A film lasting only a few minutes has the potential to impact viewers in a way that is tantamount to a feature, and that is certainly the case with “Young People,” which marks the directorial debut of Brooke Westphal, a student at the University of […]
At the 2017 installment of Hot Docs in Toronto, I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a documentary so devastating and essential that it made my top ten list of the year. Angelo Rallis’ “Shingal, Where Are You?” centers on a family of Yezidis who […]
With over two feet of snow piled upon the driveway, I spent this past Christmas Eve with my wife, Cinema Femme founder Rebecca Martin Fagerholm, binging holiday perennials at her parents’ cozy home in Holland, Michigan. Well into the evening, we decided to watch a […]
“To understand my work,” David Lynch once told a bewildered moviegoer in Chicago, “you must follow the emotion. Because if you follow the buttermilk, you’ll end up going to the dairy.” The same rule of thumb could be applied to writer/director Wendy McColm’s sophomore feature […]
Of all the categories at the Gotham Independent Film Awards, the one that voters seem to get right year after year is the one devoted to promising young talent. In past years, the Breakthrough Performer prize has gone to such indelible actors as Amy Adams […]
Working closely with Chicago’s creatives, The Call Sheet magazine takes you behind the scenes on the filmmakers of today. Through this unique partnership between two of the city’s femme-led film organizations Cinema Femme and Camera Ambassador, our magazine will spotlight some of the raw and […]
Like many moviegoers of my generation in the United States, I was first captivated by the breathtaking landscapes of New Zealand in Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Yet it wasn’t until I saw Niki Caro’s masterful “Whale Rider” upon its release two decades […]
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.
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 “Saint Frances”. At Cinema Femme, we stand for the human rights of women, and we […]
Happening The two best films I’ve seen thus far in 2022 won acclaim on the festival circuit last year prior their premieres at Sundance, and both happen to be astonishingly vivid portraits of female identity: Joaquim Trier’s “The Worst Person in the World” and Audrey […]
Watcher During yesterday’s excellent female filmmaker panel moderated by The Atlantic’s Shirley Li, I noticed a foreign poster for Stanley Donen’s “Charade”—the greatest Hitchcock thriller that Hitch never made—hanging on the wall of filmmaker Chloe Okuno. Sure enough, Donen’s classic plays a significant role in Okuno’s […]
