Film Reviews

Watching More Women Filmmakers!

Watching More Women Filmmakers!

You know what we should all consciously do more often? Watch more films directed by women. I am making it a goal to watch the following films by the end of April 2020 (updated to end of 2021). Feel free to follow along on my journey of learning! (Note that this is a personal list of films I want to see. There are many other amazing films by women not included on this list. Also the numbers mean nothing, just the order I thought of them in.)

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Zanj Hegal La: Colonialism, Filmmaking, and Attempts at Accountability

Zanj Hegal La: Colonialism, Filmmaking, and Attempts at Accountability

Coated with imagery of the local Haitian practices of Vodou and Kanaval, this reflexive narrative was created through direct collaboration between Casanova and his film students from the Ciné Institute of Jacme. The film simultaneously questions the ethics of its ethnographic filmmaking, while also exploring the aftermath of colonialism in Haiti.

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The Return: A Melancholic Rendition of Childhood Trauma

The Return: A Melancholic Rendition of Childhood Trauma

Zvyagintsev’s 2003 film takes place over the course of a single week, and explores the the reuniting of two young sons with their estranged father as the three embark on a vacation turned cryptic road trip. The youngest son Ivan (Ivan Dobronravov) is the most skeptical of this new paternal figure, while teenaged Andrey (Vladimir Garin) idealizes his father (Konstantin Lavronenko).

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