52 Films by Women Vol 3. 1. THE BOY DOWNSTAIRS (Director: Sophie Brooks)
As I begin my third year at looking at feature films directed by women, I really want the first film in the new series to utterly justify my focus, to be the benchmark against which other films can be measured. The Boy Downstairs is not that movie. The purpose of this study is to prove that women directors are just as interesting auteurs as men, that their work connects with an audience on an emotional level, that the only reason women directors aren’t more widely known as that their films rarely get shown in multiplexes, or that women aren’t regularly given franchise movies to direct or, if they happen to arrive on a franchise, they are replaced by a man for the sequel (Penelope Spheeris, Wayne’s World, Catherine Hardwicke , Twilight ) and that they are equally talented and offer safe pairs of hands. At some point, if industrialised filmmaking continues (as opposed to folks just picking up cameras and making films with their friends) I would like directors to be cast in a g...