinevere Turner about her memoir,

As a variation on our Femme Filmmaker Friday articles, our contributor Matt Fagerholm is offering his thoughts on three new male-directed films (plus one new

When I first watched “Go Fish,” Rose Troche’s 1994 film, it was in the middle of lockdown during 2020. I was watching at least three

Chicago is buzzing with energy this month as we celebrate the incredible impact of women-led and women-owned businesses in the film community. The Independent Film

I had the honor of speaking with Emmy-winning writer and executive producer Simran Baidwan, who has helped shape The Pitt into one of television’s most

Upending an audience’s expectations has become one of the most joyous experiences to have in a movie theater, especially when so many releases from mainstream

Some films seem to find you when you’re finally ready for them. In 2023, I spoke with filmmaker and writer Guinevere Turner about her memoir,

As a variation on our Femme Filmmaker Friday articles, our contributor Matt Fagerholm is offering his thoughts on three new male-directed films (plus one new

When I first watched “Go Fish,” Rose Troche’s 1994 film, it was in the middle of lockdown during 2020. I was watching at least three

Chicago is buzzing with energy this month as we celebrate the incredible impact of women-led and women-owned businesses in the film community. The Independent Film

I had the honor of speaking with Emmy-winning writer and executive producer Simran Baidwan, who has helped shape The Pitt into one of television’s most

Upending an audience’s expectations has become one of the most joyous experiences to have in a movie theater, especially when so many releases from mainstream

Some films seem to find you when you’re finally ready for them. In 2023, I spoke with filmmaker and writer Guinevere Turner about her memoir,

As a variation on our Femme Filmmaker Friday articles, our contributor Matt Fagerholm is offering his thoughts on three new male-directed films (plus one new

When I first watched “Go Fish,” Rose Troche’s 1994 film, it was in the middle of lockdown during 2020. I was watching at least three