Tour de force filmmaker Mirra Bank sheds light on underrepresented people and stories
“As a filmmaker, my work has shed light on underrepresented people and stories. Films like ‘Enormous Changes,’ ‘Nobody’s Girls,’ ‘Last Dance,’ ‘The Only Real Game,’ and ‘No Fear No Favor,’ got made because of my own curiosities and my need to right wrongs, celebrate the unsung, or create fresh detail in in our cultural narratives. I’ve […]
Sundance 2023 review: “A Thousand and One,” directed by A.V. Rockwell
A.V. Rockwell’s debut feature “A Thousand and One” is an earth-shattering revelation. Taking place in Harlem from the mid-1990s to mid-2000s, the film is not only a document of a changing city, but a portrait of love and family persevering against the odds. When Inez (Teyana Taylor) is released from Rikers Island at the beginning […]
Julia Kots and Tawny Cypress on their film “Inez & Doug & Kira”
“Mental illness is very prevalent in our society and it is not spoken about enough. It’s still very very taboo, and it is understandable, because it can be embarrassing and difficult. Talking to these people and hearing a variety of different stories encouraged me to first of all to put this on the screen, and […]
Therese Shechter redefines womanhood in her subversive documentaries
Therese Shechter brings common female experiences that have been unjustly deemed taboo to the screen through her documentaries. Her latest “My So-Called Selfish Life” has started a movement for women who choose not to have children. The film examines what it means to say no to motherhood in a society that assumes all women want […]
Deborah Kampmeier’s ‘Tape’ explores the gray areas of #MeToo through sharing one woman’s powerful story
I was first introduced to Deborah Kampmeier’s “Tape” during my interview with the film’s cinematographer Valentina Caniglia. Since our conversation took place a year ago, she couldn’t go into depth about the story, but I was immediately intrigued. I finally got to watch “Tape” a month ago, and I’ve watched it three times since then. […]
Kitty Green’s film ‘The Assistant’ reveals the faces of the #MeToo movement and the pains behind them
The tweets. The movement. The conversation. Kitty Green’s film “The Assistant” takes the #MeToo movement, and the conversation around it, to a place where it began. Julia Garner plays Jane, an assistant to a producer of a major production company in New York. The environment is eerily too familiar, and the name Harvey Weinstein floats […]
Oluwaseun Babalola explores modern day Africa through her web series ‘SOJU’
My conversation with Oluwaseun Babalola—”Seun” for short—was empowering. We are both women who have a passion for what we are doing, and we are both doing all that we can to make our dreams a reality. Each episode of her series, “SOJU,” zeroes in on a different niche of the African community around the world. […]
Renaissance woman Namakula inspires women to follow their dreams: an interview with Agent 99 founder and CEO
I met Namakula at the Girl Power Film & Media Summit in Brooklyn this past March. The Girl Power Film & Media Summit is a celebration of Women’s History Month. The summit inspires and empowers women in film and media with insightful conversations, motivating workshops, and opportunities for networking. Namakula participated in one of the […]
2019 Girl Power Film + Media Summit
The work I saw was crafted with time and effort and filled more than just quotas. They were filling us with inspiration for a future in which female-identifying filmmakers are seen as equally important to our male counterparts in the film industry. And that is the power in attending the 2019 Girl Power Film + […]
A Poem for the Mother
Illustration by Tavi Veraldi A Poem for the Mother Who lost her son… In a car crash In a dog fight Amid the dust mines of recessed memories A poem for the agony For the fear For the future Remembering to call her before you go to sleep When the gunshots start pouring When the enemies roll […]
I can’t understand
Both willingly and unwillingly, Yance and so many others have done so much emotional labor to tell us their stories and relive their trauma, all to reveal to us the racism, sexism, bigotry, homophobia, and overall hatred that still exists and causes unfathomable pain, and it’s our job and responsibility to pay attention.
The burden of heartbreak
When the lights in “Strong Island” (2017) begin to dim and the credits start to roll, the viewer is left with an echo of a scream ringing intensely in their ears. Director and filmmaker Yance Ford has just spoken with the District Attorney in charge of his brother’s case and learns a story left untold […]