Films Directed by Women

1995 film by Kim Longinotto

An investigation into the circumstances and controversy surrounding Sam Cooke's murder.

2019 film

A postman walks through the desert, his life flows slowly as does the desert sand. He is the only link between the secluded villagers, however, this is about to change due to a small technological device.

2019 film directed by Agnès Varda

Sicilian photojournalist Letizia Battaglia began a long battle against the ruthless Cosa Nostra when she first photographed the sinister scene of a brutal murder. Documenting the barbaric rule of the Italian Mafia, she was an unwavering witness to its crimes. Her art and courage helped end the horrific and bloody reign of the Corleonesi clan.

2019 film by Jenna Bass

A group of young friends on a camping trip, deep in the South African countryside wake up to discover they have all swapped bodies.

Across the city of Cape Town, a sex-line operator, a dog handler and a computer technician begin to suspect that their romantic relationships are the subject of a bizarre conspiracy, involving their family, friends, and possibly even greater forces. 'Love the One You Love's parallel stories question the ideals we hold too sacred: love, happiness, and the New South Africa; the pursuit of which makes truth impossible.

Documentary in which Years and Years frontman Olly Alexander explores the mental health issues faced by members of the LGBT+ community.

Coming back to her broken family, pregnant writer Huang Xiaoyu and her French husband, Benjamin, finds herself trapped between her cult brainwashed mother, Li Jiumei, and her secretly homosexual father, Huang Tao.

Semi-documentary film about the everyday life of a 16-year-old schoolgirl in Berlin who lives with her single mother on the outskirts of West Berlin. Her father, a soldier from Puerto Rico, has left the family. With the help of the Hawaiian postcards and records he left behind, the young woman repeatedly dreams herself into an idyllic fantasy world while performing her monotonous household chores. Director Elfie Mikesch visualizes these dream states using stylistic devices reminiscent of advertising films.

When numerous schools in São Paulo were slated to be closed in 2015 as a result of the worsening socio-political crisis, students occupied more than a thousand public buildings in an unprecedented act of self-empowerment. In her third feature-length work, Brazilian documentary filmmaker Eliza Capai shows the development of the many-voiced protests, using news excerpts, self-conducted interviews and recordings made with activists’ own cell phone cameras. Starting with the first demonstrations in 2013 and continuing all the way to the election of the extreme right-wing presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro in 2018, Capai’s highly political work becomes more and more relevant with each passing day.

From saved memories of a long journey, a letter is sent to the future. Alone, away from home and on the eve of her 30th birthday, a Brazilian is on a journey through Africa. In the letter to her daughter, she tells of encounters with women living in their cultures and times. A diary, a road movie and an invitation to all the people who lead their own paths.

Inspired by a true story, this film tells the shocking tale of a mother and daughter who are nothing like they seem, their tumultuous relationship ending in a brutal murder.

To bring peace to 15th century England, the new Tudor king marries Elizabeth of York. But unfortunately for the couple, the union is far from perfect.

2017 film directed by Skye Borgman

Claire is a beautiful young woman who works at her late father’s hotel, that is now managed by her evil stepmother Maud. Claire unwittingly sparks uncontrollable jealousy in Maud, whose young lover has fallen in love with Claire. Maud decides to get rid of Claire who finds shelter in a farm where she’s allowed to break free from her strict upbringing through encounters with seven “princes.”

Wherever 9-year-old Benni ends up, she is expelled. She has become what child protection services call a “system crasher.” But she is not looking to change her ways, and has one goal: go back home to her mother. When anger management trainer Micha is hired to help, suddenly there is hope.

World, that is for the followers of a small Mennonite community in Argentina, all that is outside, beyond their community, where the "worldmen" live. Their everyday life is determined by an attempt to ward off everything modern, a life without electricity, machines and communicative media, a school whose only books are the Bible and the Catechism. Nora Fingscheidt takes this life in the eye and lets it be told by those who live it - in different degrees of devotion. In the process, it is not least apparent how a life-style, which has devoted itself entirely to the departure from this "world," is formed around it. And then, between the pictures and the words, a gap opens, in which the longing for a more destitute life, as well as the fear of a sad departure, becomes perceptible.