Femme Film Friday: “Being Maria” and “I Know Catherine, the Log Lady”
BEING MARIA – directed by Jessica Palud “I want to be free as an actor to explore where a scene can go, but if it’s going to be a fight scene or a sex scene, you’ve got to stop the fudging because you can’t just see where it goes.”—Greta Gerwig This truth memorably articulated by […]
A Sense of Authenticity: Olivia Edward on “Better Things”
When Pamela Adlon released her marvelous directorial feature debut, “Babes,” earlier this year, my husband Matt and I had not yet been acquainted with the filmmaker’s Peabody Award-winning FX series, “Better Things.” Adlon plays a fictionalized version of herself named Sam, and loosely based the series on her own experience of raising three daughters while […]
Shelter from the World: Iliana Zabeth on “House of Pleasures,” #MeToo in France and More
One of the finest female ensembles in recent years can be found in Bertrand Bonello’s 2011 masterwork, “House of Pleasures,” originally titled “L’Apollonide” in France, the name of the Parisian brothel where nearly every scene in the film takes place. “In a way, Bonello’s film is about the end of an era in turn-of-the-century France, […]
Cinema Femme’s Top Ten Films of 2023
This year has been a celebration of thought-provoking films, and audiences have been showing their gratitude for them by leaving their streaming platforms at home and going to the movies. This year, I feel I’ve spent more time in movie theaters than ever before, and I’ve seen films like “Barbie,” “Bottoms,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” […]
BEYOND BARBIE: Ten must-see films now playing, including the new Joyce Carol Oates doc, Linh Tran’s feature debut, and the sensual coming-of-age gem “Piaffe”
Besides Greta Gerwig’s history-making “Barbie,” which became both the highest-grossing film of the year as well as the highest-grossing film directed by a woman, another of the most pleasurable experiences I recently had in a movie theater was seeing Emma Seligman’s “Bottoms.” Every frame and line in that film is LOL. If you go with […]
Emerging filmmakers empower audiences at Heartland’s 2023 Indy Shorts International Film Festival
“My poems and songs have no flavor without you.” The above quote comes from the end of the short documentary “Ayenda,” directed by Marie Margolius. A group of teenage Afghan girls sing this song about their homeland after they’ve been evacuated by a special mission team, and the line, “My poems and songs have no […]
Promising overlooked women: shining a light on female directors
Over a year ago, at Sundance 2020, pre-pandemic, Carey Mulligan spoke with Variety about how Oscar voters overlooked films with female filmmakers, meaning they did not watch these films before they cast their votes for the Best Director category. This discussion circled around her and Emerald Fennell’s “Promising Young Woman” premiere. I can’t help thinking […]
‘Be Kind Rewind’ YouTube series host Izzy digs deep into the Oscars
Izzy debuted her first “Be Kind Rewind” video in 2018 and has amassed 116k subscribers since then. Her video series on YouTube explores the struggles and triumphs of Hollywood’s leading ladies with non-sensationalized narratives that erase tabloid exploitation and reveal how women and other marginalized groups have navigated the entertainment industry. Before I go into […]