Category Archives: female director

Meu Nome é Bagdá [My Name Is Baghdad] (2020)

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Meu Nome é Bagdá
Director: Caru Alves de Souza
Writer: Caru Alves de Souza, Josefina Trotta
Cast: Grace Orsato, Karina Buhr, Marie Maymone, Helena Luz, Gilda Nomacce, Paulette Pink, Emílio Serrano, William Costa, João Paulo Bienermann, Nick Batista
Part of: this human world Film Festival
Seen on: 12.12.2020

Content Note: sexualized violence, police brutality

Plot:
Baghdad (Grace Orsato) cruises the streets of Sao Paulo with her skateboarding crew. When she isn’t out and about she hangs with her single mother (Karina Buhr) and little sister (Marie Maymone), and her mothers friends. Baghdad is little interested in school or anything but improving her skating abilities. But her group of friends is mostly boys, except for her and Vanessa (Nick Batista). Until they meet another group of female skaters.

My Name Is Baghdad is a wonderful film that takes a sharp look at how a girl really can’t ever be one of the boys – but she can be lucky to be one of the girls. It’s sweet and touching and has great energy.

The film poster showing Bagdá (Grace Orsato) hugging her skateboard.
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The 8th (2020)

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The 8th
Director: Aideen Kane, Lucy Kennedy, Maeve O’Boyle
Part of: this human world Film Festival
Seen on: 10.12.2020

Content Note: abortion

“Plot”:
Ireland was long known for having the most restrictive abortion laws in the world. But after 35 years of near constant organizing, the campaigns against those laws were finally successful. In a 2018 referendum the 8th amendment to the Irish constitution was overturned.

The 8th is a nice documentary, showing us how much hard work went into the campaign and how long people fought for their rights, and fortunately was also able to give us the happy end in the success of 2018. It’s a satisfying ode to activism.

The film poster showing a group of protester above a large figure 8.
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In My Blood It Runs (2019)

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In My Blood It Runs
Director: Maya Newell
Part of: this human world Film Festival
Seen on: 10.12.2020

Content Note: (critical treatment of) racism

“Plot”:
Dujuan lives with his mother and his siblings in Alice Springs. His grandmother tells him that he has inherited is grandfather’s healing power. It’s important to her that Dujuan gets to know his Aboriginal heritage and learns to speak Arrernte. For Dujuan, too, it is important: he is never more at home than when he returns to the traditional lands. But unfortunately, Dujuan also has to attend a state school where he is always an outsider.

In My Blood It Runs is a wonderful portrait of an extra-ordinary boy who has his work cut out for himself. Between poverty and prevalent racism, he finds strength in family and tradition, underscoring the importance of communities for BIPOC everywhere.

The film poster showing Dujuan crouching in the desert.
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Dope is Death (2020)

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Dope is Death
Director: Mia Donovan
Writer: Mia Donovan, Sofi Langis
Part of: this human world Film Festival
Seen on: 9.12.2020

“Plot”:
1973 in New York. Faced with a heroin epidemic and no real support outside their community, Mutulu Shakur, along with people from the Black Panthers and The Young Lords, opens an acupuncture clinic that is supposed to help with getting people clean. Their radical and holistic approach was successful and its legacy is still present today.

Dope is Death is an interesting look at community organizing efforts and Black (and brown) history in the USA – a history that is way too easily forgotten. It does run a tad long, though, and loses a little in the last part. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth seeing.

The film poster showing Mutulu Shakur making the Black power fist.
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Visszatérés Epipóba [Return to Epipo] (2020)

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Visszatérés Epipóba
Director: Judit Oláh
Writer: Judit Oláh, Éva Zabezsinszkij
Part of: this human world Film Festival
Seen on: 9.12.2020

Content Note: sexualized violence, abuse, pedophilia, old footage of kids in blackface and brownface

“Plot”:
In the 80s there was a famous summer camp for kids in Epipo, Hungary. Led by charismatic teacher Pal Sipos, it was a camp filled with fantastic games that was almost magical for the kids who got to go there. But another part of the camp was abuse and humiliation – abuse that Sipos continued after the camp was shut down and he became a TV star. Now, decades later, the former camp kids are coming together again to try to work through their experiences and to reconcile their memories with the facts.

Return to Epipo is a highly personal and chilling look at the camp and the abuse that took place there, trying to answer the question how the camp could have been so great and so awful at the same time. It also looks at how what happened still affects the people who were there as kids. It’s insightful and also disturbing.

The film poster showing director Judit Oláh as a child smiling at the camera, a distortion across the image.
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Själö [Själö: Island of Souls] (2020)

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Själö
Director: Lotta Petronella
Writer: Seppo Parkkinen, Lotta Petronella
Part of: this human world Film Festival
Seen on: 8.12.2020

“Plot”:
Själö is an island in the Baltic Sea. It used to house a psychiatric facility for women, but that facility has long been disbanded and now a research group is studying biodiversity there. There are no more permanent inhabitants but the echo of Själö’s history and the people who used to live there is still ever present.

Själö is a slow meditation on the impact of history and how we remember things. It’s an interesting topic, but unfortunately, I didn’t manage to find my way into the film. I drifted more alongside it than in it.

The titular island as seen from the water.
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Êxtase [Ecstasy] (2020)

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Êxtase
Director: Moara Passoni
Writer: David Barker, Fernando Epstein, Moara Passoni
Cast: Victória Maranho, Gigi Paladino, Alice Valares
Part of: this human world Film Festival
Seen on: 6.12.2020

Content Note: anorexia

“Plot”:
A young girl, soon woman (Victória Maranho), tries to find her place in the world. But there is not much she can control – except what she eats or doesn’t eat.

Êxtase is a deeply personal and very in-depth look at the world through the eyes of an anorectic girl, somewhere between fiction and documentary and far from the usual clichés of just “thinking that she is too fat”.

The film poster showing a young woman (Victoria Maranho) laying sideways on the floor. Only her head can be seen in a circular blue cutout over a white background.
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Las Mil y Una [One in a Thousand] (2020)

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Las Mil y Una
Director: Clarisa Navas
Writer: Clarisa Navas
Cast: Sofia Cabrera, Ana Carolina Garcia, Mauricio Vila, Luis Molina, Marianela Iglesia, Pilar Rebull Cubells, Victoria Cussigh
Part of: this human world Film Festival
Seen on: 5.12.2020

Content Note: (critical treatment of) homomisia and transmisia, sexualized violence

Plot:
Iris (Sofia Cabrera) spends her time playing basketball and hanging out with her cousins Darío (Mauricio Vila) and Ale (Luis Molina). When she sees Renata (Ana Carolina Garcia) in the neighborhood, she is immediately intrigued. She tries to find out more about Renata until Renata notices her and asks for her number. But there are many rumors going around about Renata and Iris is not sure about how to proceed.

Las Mil y Una left too many open questions for me to be really satisfying, I’m afraid. There were some very interesting things here, but everything remained much too vague.

The film poster showing Renata (Ana Carolina Garcia) and Iris (Sofia Cabrera) leaning against a brown wall.
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On Outer Space, Love and Resistance – Short Films

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On Outer Space, Love and Resistance was one of the short film programs at the this human world Film Festival.
Seen on: 4.12.2020

Content Note: sexualized violence/rape

The four short films are very different in tone and style, but all of them are special indeed. I’ll be thinking about them all for a while yet.

More about each of the films after the jump.

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The Earth Is Blue as an Orange (2020)

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The Earth Is Blue as an Orange
Director: Iryna Tsilyk
Writer: Iryna Tsilyk
Part of: this human world Film Festival
Seen on: 4.12.2020

“Plot”:
Ganna and her four children live in the Ukraine, in the middle of the war zone. They are working on a small film together that is supposed to capture the lives of the people around them. And it is supposed to help the oldest daughter, Myroslava, to get into film school – she wants to become a cinematographer. But capturing what it is like to live in a war zone while still living in a war zone is not easily done.

The Earth Is Blue as an Orange is a beautiful documentary about growing up in a war zone, about creating art there, but above all about family.

The film poster showing the drawing of a long ladder. At the bottom is a trapdoor through with a young woman with a camera is emerging. At the top, the legs of the woman can be seen under another trapdoor.
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