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52 Films by Women Vol 2. 4. EMA (Mother) (Director: Kadri Kðusaar)

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  On its own, directing is not the pinnacle of a career in the film industry. For men, it is being a producer-director, having total control of the final film. You start off with a hit movie or two as a director (sometimes as a director-for-hire) and then move into production. With a slate of films in development and properties (scripts, stories) that you have acquired, you can go from one film to the next without necessarily being ‘hot’ (i.e. in demand). Being ‘just’ a film director depends on success. If you have made a hit film in a certain genre, you might get hired for a similar sort of movie. But then after a hot streak, you might find yourself waiting years to get a movie made. The film industry is a fickle business. The way to tackle it is in the Steven Spielberg-Steven Soderbergh route, with bursts of films pumped out, one after another. Both have on occasion released two films in a single year. But there are few woman producer-directors. Barbra Streisand comes to mind but...
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52 Films by Women Vol 2. 3. THE INCIDENT (Director: Jane Linfoot)

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  ‘The Incident’ is the feature debut of Jane Linfoot whose reputation as a director to watch has been established through four short films: ‘Creep’ (2005), ‘Youth’ (2007), ‘On Your Own’ (2010) and ‘Sea View’, a twenty-four minute short film nominated for a BAFTA in 2014. You can liken her steady rise to that of another Jane – Jane Campion. ‘Sea View’ explores the relationship between a teenage girl and an older man, which is also the starting point of ‘The Incident’. Stopping his car outside a pizza place somewhere in Huddersfield, Joe (Tom Hughes, currently basking in the attention given to the BBC TV series ‘Victoria’ in which he plays Prince Albert) attracts the attention of disaffected teen Lily (Tasha Connor), who throws her hair this way and that and salivates on Joe’s hand. If I were Joe, I’d clear off right there without picking up my pizza – that’s why you order in. Joe does something that Joe shouldn’t do, namely invite Lily in to perform an act which requires a cash-p...
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52 Films by Women Vol 2. 2. QUEEN OF KATWE (Director: Mira Nair)

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  The poor box office numbers for ‘ Queen of Katwe ’ ($8.7 million worldwide gross to 25 October 2016 against an estimated $15 million production budget) doesn’t tell the whole story. Chess movies are not box office. Here are some comparators.   ‘ Searching for Bobby Fischer ’ (1993) written and directed by Steven Zaillian grossed $7.2 million on its release in 1993. It is the top grossing chess-based movie when adjusted for inflation.   ‘ Pawn Sacrifice ’ (2014) directed by Edward Zwick grossed $5.6 million from a $19 million budget. ‘ The Luzhin Defence ’ (2000) directed by Marleen Gorris and starring John Turturro and Emily Watson grossed $1 million dollars on its US release in 2001. Before you ask, although it begins like one, Ingmar Bergman’s ‘ The Seventh Seal ’ (1957) is not a chess movie. You might be better off making a film about ‘Monopoly’ (I believe it’s in development). Then there are mainstream Hollywood films with an all African (as opposed to A...
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52 Films by Women Vol. 2: 1. RAW (Dir. Julia Ducournau)

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  You are driving down a quiet country road at 30, maybe 40 miles an hour. All of a sudden, a young woman runs out from behind a tree. You swerve and crash the car. But your problems don’t end there. This is the opening of ‘Raw’, the uber-confident debut cinema feature of writer-director Julia Ducournau that puts new blood – quite literally – into the horror genre. Ducournau’s other credits include the ninety-minute TV movie ‘Mange’ (Eat) and a short film ‘Junior’. By her own admission, Ducournau makes films about transformations – young women seen as unthreatening assume a confidence and strength that is terrifying. ‘Raw’ is about cannibalism, in which a young first year veterinary school student, Justine (Garance Marillier) discovers a hitherto suppressed taste for flesh, after eating meat for the first time and then being exposed to the human variety. Her nightmare begins from the moment she is dropped off by her parents. Justine’s possessions are turned out of her dorm. F...
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52 Films Directed By Women Vol 1: 60. A UNITED KINGDOM (Director: Amma Asante)

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  The final film in my review of fifty-two (well, sixty) films directed by women is ‘ A United Kingdom ’, director Amma Asante’s follow-up to her acclaimed ‘ Belle ’ (2014).   Asante, born in London in 1969 to Ghanaian parents, is a former child actress who became a writer (the UK TV series ‘ Brothers & Sisters ’, about a Baptist choir in Liverpool, first broadcast in 1998) and a film director in 2004 with ‘ A Way of Life ’. It took a further nine years before the release of ‘ Belle ’, illustrating the difficulty of getting a second feature off the ground. Asante was primed to make her Hollywood debut in 2015 with the Warner Bros thriller ‘ Unforgettable ’ but left the project to make ‘ A United Kingdom ’. Whether she left ‘ Unforgettable ’ and then was approached by actor-producer David Oyelowo to direct ‘ A United Kingdom ’ isn’t clear. It is usual in the film business to develop several projects simultaneously and then to prioritise the one most likely to be green-lit...
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52 Films Directed By Women Vol 1: 59. BRIDGET JONES’S BABY (Director: Sharon Maguire)

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  The Bridget Jones trilogy ( Diary, Edge , Baby ) is the only franchise to be directed by a woman. A woman director can set up a franchise (Catherine Hardwicke, Twilight ; Sam Taylor-Johnson, 50 Shades of Grey ; Anne Fletcher, Step Up ) but if it makes money, a fella gets to take over. Maybe these directors wanted to develop their respective franchises in exciting ways, only for the money men to say, ‘forget it, we want the same movie, only sexier’. Channing Tatum owes his career to Anne Fletcher; without Step Up , there would be no Magic Mike . That might be one of the reasons that Magic Mike has been embraced as a feminist text. The money men should trust the smarts of woman directors a little more – they cast men exceptionally well. This brings us to Bridget Jones’s Baby in which the eponymous diary writer hasn’t become an author. I was surprised. You write a diary – a novel is the next logical step. Salman Rushdie, who appeared in the first movie, could have been a major h...
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52 Films Directed By Women Vol 1: 58. EQUITY (Director: Meera Menon)

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  Equity, a drama about the launch of an IPO (initial public offering) of a tech company, could be the most radical film of the ’52 films directed by women’ that I have reviewed in this series. And by the way, I know it is number 58, but I don’t do your taxes. Written by Amy Fox and directed by Meera Menon, it is a film that presents three confident and ambitious women working in corporate finance. This subject is not immediately interesting to a mass audience in part because some explanation is needed. So here goes. The purpose of an IPO is to create capital for an existing company by having it valued and then putting shares on the market. A successful launch means that the company will trade on its share price launch or higher. This means the company will generate the capital it hopes for in order to expand its business. However, if the share price drops below its opening price and doesn’t rally (increase), the company will have less money. Increasing the number of shares in th...
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