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.
MURINA
Dir. Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic
A Caméra d'Or winner at Cannes, Murina is Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović’s debut feature. From executive producer, Martin Scorsese, and from the cinematographer of The Lost Daughter, Murina follows the story of Julija— a teenage girl who decides to replace her controlling father with his wealthy foreign friend during a weekend trip to the Adriatic Sea.
MORE THAN EVER
Dir. Emily Atef
Competing at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard category, Emily Atef’s More Than Ever features powerful and candid performances from award-winning actors, Vicky Krieps and the late Gaspard Ulliel.
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.
KEYBOARD FANTASIES
DIR. POSY DIXON
A BAFTA Nominee for Outstanding Debut by a British Director, Writer or Producer, Keyboard Fantasies tells the time-travelling tale of mystical musician and vocalist, Beverly-Glenn Copeland, as the present finally catches up with him and he embarks on his first international tour at the age of 74.
MOON, 66 questions
Dir. Jacqueline Lentzou
A Berlinale Encounters selection, Moon, 66 Questions is Jacqueline Lentzou’s debut feature. After years of distance, Artemis has to get back to Athens due to her father’s frail state of health. Discovering her father’s well-kept secret allows Artemis to understand her father, in a way she was not able before, therefore love him truly for the first time.
THE NOWHERE INN
DIR. BILL BENZ
From real-life friends Annie Clark (a.k.a. GRAMMY award-winning recording and touring artist St. Vincent) and Carrie Brownstein comes the metafictional account of two creative forces banding together to make a documentary about St. Vincent's music, touring life, and on-stage persona, featuring a cameo from Dakota Johnson as St. Vincent’s girlfriend.
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.
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.
BEYOND THE VISIBLE
Dir. HELENA DYRSCHKA
Hilma af Klint was an abstract artist before the term existed, a visionary, trailblazing figure who, inspired by spiritualism, modern science, and the riches of the natural world around her, began in 1906 to reel out a series of huge, colourful, sensual, strange works without precedent in painting.
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.
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.
THE VELVET QUEEN: SNow LEOPARD
DIR. Marie Amiguet, Vincent Munier
Best Documentary winner at the César and Lumiere Awards, and featuring a soundtrack from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, The Velvet Queen is an ode to the wonders and beauty of our natural world— where sweeping Tibetan landscapes are rapturously captured by one of the world's most renowned wildlife photographers.
WILDFIRE
DIR. Cathy Brady
BIFA Winner for Best Debut Screenwriter and 2x IFTA Winner for Best Director and Best Actress (Nika McGuigan), Wildfire is the story of Lauren and Kelly; inseparable sisters raised in a small town on the Irish border whose lives were shattered following the mysterious death of their mother.
THE DROVER’S WIFE
Dir. Leah Purcell
Nominated for 13 AACTA awards, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress and Best Actor, Leah Purcell’s adaptation of Henry Lawson’s classic Australian tale is the first Australian feature with an Indigenous woman writing, directing and starring in the lead role.
SILENT LAND
DIR. Aga WoszczyNska
Silent Land debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival, before picking up the FIPRESCI award for the International Competition at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. Agnieszka Woszczyńska’s debut feature is an unflinching character study that unfurls the power of denial.
LADY BOSS: THE JACKIE COLLINS STORY
DIR. LAURA FAIRRIE
Spinning together fact and fiction, this feature documentary tells the untold story of a ground-breaking author and her mission to build a one-woman literary empire. Narrated by a cast of Jackie’s closest friends and family, the film reveals the private struggles of a woman who became an icon of 1980s feminism whilst hiding her personal vulnerability behind a carefully crafted, powerful, public persona.
THE PERFECT CANDIDATE
DIR. Haifaa Al Mansour
Haifaa Al Mansour returns to her native Saudi Arabia with The Perfect Candidate, a tale of one woman's quest to challenge not only the system but also herself. A determined young doctor who decides to run for municipal council sweeps up her family and community as they struggle to accept their town’s first female candidate and watch her fight for social change on a local level.
WHITE RIOT
Dir. Rubika Shah
Best Documentary winner at BFI London Film Festival, Rubika Shah’s award-winning and energising film charts a vital national protest movement. Rock Against Racism (RAR) was formed in 1976, prompted by ‘music’s biggest colonialist’ Eric Clapton and his support of racist MP Enoch Powell.
Memory Box
Dir. Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige
A Golden Bear nominee at Berlinale and the Lebanese entry to the 2023 Academy Awards®, Memory Box follows the lives of three women who are connected by a box that resurfaces containing notebooks, photographs and audiotapes, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past and a tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war.
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.
The Imperialists Are Still Alive!
Dir. Zeina Durra
British-American director Zeina Durra (Luxor) fuses dry comedy with alluring political drama, brilliantly depicting the everyday paranoia of post-9/11 America in her debut feature.
A Perfectly Normal Family
Dir. Malou Reymann
Emma (11) has a perfectly normal family until one day it turns out her dad, Thomas (Mikkel Følsgaard, Oscar nominee A Royal Affair and Land of Mine), is transgender. As Thomas becomes Agnete, both father and daughter struggle to hold on to what they had, while accepting that everything has changed. Based on a true story.
Be Natural: Alice Guy Blaché
Dir. Pamela B.Green
When Alice Guy-Blaché completed her first film in 1896 Paris, she was not only the first female filmmaker, but one of the first directors ever to make a narrative film. In Be Natural, Pamela B. Green acts as a detective, revealing the real story of Guy-Blaché and highlighting her pioneering contributions to the birth of cinema.
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. Shooting The Mafia paints a portrait of a remarkable woman whose bravery and defiance helped expose the Mafia’s brutal crimes.
Copilot
Dir. Anne Zohra Berrached
When sharp science student Asli meets charismatic Saeed in the mid 90’s, it’s love at first sight. The lovers marry, and Asli swears to be true to Saeed and never betray his secrets. Their future looks bright, but as the twenty-first century dawns, Saeed makes a decision that will not only shatter Asli’s dreams, but shake the whole world to the core.
RAISE HELL: 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!
Dirty God
Dir. Sacha Polak
Dirty God is a portrait of a woman with incredible resilience. Jade is no passive victim; she makes her own choices - good or bad - and deals with the consequences. Polak’s first English-language feature is controlled and subtle, without the director surrendering any of her typical intensity. Newcomer Vicky Knight, who was badly burned as a child, is a genuine revelation in a powerful lead performance.
Love Sonia
Dir. Tabrez Noorani
Love Sonia is a drama about a young girl’s journey to rescue her sister from the devastating world of international sex trafficking. Starring Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire) and Demi Moore, directed by Tabrez Noorani (consulting producer on Lion, Viceroy’s House, Miral, Eat Pray Love and Slumdog Millionaire), and produced by award-winner and critically-acclaimed David Womark (The Life Of Pi and Deepwater Horizon).
The Rape of Recy Taylor
Dir. Nancy Buirski
The Rape of Recy Taylor is a documentary about a 24-year old black mother and sharecropper who was gang raped by six white men in 1944 Alabama. She spoke up at the time and identified her rapists. The NAACP sent Rosa Parks, their chief investigator (and civil rights activist) to look into the case. Her representation and the community's rallied support triggered an unprecedented outcry for justice. She spoke up long before the #MeToo movement.