Academy snubs be damned, 2019 was a spectacular end to a decade of outstanding films directed by women. Joanna Hogg reinvented visual memoir with “The Souvenir,” Lulu Wang challenged American conceptions of family and death in “The Farewell,” and Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” adaptation upended one of the most iconic American novels by and about a woman.

Continue reading 52 Films Directed By Women To Watch In 2020 at The Playlist.

There is a time and a place for different types of art. And with film, that still holds true. Sure, we cover big blockbusters with harebrained plots and heaps of CGI. Those are fine when you want to unwind and maybe escape. But sometimes, the very best that film has to offer is a work that challenges the viewer, daring you to take the leap into the unknown and maybe not get the answers you were expecting or hoping for.

Continue reading ‘I Was At Home, But…’ Exclusive Trailer: Angela Schanelec’s Enigmatic Film Is Finally Arriving Next Month at The Playlist.

Filmmaker Angela Schanelec is an acquired taste. Her latest, “I Was At Home, But…” sees her continue to hone her highly unique, emotionally oblique, and gently radical style, which frustrates some with its lack of a unitary “meaning,” but delights others for the multiplicity of possible meanings that “lack” engenders. Schanelec is often thought of in the Berlin School, but her latest film eschews that group by minimizing any specifically German aspects of the setting, instead, exploring more universal notions of the domestic; likewise the contemporary is minimized in favor of the classical, finding frequent reference points in both Shakespeare and old master paintings.

Continue reading ‘I Was At Home, But…”: Angela Schanelec’s Enigmatic Domestic Portrait [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.