Are you ‘cliterate’? How many of you out there know the exact physiological structure of the clitoris? How many of you are uncomfortable with it being brought up, or even written in a sentence? That is what the new documentary The Dilemma of Desire considers as part of a larger examination of the disconnection from, and vilification …
Right before I started watching the new indie release, International Falls, I had noted to myself that I wanted to watch a documentary called Misery Loves Comedy. I don’t know much about that documentary, which features interviews with dozens of comics, but it appears to speak to the connection between comedy and depression. What director Amber McGinnis and screenwriter …
There’s an explosion of underground rappers releasing their music on SoundCloud, some of which are gaining a global audience. It is with this understanding, as a number of her high school buddies have found relative success there, that writer/director Marnie Ellen Hertzler built her part-narrative, part-documentary, part video art project called Crestone. The film is shot …
There are not enough Tom and Jerry cartoons in existence to compensate for the level of hopelessness represented in the Russian film Beanpole, which won its director/co-writer Kantemir Balagov the Un Certain Regard Best Director Prize at Cannes in 2019. Two women are at the center of a story that takes place in the last days …
Have you heard of Anne Innis Dagg? The answer is probably not, and people around the world should know her. Writer/director Alison Reid’s The Woman Who Loves Giraffes shines a spotlight on Dagg, a Canadian who traveled to Africa alone in the 50s to do some of the first studying ever of animals in their own habitat. …
Writer/director Rob Garver’s documentary What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael is a fascinating look at a woman who carved out a life as a writer in an industry that has been famously unforgiving for opinions offered by female voices. Kael built a career as a movie critic in a very important time in cinema, right …
The more distance I get from seeing Bombshell, the more mad the movie makes me. The film, which soft-tackles the story in which former CEO of Fox News Roger Ailes finds his downfall through sexual harassment claims from the most prominent female (oft-seen) on-air personalities at the studio, is certainly a decidedly good news/bad news affair. …
Releasing through HBO, director Erica Gornall’s new documentary Saudi Women’s Driving School examines the changes in the lives of women in Saudi Arabia resulting from a lift of the driving ban. As of June 24th, 2018, women could apply for licenses. Before that day, the country had been the only one in the world in which women …
Dilili in Paris celebrates the beauty and much of the best of the Belle Epoque and the city of lights, but renowned director Michel Ocelot’s latest animated feature also examines philosophical and political subjects relating to race, class, gender, and art. Well-spoken and filled with politesse, Dilili is a New Caledonian mixed-race Kanak child with …
Imagine a post-apocalyptic Stand By Me where queer girls rule and save the day, and you have a vague idea of the aesthetic of the Canadian uber-indie thriller Riot Girls. The film is filled with up-and-coming female filmmakers, including director Jovanka Vuckovic, writer Katherine Collins, producer Lauren Grant, and a host of other below-the-line artists, including cinematographer Celiana …
