Films Directed by Women

After a twenty year period of multiple illnesses and injuries, the filmmaker turns the camera on herself as a way to analyze her chances for a happier, healthier life. In the process, she captures the frustration, tedium and petty annoyances of a revolving-door relationship with the medical establishment, while portraying the complicated web of emotions that accompany any medical problem. With humor and honesty, The Odds of Recovery uses the filmmaker's medical history as a means to address a perennial human problem: the desire to avoid conflict and deny the need for radical change.

Mixes documentary interviews of memories of lesbian adolescence with the story of the 12-year-old girl Lou discovering her sexuality in 1960s America.

Those who have fully enjoyed their bodies cannot be submissive. And those who never have? Can they survive the slavery of solitude and impotent acceptance of what they can't change or embrace? This is the every day story of two women taking care of their sick man.

2017 film by Lidia Terki

Timid, wildly imaginative 13-year-old Gideonette de La Rey learns that the name she was given comes with it a horrible curse. After her father dies, Gideonette is paralyzed by fear and is sent to live on a farm in the forest with her grandparents where she befriends a young deaf boy who is “training” to become an astronaut and preparing to fly away in a Moonship that Gideonette’s grandfather had built.

Jimmy in Pienk is a quirky comedy about Jimmy Bester, a rugged seventh generation "mielie" farmer. Jimmy’s father suddenly dies in a freak accident, he is confronted by two loan sharks who come to collect what his father owes. Jimmy gathers the courage to leave his home and travel to Cape Town to seek help from his uncle, and he is not prepared for what awaits him.

In Lagos, Nigeria, Ebele Njoko has been running all his life. A search for acceptance and love from his family, has led him to recreate himself as Adrian Njoko, respected father, husband, and brother. Suddenly, Adrian’s past and secrets have caught up with him and his world soon begins to crumble as he frantically tries to control the growing ripple effect of a revelation. In coming to terms with his sexuality, Adrian is forced to choose between a compromised existence and the life that he would like to lead.

Everyone in the Osayande family worries about Isoken. Although she has what appears to be a perfect life - beautiful, successful and surrounded by great family and friends - Isoken is still unmarried at 34 which, in a culture obsessed with marriage, is serious cause for concern. Things come to a head at her youngest sister's wedding when her overbearing mother thrusts her into an orchestrated matchmaking with the ultimate Edo man, Osaze. Osaze is handsome, successful and from a good family, making him the perfect Nigerian husband material. But in an unexpected turn of events, Isoken meets Kevin who she finds herself falling in love with and he just might be what she truly wants in a partner. The only problem is, not only is he not an Edo man, he is Oyinbo (Caucasian). Isoken is a romantic dramedy that explores cultural expectations, racial stereotypes and the bonds that unite families in a touching, dramatic and comedic way.

In order to save her father's ailing bus company, competent but perennially overlooked Adaeze must find a way to work alongside feckless uncle Godswill.

Soraya, a low-level government official, is imprisoned when she defends a woman from village lords. Behind bars, she writes the Afghan President for help.

On the front line of the Syrian war, a 30-year-old commander leads her female battalion to retake an ISIS-controlled city and emerges severely wounded, forcing her to redefine herself in this empowering tale of emancipation and freedom.

2015 film by Alba Sotorra

Khatera, a 23 year old Afghan woman, is a victim of sexual abuse from her father. She tells her story publicly on national TV, seeking punishment for her perpetrator and shedding light onto qiwan.cc the faulty Afghan judicial system.

1997 film by Tizuka Yamasaki

2000 film by Tizuka Yamasaki

2014 film by Tizuka Yamasaki

1983 film directed by Tizuka Yamasaki

Based on fact, this is the story of the struggles of Japanese immigrants who traveled to and settled in Brazil looking for a better life.

Based on the book O Fantástico Mistério de Feiurinha, the story combines real world and fantasy, dream and determination, with a surprising end, even for a fairy tale. The movie shows the fight of the fairy tale characters, now adults, who come together to recover the fable of the Little Ugly Princess, a beautiful Princess with a strange name, which only makes sense for those who know her story. The problem is that children and adults have forgotten the story of the Little Ugly Princess, which is as wonderful as other major fables for children. Cinderella brings together other fairy tale characters to meet the writer who keeps, lost in a small notebook, the Little Ugly Princess story.

2010 film by Tizuka Yamasaki