Girls Will Be Girls (2024)
★★★★☆
Girls Will Be Girls, writer/director Shuchi Talati’s first feature, is a well-observed dramatisation of the misogyny that affects the lives of girls and women.
Female Filmmakers
The Queen of my Dreams (2023)
★★★☆☆
The Queen of my Dreams, Fawzia Mirza’s first feature, links two time lines and two continents with a mother and daughter’s shared love for Bollywood.
TORONTO 2024: The Party’s Over (2024) (Se acabó la fiesta)
★★★☆☆
Toronto: The Party’s Over directed by Elena Manrique is a black comedy that shows the underbelly of immigration.
Venice and Toronto 2024: Mistress Dispeller (2024)
★★★☆☆
Mistress Dispeller, an intimate documentary by Elizabeth Lo, shows a unique Chinese practice.
Shayda (2023)
★★★★☆
Shayda, the heartfelt first feature directed by Noora Niasari, is a compelling story of an Iranian woman fleeing domestic abuse to seek cultural freedom.
The Nature of Love (2023) (Simple Comme Sylvain)
★★★★☆
The Nature of Love directed by Monia Chokri is a modern Canadian romcom, seen from a woman’s point of view, with a contemporary twist.
Sheffield Documentary Festival: The Boy and the Suit of Lights (2024) (El niño y el traje de luces)
★★★★☆
The Boy and the Suit of Lights is a raw documentary by Inma De Reyes that uncovers an insider’s view of some of the tensions between traditional and modern Spain.
Cannes Film Festival 2024: Day 11: Thursday, 23 May: All We Imagine as Light (2024)
★★★★★
Cannes Film Festival: Day 11: All We Imagine As Light (2024). All We Imagine As Light is a beautiful film about the contrasting lives of three women in India, the second film directed by award-winning Payal Kapadia.
Cannes Film Festival 2024: Day 5: Friday, 17 May: Holy Cow (2024) (Vingt Dieux)
★★★★☆
Holy Cow, co-written and directed by Louise Courvoisier, is an involving coming-of-age story set in rural France.
La Chimera (2023)
★★★★☆
La Chimera by Alice Rohrwacher is an enigmatic, dreamlike Italian fable.
Tiger Stripes (2023)
★★★★☆
Tiger Stripes is a compelling coming-of-age body horror, the first feature by Amanda Nell Eu.
Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry (2023) (Shashvi Shashvi Maq’vali)
★★★★☆
Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry directed by Elene Naveriani is an enchanting story of a strong heroine’s middle-aged love and feminism in a small Georgian village.
Elaha (2024)
★★★★☆
Elaha, directed by Milena Aboyan, is a powerful contemporary story about the conflict between tradition and modernity in the life of a young girl from an immigrant family in Germany.
Jeanne du Barry (2023)
★★★☆☆
Jeanne du Barry, which opened the Cannes Film Festival 2023, is co-written, directed and starred in by Maïwenn, also starring Johnny Depp, in a glossy historical French biopic.