Currently Browsing: Features
51fest’s first-ever run took place July 18-21 at the IFC Center. The festival aligned with a heatwave, but nonetheless people lined up enthusiastically in anticipation. Partnering with Women in the World and IFC Center, 51fest is a festival centered on women filmmakers. According to their mission statement, “Women make up more than half of [the] […]
The 57th Annual New York Film Festival will feature 29 films on their main slate – six from female directors, making up 20 percent of the lineup. Running from September 27 through October 13 at Film at Lincoln Center, the festival’s lineup includes films from directors Kelly Reichardt, Agnes Varda, Celine Sciamma, Mati Diop, Justine […]
Cindy Chupack already has two Emmy awards in her pocket (and eight nominations) as proof of her accomplishments as a writer. But after working for the last 25 years on shows like Everybody Loves Raymond, Sex and the City, Modern Family, I’m Dying Up Here, Divorce and Better Things, she’s finally making the jump to […]
On Sunday, July 21, IFC Center screened A Girl from Mogadishu as a part of 51fest’s inaugural run. It is a narrative feature based on the life of Ifrah Omar, directed by Mary McGuckian. Born into a refugee-camp in Somalia, Ifrah (portrayed by Aja Naomi King) treks a tumultuous journey to seek asylum in Ireland […]
The 25th annual Black Harvest Film Festival will run from August 3-29 with 60 films, including 27 directed by women (an increase from last year’s festival when there were only 17 female filmmakers). Two years ago, I interviewed Nancy Buirski, director of The Rape of Recy Taylor. The documentary was about a Black woman who […]
The 76th Venice Film Festival, which runs from August 28 through September 7, has doubled the amount of women directors from last year’s slate – with a total of two out of 21 films directed by women. Saudi Arabian director Haifaa Al-Mansour’s The Perfect Candidate and Australian director Shannon Murphy’s Babyteeth are the only two […]
Human rights, poverty, gangs, political revolution and LGBT issues are just some of the topics that will be covered at the Asian American International Film Festival (July 25-August 3) this year. The festival (also known as AAIFF) will screen 27 films and documentaries, along with workshops, shorts by local college students, Q&As, and panels discussing […]
Marvel is notorious for hiring male directors for its big-budget blockbuster hits, from the Russo Brothers’ Avengers series to franchises like Thor and Spider-Man. The studio announced release dates for two new feature films from female directors at San Diego Comic-Con this weekend – Black Widow and Eternals. Though the directors were announced as attached […]
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Can You Ever Forgive Me? director Marielle Heller previews her upcoming Fred Rogers biopic (although she insists it isn’t) A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. With Tom Hanks portraying another American hero (see: Captain Phillips, Saving Mr. Banks, Sully) and Matthew Rhys as the hard-hearted reporter who profiles […]
Director Ritu Sarin discusses her latest effort, The Sweet Requiem, which chronicles one young woman’s experience as she processes the aftermath of escaping Chinese-occupied Tibet.
FF2 Media’s new “Watch at Home” columns list the new films written and/or directed by women filmmakers that are newly available each week on DVD, Video On Demand &/or streaming services. Here are the new films written and/or directed by women filmmakers now available at home as of 7/19/2019 (with links to FF2 Media reviews […]
In celebration of World Malala Day, China Women’s Film Festival organizes a screening of “Gul Makai”, a film based on Malala Yousafzai’s life.
The Farewell stars Awkwafina as Billi, a young adult struggling with life’s goals when she learns that her grandmother is dying of cancer. The family travels back to their homeland of China under false pretenses of a family wedding so they can gather to say goodbye to Nai Nai (Shuzhen Zhao). Based on writer/director Lulu […]
FF2 Media’s new “Watch at Home” columns list the new films written and/or directed by women filmmakers that are newly available each week on DVD, Video On Demand &/or streaming services. Here are the new films written and/or directed by women filmmakers now available at home as of 1/25/2019 (with links to FF2 Media reviews […]
Peabody award-winning director Judith Helfand’s documentary Cooked: Survival by Zip Code is now screening for a two week-run at the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago through July 25. Detailing the city’s deadliest summer heat wave in 1995, Cooked delves into the politics of the disaster – the […]
Eight hundred forty-two new members were invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences July 1. According to Variety, 50 percent of the invitees are women, up one percent from last year. Many female screenwriters, editors, documentarians, actors and other categories were invited, along with 22 feature film directors who identify as […]
Women directed/co-directed more than half the films (seven of 13) in the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, at New York City’s Lincoln Center and IFC Center, June 14–20. They were intensely personal autobiographies and portraits. In 30th Anniversary trailer, past participating director Pamela Yates admires that the Fest “is not just about denunciation and exposure, […]
Members of the FF2 Media team were able to attend a screening of Ophelia at the IFC Center on June 26, along with a Q&A with star, Daisy Ridley. Based on Lisa Klein’s novel of the same name, the film is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet from Ophelia’s point of view. Claire McCarthy directs the […]
FF2 Media’s “Watch at Home” columns list the new films written and/or directed by women filmmakers that are newly available each week on DVD, Video On Demand &/or streaming services. Here are the new films written and/or directed by women filmmakers now available at home as of 6/28/2019 (with links to FF2 Media reviews posted […]
Warner Bros. has tapped BBC Studios Americas president Ann Sarnoff as its new CEO, the first time a woman has held the post in the studio’s 100-year history. She’s set to join the studio later this summer. Read more at Variety. FF2 Media’s Pamela Powell interviewed Director Claire McCarthy on what Daisy Ridley brought to […]
I saw the film adaptation of Toni Morrison’s magnificent novel Beloved way back when it first opened in 1998–before there was a Films42.com let alone an FF2 Media–and I was thunderstruck. I am ashamed to admit now that I didn’t know much about Toni Morrison back then. I went to college before there were any […]
The only thing that might have made Los Angeles’ Inaugural Rom Com Festival more entertaining is if guests would have arrived to each screening dressed in a terry cloth robes, UGG fur-lined slippers, and sporting cucumber face masks. The fun of the pajama party was reserved only for the late-night screening of How Stella Got […]
Director Claire McCarthy who earlier this month was named as one of 10 “directors to watch” in Variety Magazine, sat down to talk with me at the Sundance Film Festival just days before the world premiere of her film Ophelia.
Celebrate all your favorite romantic comedies this weekend (tickets and badges are still available) at the inaugural Rom Com Fest, running from June 20-23 in Los Angeles. The lineup of films include anniversaries for beloved favorites from female filmmakers like Karen McCullah & Kirsten Smith’s 10 Things I Hate About You and Abby Kohn & […]
Miranda Bailey is all about looking at the inner lives of liars. Her first film as director, the documentary The Pathological Optimist, focused on the discredited doctor Andrew Wakefield (who authored the infamous study linking vaccines to autism). Bailey followed that up with the award-winning short Another Happy Anniversary, and now her feature debut, Being […]
Out this Friday, Incredibles 2 is the 20th feature film released in the 23-year history of Pixar. The animation studio has made headlines in recent months with the exit of co-founder John Lasseter and the team behind Toy Story 4 stepping down due to perceived mistreatment of women and people of color.
Ducking into an air-conditioned movie theater for a few hours is weaved into the fabric of summer, and many of our favorite summertime flicks were written and directed by women. From stories of aliens to superheroes to small towns, from Oz in the 1930s to Themyscira of 2017, these 20 stories are perfect for summer-night […]
NYC Shout-Out: In 2019, Nadine Labaki’s film “Capernaum” was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, thrilling those of us have cherished her work for years now. Labaki’s breakout film “Caramel” was firmly set in contemporary Beirut. Her second film “Where Do We Go Now?” is Magical Realism. A mythical Lebanese village, surrounded by […]
Only three of the top 10 certified-fresh films of 2019 on Rotten Tomatoes are directed by women. Documentaries Hail Satan? and Knock Down the House are both 100 percent fresh, while Olivia Wilde’s buzzy comedy Booksmart sits at 97 percent. Members of FF2 Media’s all-female staff watch and review every film released theatrically in New […]
The power of an organization like Women in Film cannot be overlooked in today’s world. As women finally find themselves in a world where they can begin to be recognized, the significance of this union of female artists is just beginning to take shape. The Los Angeles chapter of WIF is gearing up to host […]
