Films Directed by Women

After finding out that her husband, Rudi, has a fatal illness, Trudi Angermeier arranges a trip to Berlin so they can see their children. Of course, the kids don't know the real reason they're visiting -- and the catch is, neither does Rudi...

2010 film directed by Ann Hui

An emotionally scarred highway drifter shoots a sadistic trick who rapes her, and ultimately becomes America's first female serial killer.

A coming-of-age tale centered on Hannah, a young girl who is living a troubled family life. Set in 1963, Hannah develops a fascination with Jean-Luc Godard's then-recent film "Vivre sa vie". As she begins to model herself after the film's lead role, Hannah slowly begins to explore the confusing nature of her sexuality.

Jennifer, a Harvard PhD student, was signing a check at a restaurant when she found she could not write her own name. Months before her wedding, she became progressively more ill, losing the ability even to sit in a wheelchair. When doctors insisted that her condition was psychosomatic, she picked up her camera to document her own story and the stories of four other patients struggling with the world's most prevalent orphan disease.

Two first-year students at Oxford University join a secret society and learn that their reputations can be made or destroyed over the course of one evening.

While vacationing in Greece with her second husband, Louis Silverman (although she wasn’t all that keen in taking his surname in marriage, director DORIS WISHMAN was more than happy to add her hubby’s handle to her ever-expanding list of pseudonyms), Wishman stumbled upon a small-time film company in desperate need of funds, ultimately returning home with the rights to The Hot Month of August and Passion Fever – purloining both productions for less than $4000. En route back to New York, Doris absentmindedly left her briefcase containing both August and Fever’s translated scripts on a train, forcing her to rewrite the narratives from scratch while overdubbing the original dialogue (a prevalent practice throughout her entire career).
To make matters even more bizarre, Doris decided to spice up The Hot Month of August with a slew of new sexual escapades, mind-bogglingly shot in New York sans the production’s original participants. Solving the problematic situation in typically warped Wishman fashion, the director went to great (and often comical) lengths to obscure the faces of her body doubles with a variety of foreground bric-a-brac – potted plants, furniture, and a succession of undraped skin – resulting in a festival of featureless flesh that would have been more aptly titled “Planet of the Faceless Fornicators.” If you thought Wishman’s world was a wacky place before, you ain’t seen nothing yet!
On his way home from Athens, Greek stud Jason Philippi meets two women, Hope and Alexis. Though Jason’s in love with Hope, he has sizzling sex with Alexis. Trouble is, Alexis is married to Yarkos, a wealthy industrialist, who has hired a private eye to spy on her, blithely unaware that Alexis and the private eye are actually secret lovers who plan on murdering him! But wait! Yarkos gets wind of their little plot and turns the tables by killing Alexis, wounding the private eye, and framing the whole thing on Jason! Arrested for murder, Jason’s only hope is… well, Hope, who keeps the police (and audience) entertained with a lurid alibi….
While Wishman managed to cobble together a fairly cohesive narrative from the ashes of the original, The Hot Month of August succeeds mainly on the strength of its wild sexual antics. Although even a retarded rhesus monkey could tell the difference between the dumpy debutantes of Wishman’s footage with the original’s svelte sirens, it doesn’t matter much. The added gropin’ and grindin’ are exactly as they should be: extensive, enthralling and, best of all, occurring every five minutes. More than enough reason to watch if you ask me. And Euro-cult fans should keep their eyes peeled for a young MARIE LILJEDAHL, star of Inga and Eugenie, in her very first screen appearance as a teen on the beach. But beware: though she has a couple of lines, the voice coming from that gorgeous body has been redubbed by Doris herself!
From the 35mm hot-and-sweaty negative.

2009 animated film by Lauren Montgomery

2016 film directed by Samantha Lee

In an empty city, scorched by the sun, the young and old confuse the fever of sunstroke with the delicate birth of passion. Like ghosts, they hover around buildings and endless flatlands in search of the ever elusive love. Inspired by 19th century Russian short stories, the plots weave and unravel together in the improbable city of Brasilia – a distorted mirror-image of the Soviet utopia – located in the heart of the Brazilian desert.

Refusing colonial and masculine readings of the past, Leila, a Lebanese student, travels through time and space, reflecting on 80 years of Middle Eastern history. From the British Mandate to the Lebanese Civil War, she reveals the hidden role of women, and discovers that the Patriarchy also oppresses men.
Shot over seven years, and in often treacherous conditions, Heiny Srour’s film is a masterpiece of filmmaking, mixing together archival footage, fairy-tale storytelling, aesthetically bold imagery, and dramatizations of situations faced by women in Lebanon and Palestine.

A New Yorker moves to the country with her boyfriend, where her new friendship causes a problem as her partner also takes an interest in the woman.

2014 film

Two young people learn about love as politics turn their world upside down in this drama from director Ana Diez. After a long and successful career as a soccer player, Xavi retires from the game and moves to Spain, where one day to his surprise he happens upon Rosana, a friend from his childhood in Uruguay. As Xavi and Rosana catch up on what has happened to them over the past thirty years, they flash back to 1973, when young Xavi and his father Manuel, a shoemaker, lived down the street from Rosana.

In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade recognized the right of every woman in the United States to have an abortion. Since 2011, over half the states in the nation have significantly restricted access to abortions. In 2016, abortion remains one of the most divisive issues in America, especially in Missouri, where only one abortion clinic remains open, patients and their doctors must navigate a 72-hour waiting period, and each year sees more restrictions. Awarding-winning director and Missouri native Tracy Droz Tragos sheds new light on the contentious issue with a focus not on the debate, but rather on the women themselves – those struggling with unplanned pregnancies, the providers who show up at clinics to give medical care, as well as the activists on both sides of the issue hoping to sway decisions and lives. Abortion: Stories Women Tell offers an intimate window into the lives of these women through their personal stories. Some are heartbreaking and tender some are bleak and frightening; some women, on both sides of the issue, find the choice easy to make due to their own circumstances and beliefs, while others simply inform us of the strength and capacity of women to overcome and persevere through complicated and unexpected circumstances.

"The Fassbinder Story" narrates the fast and furious life of the German writer-producer-director and, above all, artist Rainer Werner Fassbinder, a life which had all the dynamics of a Hollywood blockbuster. A man who paid the price for a career shaped by ceaseless work and world fame. After his death in 1982, aged only 37, Fassbinder came to leave a total of 44 self-directed films, including two multi-part TV series. The chronological connection between his films, whenever showing autobiographical references to his life, sketches the madness of his being, uniting it with rare footage from film sets and previously undisclosed video and audio recordings into one composite whole.

1985 film by Coline Serreau

Young newlyweds Paul and Bea travel to a remote lake cottage for their honeymoon, where the promise of private romance awaits them. Shortly after arriving, Paul finds Bea wandering and disoriented in the middle of the night.

Emily Price tries to balance family life and leading crunch negotiations between a Canadian politician and the president of a country whose natural resources are being exploited.

A young German woman bonds with an elderly Japanese woman while touring the Fukushima region of Japan in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake.