52 Films by Women [2019]
List of films directed by women I watched this year. Neither short films, nor co-directions (with male directors) were considered, which were the following (original titles):
Archipelago (2017) [Camilla Insom]
Hotel Dallas (2016) [Livia Ungur]
Chuva é Cantoria na Aldeia dos Mortos (2018) [Renée Nader Messora]
Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (1926) [Lotte Reiniger]
Four Eyed Monsters (2005) [Susan Buice]
Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach (1968) [Danièle Huillet]
L'héroïque lande - La frontière brûle (2017) [Elisabeth Perceval]
Loin du Vietnam (1967) [Agnès Varda]
Othon (1970) [Danièle Huillet]
Geschichtsunterricht (1972) [Danièle Huillet]
Moses und Aron (1975) [Danièle Huillet]
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991) [Eleanor Coppola]
Fortini/Cani (1976) [Danièle Huillet]
Dalla nube alla resistenza (1979) [Danièle Huillet]
Trot tôt/Trop tard (1982) [Danièle Huillet]
Klassenverhältnisse (1984) [Danièle Huillet]
Der Tod des Empedokles oder: Wenn dann der Erde Grün von neuem Euch erglänzt (1987) [Danièle Huillet]
Ana (1982) [Margarida Cordeiro]
Rosa de Areia (1989) [Margarida Cordeiro]
A Música Segundo Tom Jobim (2012) [Dora Jobim]
Passagens (2019) [Lúcia Nagib]
Space Dogs (2019) [Elsa Kremser]
Honeyland (2019) [Tamara Kotevska]
Auto de Resistência (2018) [Natasha Neri]
Not on IMDb:
#50 Transamazonia (2019) [Renata Taylor, Débora Mcdowell, Bea Morbach]
My Top Ten:
Beau travail (1999) [Claire Denis]
Daughters of the Dust (1991) [Julie Dash]
India Song (1975) [Marguerite Duras]
Le bonheur (1965) [Agnès Varda]
Glória (1999) [Manuela Viegas]
Home (2008) [Ursula Meier]
A Fleeting Passage to the Orient (1999) [Ruth Beckermann]
My Name Is Annemarie Schwarzenbach (2015) [Véronique Aubouy]
One Sings, the Other Doesn't (1977) [Agnès Varda]
Jacquot de Nantes (1991) [Agnès Varda]
Favorite [Re/]Discovery: Agnès Varda
Archipelago (2017) [Camilla Insom]
Hotel Dallas (2016) [Livia Ungur]
Chuva é Cantoria na Aldeia dos Mortos (2018) [Renée Nader Messora]
Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (1926) [Lotte Reiniger]
Four Eyed Monsters (2005) [Susan Buice]
Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach (1968) [Danièle Huillet]
L'héroïque lande - La frontière brûle (2017) [Elisabeth Perceval]
Loin du Vietnam (1967) [Agnès Varda]
Othon (1970) [Danièle Huillet]
Geschichtsunterricht (1972) [Danièle Huillet]
Moses und Aron (1975) [Danièle Huillet]
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991) [Eleanor Coppola]
Fortini/Cani (1976) [Danièle Huillet]
Dalla nube alla resistenza (1979) [Danièle Huillet]
Trot tôt/Trop tard (1982) [Danièle Huillet]
Klassenverhältnisse (1984) [Danièle Huillet]
Der Tod des Empedokles oder: Wenn dann der Erde Grün von neuem Euch erglänzt (1987) [Danièle Huillet]
Ana (1982) [Margarida Cordeiro]
Rosa de Areia (1989) [Margarida Cordeiro]
A Música Segundo Tom Jobim (2012) [Dora Jobim]
Passagens (2019) [Lúcia Nagib]
Space Dogs (2019) [Elsa Kremser]
Honeyland (2019) [Tamara Kotevska]
Auto de Resistência (2018) [Natasha Neri]
- - -
Not on IMDb:
#50 Transamazonia (2019) [Renata Taylor, Débora Mcdowell, Bea Morbach]
- - -
My Top Ten:
Beau travail (1999) [Claire Denis]
Daughters of the Dust (1991) [Julie Dash]
India Song (1975) [Marguerite Duras]
Le bonheur (1965) [Agnès Varda]
Glória (1999) [Manuela Viegas]
Home (2008) [Ursula Meier]
A Fleeting Passage to the Orient (1999) [Ruth Beckermann]
My Name Is Annemarie Schwarzenbach (2015) [Véronique Aubouy]
One Sings, the Other Doesn't (1977) [Agnès Varda]
Jacquot de Nantes (1991) [Agnès Varda]
- - -
Favorite [Re/]Discovery: Agnès Varda
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- DirectorRuth BeckermannWhen the camera gazes from the ship towards the horizon of the Mediterranean, the picture of a woman who travelled restlessly across the world takes shape. Elisabeth, Empress of Austria, gradually disappears out of the picture as it were: from the age of 30 she refused to be photographed any more.
- DirectorKatharina MücksteinStarsSophie StockingerKathrin ResetaritsDominik WartaMati, a small-town Austrian tomboy wrestles with gender identity while her parents confront their own buried truths.
- DirectorRuth BeckermannStarsAdolf DoftHelene DoftElfriede GerstlAcclaimed Austrian documentary director Ruth Beckermann portrays a dying culture of Viennese urban history in HOMEMAD(E). The entertaining as well as insightful doc was shown at the Forum section of the Berlinale. The Marc-Aurel-Straße in Vienna. The last Jewish shop owner in the former textile disctrict, the Iranian hotelier, the cafe Salzgries with its regular customers. From summer 1999 until spring 2000, Ruth Beckermann made little trips to explore her home district with the camera. The film is also a document about the political change, which kicked in with the right wing FPÖ party becoming part of the government.
- DirectorRuth BeckermannAt the Wailing Wall or in the spotlight of a stage, wearing a Zorro costume or a designer dress, solemn or rollicking: crossing the threshold to the adult world can take place in very different ways. This film accompanies four 12-year-olds as they prepare for their bar mitzvah.
- DirectorRuth BeckermannInitially, there's that moment of happiness: an African-American celebrating in Harlem cheers "We're free!" as if Barack Obama's victory meant the ultimate end of slavery. AMERICAN PASSAGES is an associative journey through the United States: a disillusioned Iraq veteran, gay adoptive fathers, black judges, white party animals and a pimp at a casino table in Las Vegas. The extreme contrasts of black and white, rich and poor, winners and losers are often as surprising as the meaning of the constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness in these times of crisis. An epic panorama of America.
- DirectorRuth BeckermannRain on a window pane, a fire truck, a tomcat with innumerable offspring: it is an intentionally unintentional gaze that allows for chance encounters, for stories and memories - leads that Ruth Beckermann follows across Europe and the Mediterranean. Nigerian asylum seekers in Sicily, an Arab musician in Galilee, nationalists drunk on beer in Vienna, the Capitoline Wolf, and three veiled young women trying for minutes to cross a busy road in Alexandria. Threads, cloth and textiles pop up like book marks in a fabric of movement, of traveling or seeking refuge.
- DirectorClaudia LlosaStarsMagaly SolierSusi SánchezEfraín SolísFausta is suffering from a rare disease called the Milk of Sorrow, which is transmitted through the breast milk of pregnant women who were abused or raped during or soon after pregnancy. While living in constant fear and confusion due to this disease, she must face the sudden death of her mother. She chooses to take drastic measures to not follow in her mother's footsteps.
- DirectorSusanne BierStarsSandra BullockTrevante RhodesJohn MalkovichFive years after an ominous unseen presence drives most of society to suicide, a mother and her two children make a desperate bid to reach safety.
- DirectorMarielle HellerStarsMelissa McCarthyRichard E. GrantDolly WellsWhen Lee Israel falls out of step with current tastes, she turns her art form to deception.
- DirectorVéronique AubouyStarsOlivia Csiky TrnkaMégane FerratValentin JeanA film casting in Paris. Young actresses (and actors) try to incarnate the Swiss writer and traveler Annemarie Schwarzenbach (1908-1942). In order to get the role of this emblematic and sulfurous figure of the late 30's, child of the 'lost generation', antifascist and gay, this actors play scenes of her life, try to assume poses of hers from photos, and talk about their own life through the prism of her fascinating and ambiguous personality. A portrait arises, singular and multiple, public biography and intimate memory, drawn up by the woman of the past as well as by the young generation of 2014. Slowly, a reconstituted and collective figure emerges and encounters an own fictitious life.
- DirectorRuth BeckermannStarsAnja PlaschgLaurence RuppBased on the almost 20-year correspondence between the poet Ingeborg Bachmann and the poet Paul Celan.
- DirectorJulie DashStarsCora Lee DayAlva RogersBarbara OA languid, impressionistic story of three generations of Gullah women living on the South Carolina Sea Islands in 1902.
- DirectorClaire DenisStarsDenis LavantMichel SuborGrégoire ColinAn ex-Foreign Legion officer recalls his once-glorious life of leading troops in Djibouti.
- DirectorSofia CoppolaStarsBill MurrayScarlett JohanssonGiovanni RibisiA faded movie star and a neglected young woman form an unlikely bond after crossing paths in Tokyo.
- DirectorChristiane CegavskeA handmade stop-motion fairy tale for adults that tells the tale of the struggle between the aristocratic White Mice and the rustic Creatures Who Dwell Under the Oak over the doll of their heart's desire.
- DirectorAlbertina CarriStarsRocío ZuviríaMijal KatzowiczVioleta ValienteA group of women go on a erotic, polyamorous, trip to free themselves from the mindset of patriarchy, while one of them plans to make a porn movie.
- DirectorManuela ViegasStarsJean-Christophe BouvetRaquel MarquesFrancisco RelvasIvan goes to live with his father, Vicente, the stationmaster, in a small remote village inland Portugal. People go about their chores, each wrapped in their own life. Gloria lives with a career and seems to be slipping away from everything and everyone. Set apart from everything is the secret refuge, the only safe place on the planet. Ivan is happy to share Gloria's secret, a small heaven hidden in the river, below the water that separates the worlds. One feels like staying here.
- DirectorMarguerite DurasStarsDelphine SeyrigMichael LonsdaleMathieu CarrièreAnne-Marie Stretter, wife of a French diplomat, lives in 1930s India. She takes many lovers as systems of oppression decay around her.
- DirectorAgnès VardaStarsJean-Claude DrouotMarie-France BoyerMarcelle Faure-BertinFrançois, a young carpenter, lives a happy, uncomplicated life with his wife Thérèse and their two small children. One day he meets Emilie, a clerk in the local post office.
- DirectorFernanda FrazãoAmanda KamancheckStarsRaquel Braga S. CarvalhoTeresa ChavesRosa CruzThis documentary illustrates how the participation of women in open urban spaces is marked by insecurity and harassment, explores the public space as a place of violence and analyzes how campaigns promoted by activists and feminists have changed power relationships between men and women in Brazil.
- DirectorEmmanuelle AntilleStarsCarl BaronJean Marc ButtyKaren DaltonIn the footsteps of cult singer Karen Dalton, A Bright Light - Karen and the Process takes us on a frantic and mesmerizing road trip across the United States. In search of one of the sixties' most astonishing voices, adulated by her peers, but unknown from the general public, A Bright Light is a documentary made of music and art that questions the creative process. On a wild and enchanted journey from Colorado to Woodstock, three women search for this once upon a time muse. Along the way, they encounter those who knew her as well as those whom she still haunts and influences today. The film draws the portrait of this exceptional artist, furiously free, who refused the system and its compromises. Through this iconic figure, we follow the quest of a certain freedom of life and expression and an independence for better or worse.
- DirectorJeon Go-WoonStarsEsomAhn Jae-hongJae-Hyun ChoiWhiskey and cigarettes, the only ways of keeping her dignity in this city.
- DirectorAgnieszka SmoczynskaStarsGabriela MuskalaLukasz SimlatMalgorzata BuczkowskaAfter a two-year disappearance, free-spirited Alicja is reunited with her parents, husband and young son despite having no memory of them. A dizzying psychological puzzle. Mesmerizing from the jaw-dropping first frame to the last.
- DirectorMary LambertStarsDale MidkiffDenise CrosbyFred GwynneAfter tragedy strikes, a grieving father discovers an ancient burial ground behind his home with the power to raise the dead.
- DirectorJosephine DeckerStarsJoe SwanbergSophie TraubRobert LongstreetThere are places you go, where the things you do will matter to a lot of people. Then there are places you will go, where the things you will do matter only to a very few. But to those few, they will matter - a lot.
- DirectorAgnès VardaStarsVivaJames RadoGerome RagniThree actors in Hollywood live and love together. A director comes from New York to make a movie about actors and Hollywood.
- DirectorSylvia ChangStarsSylvia ChangZhuangzhuang TianYueting LangA dying old lady reminisces about her happier moments. Her daughter, Hui Ying, decides to move her father's grave from his hometown to beside her mother's grave. However, his first wife, who has looked after the grave for years, doesn't approve, and their disagreement ends up becoming a problem for the whole town. Hui Yang's daughter, Weiwei, works at a broadcasting company. After showing a video clip of a scuffle between her mother and step-grandmother to her colleagues, it becomes local news, and much gossip ensues.
- DirectorMary LambertStarsEdward FurlongAnthony EdwardsClancy BrownA teenage boy and his father move to his recently-deceased mother's hometown, where they encounter the ancient Native American cemetery with the power to raise the dead.
- DirectorLibia Stella GómezStarsEdgardo RománDolores HerediaRolf AbderhaldenIn 1945, in the Train Station of Bogota, Colombia, a dead girl is found in a trunk. The case is assigned to Detective Mariano Corzo, and he has to deal with the yellow journalist Hipólito Mosquera meanwhile he solves the mystery case, besides nobody knows who the girl is, or who put she in the trunk either. The things turn worst when Mosquera says in a newspaper that the trunk is pink, when it is actually brown and wooden. With the help of the bar tender Martina Quijano, Corzo will find an answer for the question: Who killed the girl and why?
- StarsAgnès VardaSandrine BonnaireHervé ChandèsAgnès Varda, photographer, installation artist and pioneer of the Nouvelle Vague, is an institution of French cinema. Taking a seat on a theatre stage, she uses photos and film excerpts to provide an insight into her unorthodox oeuvre.
- DirectorAgnès VardaStarsThérèse LiotardValérie MairesseRobert DadièsThe lives of Pomme, an aspiring singer, and Suzanne, a struggling mother, as they search for their own identity in 1970s France.
- DirectorNadine LabakiStarsNadine LabakiJoanna MoukarzelGisèle AouadA romantic comedy centered on the daily lives of five Lebanese women living in Beirut.
- DirectorAgnès VardaStarsPhilippe MaronEdouard JoubeaudLaurent MonnierA boy growing up in Nantes during World War II around his father's auto shop has a love for puppet shows and cinema and develops it into his own art. Jacques Demy, the artist at the end of his life, reflects on his childhood influences.
- DirectorAgnès VardaStarsAgnès VardaAndré LubranoBlaise FournierAgnès Varda explores her memories, mostly chronologically, with photographs, film clips, interviews, reenactments, and droll, playful contemporary scenes of her narrating her story.
- DirectorPetra CostaStarsDilma RousseffLuiz Inácio Lula da SilvaMarisa Letícia Lula da SilvaPolitical documentary and personal memoir collide in this exploration into the complex truth behind the unraveling of two Brazilian presidencies.
- DirectorDesiree AkhavanStarsChloë Grace MoretzSteven HauckQuinn ShephardIn 1993, a teenage girl is forced into a gay conversion therapy center by her conservative guardians.
- DirectorAminatou EchardJamilia is the heroine of the classic Kyrgyz novel about a young woman who, having been forced to marry, fled with her lover. Fifty years later, the director meets several generations of Kyrgyz women, resulting in portraits reflecting both the novel's candour and the strength of today's Jamilias.
- DirectorMárta MészárosStarsKatalin BerekGyöngyvér VighPéter FriedA lonely middle-aged woman wants to give birth to a child, but her acquaintance with dysfunctional teenagers leads her to the idea of adoption.
- DirectorElizaveta StishovaStarsTalant AsanalievGulsina ChotonovaDaniel DaiyrbekovKarabas (Asset Imangaliev) is a difficult man: a hard-gambling, hard-drinking, child-in-a-man's body who puts only himself first in his family. When his wife #1, Zhipara (Perizat Ermanbetova), calls to tell him she has found their long-lost son, Uluk (Daniel Dayrbekov), Karabas rushes to her, much to the dismay of his much younger, pregnant wife #2, Turganbyubyu (Turgunai Erkinbekova). Soon the new family dynamics are stretched past their limits, and Karabas is caught between his old ways and the two women bearing his sons: one re-born and one yet to come. Now this unusual family must decide if they are to co-exist or tear each other apart as old wounds are ripped open and deception becomes the rule of the day. Shot on location in and around the mystic World Heritage Site of the Suleiman Mountain in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, SULEIMAN MOUNTAIN tells the coming of age story of a grown man who must first lose love in order to find it.
- DirectorYui KiyoharaStarsNodoka KawanishiYukiko YasunoMei FujiwaraIn this creepy thriller, two people share the same house but do not realize the other is also there.
- DirectorPaula GomesJonas is 13 years old and his life's dream is to maintain the circus that he created in his backyard. While he faces this challenge, he will live the adventure of growing up.
- DirectorMelisa LiebenthalStarsMelisa LiebenthalVictoria D'AmuriCamila MaglianoMelisa, filmmaker and character in The Pretty Ones is young, intelligent and funny, but also critical and ironic. She interviews her friends, reconstructs herself as a person using family photos and videos, and reflects on the images and expectations society has of young women.
- DirectorAgnieszka HollandStarsSolomon PerelMarco HofschneiderRené HofschneiderA boy in Nazi Germany, trying to conceal that he is Jewish, joins the Hitler Youth.
- DirectorAgnieszka HollandKasia AdamikStarsAgnieszka MandatWiktor ZborowskiJakub GierszalJanina Duszejko, an elderly woman, lives alone in the Klodzko Valley where a series of mysterious crimes are committed. Duszejko is convinced that she knows who or what is the murderer, but nobody believes her.
- DirectorShannon MurphyStarsEliza ScanlenMichelle LottersToby WallaceMilla, a seriously ill teenager, falls in love with a drug dealer, Moses, her parents' worst nightmare.
- DirectorNora FingscheidtStarsHelena ZengelAlbrecht SchuchGabriela Maria Schmeide9-year-old Benni is a toss-up between institutions that cannot tackle her outbursts. She wants to move in with her mother, but she can not handle her wild daughter. After Micha is hired Benni slowly opens up and attaches herself to him.
- DirectorIda LupinoStarsJoan FontaineIda LupinoEdmund GwennA man secretly married to two women feels the pressure of his deceit.
- DirectorMaíra BühlerDowntown São Paulo, Brazil. An Apartment Building: 7 floors, 28 rooms, 107 residents who all have in common the addiction to crack. Over the course of several months, life in a social housing - part of a city hall "damage reduction" program about to be extinguished - is revealed. Characters on a hallucinated hunt for bonding and fighting passionately for life can be seen as the camera drifts through hallways, rooms, elevators, stairs; day and night. In this claustrophobic place, anything can happen.
- DirectorJulia LeighStarsEmily BrowningRachael BlakeEwen LeslieA haunting portrait of Lucy, a young university student drawn into a mysterious hidden world of unspoken desires.
- DirectorYolande ZaubermanStarsMenachem LangTalleen Abu HannaAfter 15 years of self-imposed exile, Menahem gets back to his ultra-orthodox home town of Bnei Brak, where he wants to face the traumatic childhood experiences of long-lasting sexual abuse within the Khasidic community.
- DirectorMati DiopStarsMame Bineta SaneAmadou MbowTraoreIn a popular suburb of Dakar, workers on the construction site of a futuristic tower, without pay for months, decide to leave the country by the ocean for a better future. Among them is Souleiman, the lover of Ada, promised to another.
- DirectorUrsula MeierStarsIsabelle HuppertOlivier GourmetAdélaïde LerouxLife for an isolated rural family is upended when a major highway next to their property, constructed 10 years before but apparently abandoned, is finally opened.
- DirectorJoanna HoggStarsNeil YoungTosin ColeJack McMullenA young film student in the early '80s becomes romantically involved with a complicated and untrustworthy man.
- DirectorLorene ScafariaStarsConstance WuJennifer LopezJulia StilesInspired by the viral New York Magazine article, Hustlers follows a crew of savvy former strip club employees who band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients.
- DirectorClaire DenisStarsRobert PattinsonJuliette BinocheAndré 3000A father and his daughter struggle to survive in deep space where they live in isolation.
- DirectorPaz FábregaStarsFernando BolañosKattia G. ZúñigaHernán JiménezAfter meeting at a party, Luciana and Pedro spark up a spontaneous rendezvous. Eschewing the fraudulent nature of traditional relationships, the pair embarks on a spur of the moment journey together that takes them to the forest. As they explore the beauty in the nature that surrounds them, they camp out under the stars, go on hikes, indulge in the passions of their encounter, and discuss their personal beliefs surrounding love, obligations, and attraction. Lensed in lush black-and-white cinematography amidst the gorgeous backdrop of the Costa Rican forest, an honest and genuine relationship story unfolds, lending a feeling of realism to their storybook romance in a refreshing and youthful way. This is a story about attraction and commitment for a generation whose understandings of personal freedoms and traditional limitations are more open to interpretation.
- DirectorGabriela AmaralStarsNina MedeirosJulio MachadoLuciana PaesWhen a child is forced to become the house's adult because her father is sick and her mother is dead, there's an inversion in the natural order of things. Childhood becomes a saga. And the frustrated parenthood turns into a conviction.
- DirectorLulu WangStarsShuzhen ZhaoAwkwafinaX MayoA Chinese family discovers their grandmother has only a short while left to live and decide to keep her in the dark, scheduling a wedding to gather before she dies.
- DirectorOlivia WildeStarsKaitlyn DeverBeanie FeldsteinJessica WilliamsOn the eve of their high-school graduation, two academic superstars and best friends realize they should have worked less and played more. Determined not to fall short of their peers, the girls try to cram four years of fun into one night.
- DirectorHannaleena HauruStarsInka HaapamäkiRosa HonkonenTiitus RantalaThe love rebels are ready for battle. Satu and Heidi conducts an anarchy campaign to sabotage superficial summer weddings. Love is not for sale.
- DirectorIsabella EklöfStarsVic Carmen SonneLai YdeThijs RömerA love triangle featuring the trophy girlfriend of a petty drug lord, caught up in a web of luxury and violence in a modern dark gangster tale set in the beautiful port city of Bodrum on the Turkish Riviera.