Films Directed by Women

Ram and Janani are high school sweethearts who eventually get married. However, Janani is mystified when Ram commits suicide all of a sudden and she tries to find out the truth behind his death.

An intimate exploration of the masculine territory of the high-rise projects at the edges of Paris. By following a group of young men, we wander through a world where female bodies are nothing more than ghostly and virtual silhouettes. The characters lead us inside everyday places where we hunt down the staging of their virility. Off-screen, narrated personal tales openly reveal the unexpected side to the characters' histories and personalities.

A film adaptation of Shakespeare's comedy using the complete text of the play but performed by child actors.

A father and daughter live a perfect but mysterious existence in Forest Park, a beautiful nature reserve near Portland, Oregon, rarely making contact with the world. But when a small mistake tips them off to authorities, they are sent on an increasingly erratic journey in search of a place to call their own.

Interviews with seven American veterans of the Spanish Civil War who fought for the Loyalist cause during the war and went on to live lives of activism.

1988 film by Simi Garewal

A couple of thirtysomething best friends unwittingly become entangled in an international conspiracy when one’s ex-boyfriend shows up at their apartment with a team of deadly assassins on his trail.

Two guys serendipitously meet at a time when they both find themselves at personal crossroads and decide to embark on an unplanned road trip across the American Southwest.

Single mom Laura, along with her awkward 14 year-old son Henry is forced to drive Jack, her estranged, care-free pot dealing father across country after he's kicked out of yet another nursing home.

When Gina Kim turned twenty-two, she decided to leave her home in Korea and not return. Taking advantage of an opportunity to study abroad, she was anxious to escape her mother’s authority and avoid a similar fate as an overweight, underappreciated housewife. Traumatized by her decision, the filmmaker began to develop symptoms of anorexia and proceeded to document her mental decline and eventual recovery. Combining video performance art with an intimate home-movie diary, this self-documented coming-of-age story demonstrates how video technologies can be used to capture the most intimate, confessional voice of a filmmaker.

2006 film by Kavitha Lankesh

The owner of a drugstore is killed in a hold-up. The only witness who saw one of the murderers without his mask is Gregory, a nine year old autistic boy. Cop Barlow is sure they'll try to silence him. He tries to get him to draw a picture of the man he saw.

Grace Winter, a young woman on trial for murder, recounts the tale of how she survived a shipwreck at sea in a lifeboat that initially carried too many people.

2002 Indian film by Meghna Gulzar

When a bestselling celebrity biographer is no longer able to get published because she has fallen out of step with current tastes, she turns her art form to deception.

A woman (Cybill Shepherd) financially supports the natural parents in hope of adopting their newborn, but she discovers she is the victim of a scam.

Shopping Bag, Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflections on Ritual Space explores nine Los Angeles based artists reflecting on ritual in their life and art. Artist David Hammons discusses the role of chance and improvisation in his work while working on sculpture on a waste site while N’Senga Nengudi talks about staging her performances in freeway underpasses. Spanning performance to spoken word, environmental sculpture to music each artist talks about how ritual and cultural traditions informs their work. This experimental essay intercuts interviews, documentation and photographs with the music of Don Cherry seeking to adjust the criteria and language used to talk about artists of colour.

Barbara McCullough‘s newest film, Horace Tapscott: Musical Griot, is a profound meditation on the importance of the black tradition to the music, art, history, and activism of Los Angeles and beyond. Horace Tapscott was an underappreciated musical genius and community activist deeply involved in one the most exciting periods of Los Angeles jazz history. Black-listed in the 1960s and ‘70s because of his political affiliations (his “Arkestra” was the band of choice to perform at political rallies), during the Watts Rebellion of 1965, police actually shut down his performances, accusing him of inciting people to riot with his music. Horace Tapscott: Musical Griot tells his story in the manner of a griot, or story-teller, who in West African societies maintain the legacy, knowledge, and history of their group traditions in oral form.

Fad,Jal is a Serer village in Senegal. At the foot of breadfruit tree, the ancestor and a griot recount the village history to the children, and the difficulty of working the drought-stricken land. In parallel, the villagers’ daily life is impacted by the government policy of taking over the land.

Bokolo and Mamadou, sweepers in the city of Paris, are looking for a way to pay for the return home of one of their sick comrades. When they find an old book of recipes in the trash, they discover a passion for French cuisine and decide to participate in a televised cooking competition.