IN FOCUS: THE FEMALE GAZE
Modern Films presents a curated selection of female-fronted films. From esteemed directors to Academy Award winning actresses, these films are a showreel of the great female talent within the British and international film industry today. Browse through the selection and stream a film from the comfort of your own home.
MANIFESTO
DIR. JULIAN ROSEFELDT
Featuring Academy Award® winner, Cate Blanchett, in 13 different roles, Julian Rosefeldt’s Manifesto traverses the ordinary— paying homage to the moving tradition and literary beauty of artistic manifestos, and ultimately questioning the role of the artist in society today.
luxor
DIR. ZEINA DURRA
In her much heralded BIFA nominated role, Andrea Riseborough plays Hana, a British aid worker who returns to the ancient city of Luxor where she comes across Sultan (Karim Saleh), an archeologist and former lover. As she wanders, haunted by the familiar place, she struggles to reconcile her past choices with the uncertainty of the present.
3 days in quiberon
DIR. EMILY ATEF
In a spa hotel Romy Schneider, the biggest female star in Europe of her time, gives her last interview to two journalists. Three days, driven by romantic desire, professional ambition and the urge for living.
SISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS
DIR. LISA ROVNER
SISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS is the remarkable untold story of electronic music’s female pioneers, composers who embraced machines and their liberating technologies to utterly transform how we produce and listen to music today.
SKATE KITCHEN
DIR. CRYSTAL MOSELLE
Camille, an introverted teenage skateboarder (Rachelle Vinberg) from Long Island, meets and befriends an all girl, New York City-based skateboarding crew called Skate Kitchen. She falls in with the in-crowd, has a falling-out with her mother, and falls for a mysterious skateboarder guy (Jaden Smith), but a relationship with him proves to be trickier to navigate than a kickflip.
BOOM FOR REAL
DIR. SARA DRIVER
Sara Driver’s exploration of the pre-fame years of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, offers a window into his life and the City of New York, 1978-81, illustrating how the city, the times and the people around him informed the artist he became and shaped his vision.
POLY STYRENE: I AM A CLICHÉ
DIR. CELESTE BELL + PAUL SNG
Poly Styrene was the first woman of colour in the UK to front a successful rock band. She introduced the world to a new sound of rebellion, using her unconventional voice to sing about identity, consumerism, postmodernism, and everything she saw unfolding in late 1970s Britain, with a rare prescience.
RAISE HELL: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MOLLY IVINS
dir. janice engel
Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins tells the story of media firebrand Molly Ivins, six feet of Texas trouble who took on the Good Old Boy corruption wherever she found it. Her razor sharp wit left both sides of the aisle laughing, and craving ink in her columns. She knew the Bill of Rights was in peril, and said "polarizing people is a good way to win an election and a good way to wreck a country." Molly's words have proved prescient. Now it's up to us all y’all to raise hell!
SHOOTING THE MAFIA
dir. kim longinotto
In the streets of Sicily, beautiful, gutsy Letizia Battaglia pointed her camera straight into the heart of the Mafia that surrounded her and began to shoot. The striking, life-threatening photos she took documenting the rule of the Cosa Nostra define her career.