Judy & Punch (2019)The programme has been announced, the statistics digested, and now the good stuff starts, the chance to see and discuss the films in the Festival. Forty percent of the films in the LFF may have female directors, but who are all these women and what have they made?
An exciting trend across the Festival is the high number of feature films from first- and second-time directors, which gives the whole programme an energy, even more so when considering the bold directions this filmmaking is taking. Exemplifying this crop, Mirrah Foulkes’ extraordinary debut Judy & Punch slides feminist separatist politics into a thrilling fairytale romp, Mati Diop’s hotly anticipated Atlantics pushes forward genre to electrifying effect, and Rose Glass’s Scarborough-set saviour-complex stunner Saint Maud is set to make your jaw drop.
These firestarters join established talents such as Haifaa Al-Mansour, Jessica Hausner, Marielle Heller, Agnieszka Holland, Kasi Lemmons, Anocha Suwichakornpong and Rebecca Zlotowski, who have each built a body of work that defies convention. And we are chuffed that visionaries Kim Longinotto and Céline Sciamma will be surveying their careers in dedicated Screen Talk events, while Nina Menkes, in town to present the restoration of underground classic Queen of Diamonds, will be giving a free performance of her barn-storming lecture ‘Sex & Power: The Visual Language of Oppression’.
Internationally, South Korea sees a particularly strong year for female-directed work, with four films in the Festival which consider the lives of girls and women in wildly divergent ways: House of Hummingbird, Heart, Maggie, and The House of Us. And looking beyond the auteurist fixation on directors, French cinematographers Hélène Louvart and Claire Mathon delight with two films apiece, while an especially exciting DoP talent to watch is Anna Valdez-Hanks who lenses both Hope Gap in bold inviting tones and Experimenta/Short Film Competition sci-fi In Vitro in stunning monochrome framing. While Rocks sees an abundance of female talent, including many heads of department, and an approach to collaborative screenwriting that puts the film’s charismatic Hackney schoolgirls at its core.
The Treasures section includes the restoration world premiere of Unheimlich II: Astarti, which is a monumental 2k restoration of Maria Klonaris and Katerina Thomadaki’s Super8 opus, and in a break with our own tradition of only screening new restorations, the Treasures strand is screening a new print of Wanda Tuchok’s Finishing School – because really, who could resist a pre-Code girls’ school romp with Ginger Rogers, condemned by the Legion of Decency?
And so below we present every film in the Festival with a female director. Many of these films have tickets still available, and there is a Discovery Pass for Female Filmmakers if you would like to try three films for £30. We hope you enjoy experiencing a multitude of perspectives over the 12 days of the Festival.
- #21xoxo / short / Sine Ozbilge and Imge Ozbilge
- 37 Seconds / feature / Hikari
- A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood / feature / Marielle Heller
- A Family Affair / short / Florence Keith-Roach
- A Line Was Drawn / short / Mairead McClean
- A Love / short / Anne-Marie Copestake
- A Thief’s Daughter / feature / Belén Funes
- Abominable / feature / Jill Culton
- Again Once Again / feature / Romina Paula
- Algo-rhythm / short / Manu Luksch
- An Easy Girl / feature / Rebecca Zlotowski
- Antarctic Traces / short / Michaela Grill
- Apart / short / Diana / Van Nguyen
- Arab Blues / feature / Manele Labidi
- Atlantics / feature / Mati Diop
- Babyteeth / feature / Shannon Murphy
- Be Still My Beating Heart / short / Ruth Paxton
- Big Toast / short / Sacha Beeley
- Black Bus Stop / short / Claudrena N. Harold and Kevin Jerome Everson
- Bombay Rose / feature / Gitanjali Rao
- Breast Friends / short / Caitlin Young
- Child / short / Talia Zucker
- Chlorine / short / Melissa Anastasi
- Circus of Books / feature / Rachel Mason
- Clemency / feature / Chinonye Chukwu
- Cloudberries / short / Ruth Maclennan
- Cunningham / feature / Alla Kovgan
- Dawn in the Dark / short / Runyararo Mapfumo
- Dawn of a New Gay / short / Rosie Gaunt-Mathieson
- The Deathless Woman / feature / Roz Mortimer
- Desrances / feature / Apolline Traoré
- Duck Daze / short / Alison Piper
- Duerrenwaid 8 / short / Kirsten Ines Geißer and Carina Ines Geißer
- Eastern State / short / Talena Sanders
- End-O / short / Alice Seabright
- Entre / short / Ana Bárbara / Marinho Carolina Santos
- Exchange Student / short / Natalie Nourigat
- Eyes on the Road / short / Stefanie Kolk
- The Father / feature / Kristina Grozeva and Peter Valchanov
- Fi Dem II / short / Zinzi Minott
- The Finishing School / feature / Wanda Tuchock and George Nichols Jr
- The Friend / feature / Gabriela Cowperthwaite
- Ghost Dance / short / Emilia Izquierdo
- Good Heart / short / Evgeniya Jirkova
- Grandad Was a Romantic / short / Maryam Mohajer
- Harriet / feature / Kasi Lemmons
- Heart / feature / Ga-young Jeong
- Home Sweet Home / short / Maria Robertson
- Honey Boy / feature / Alma Har’el
- Hope Frozen / feature / Pailin Wedel
- Hot and Tasty / short / Laura Hodkin
- House of Hummingbird / feature / Bora Kim
- The House of Us / feature / Ga-eun Yoon
- Humblebrag / short / Sinéad O’Shea
- I Am Mackenzie / short / Artemis Anastasiadou
- I Am (Not) a Monster / feature / Nelly Ben Hayoun
- I Die of Sadness Crying for You / feature / Nina Danino
- If You Knew / short / Stroma Cairns
- In Vitro / short / Larissa Sansour and Soren Lind
- Instinct / feature / Halina Reijn
- Instructions on How to Make a Film / short / Nazli Dincel
- Jericho / short / Sarah Andrews and Aaron Hopwood
- Judy & Punch / feature / Mirrah Foulkes
- The Juniper Tree / feature / Nietzchka Keene
- The Kingmaker / feature / Lauren Greenfield
- Kitchen Beets / short / Bea Haut
- Krabi, 2562 / feature / Anocha Suwichakornpong and Ben Rivers
- The Lamb / short / Nina Violić
- Lingua Franca / feature / Isabel Sandoval
- Little Joe / feature / Jessica Hausner
- The Lodge / feature / Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala
- Losing Pace / short / Naomi Soneye-Thomas
- Lost Tune / short / Shahnaz Sattar
- Love Me Tender / feature / Klaudia Reynicke
- Love the Sinner / short / Jennifer Sheridan
- Lucky Grandma / feature / Sasie Sealy
- Made in Bangladesh / feature / Rubaiyat Hossain
- Maggie / feature / Yi Ok-seop
- Mahalia Melts in the Rain / short / Emilie Mannering and Carmine Pierre-Dufour
- Make Up / feature / Claire Oakley
- Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound / feature / Midge Costin
- Maternal / feature / Maura Delpero
- Mensch Maschine or Putting Parts Together / short / Adina Camhy
- Miller & Son / short / Asher Jelinsky
- Mother of Fire / short / Farah Al Qasimi
- Mr. Jones / feature / Agnieszka Holland
- Muybridge’s Disobedient Horses / short / Anna Vasof
- Nest / short / Sonja Rohleder
- Nocturnal / feature / Nathalie Biancheri
- Noura’s Dream / feature / Hinde Boujemaa
- Oh My Homeland / short / Stephanie Barber
- Olla / short / Ariane Labed
- Ordinary Love / feature / Lisa Barros and Glenn Leyburn
- The Orphanage / feature / Shahrbanoo Sadat
- The Other Lamb / feature / Malgorzata Szumowska
- Our Sister / short / Rosie Westhoff
- Overseas / feature / Sung-A Yoon
- Pattaki / short / Everlane Moraes
- Pelourinho: They Don’t Really Care about Us / short / Akosua Owusu
- The Perfect Candidate / feature / Haifaa Al-Mansour
- Perfect 10 / feature / Eva Riley
- Portrait of a Lady on Fire / feature / Celine Sciamma
- Queen of Diamonds / feature / Nina Menkes
- Rain, Rain, Run Away / short / Clémentine Carrié
- Rare Beasts / feature / Billie Piper
- Rehearsal / short / Courtney Thérond
- Relativity / feature / Mariko Minoguchi
- Rocks / feature / Sarah Gavron
- Roots / short / Hussina Raja
- Rose Plays Julie / feature / Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor
- Ruptures / feature / Brad Butler and Noor Afshan Mirza
- Saint Maud / feature / Rose Glass
- The Sasha / short / Maria Molina Peiró
- Scales / feature / Shahad Ameen
- The Sharks / feature / Lucía Garibaldi
- Shooting the Mafia / feature / Kim Longinotto
- Sister / feature / Svetla Tsotsorkova
- The Sky Is Pink / feature / Shonali Bose
- Sojourner / short / Cauleen Smith
- Something in the Closet / short / Nosa Eke
- Spring Fever / short / Anna Snowball
- Staff Only / feature / Neus Ballus
- Stand Still / short / Isabella Wing-Davey
- The Stroker / short / Pilvi Takala
- Suicide by Sunlight / short / Nikyatu Jusu
- System Crasher / feature / Nora Fingscheidt
- Tertiary Sound / short / Solomia Dzhurovska and Luca Struijk
- That Which Is to Come Is Just a Promise / short / Flatform
- They / short / Louisa Rechenbach
- Transnistra / feature / Anna Eborn
- The Trap / short / Lena Headey
- Trouble / feature / Mariah Garnett
- Under Covers / short / Michaela Olsen
- Unheimlich II: Astarti / feature / Katerina Maria and Klonaris Thomadaki
- Us Among the Stones / feature / Dictynna Hood
- Video Home System / short / Sharlene Bamboat
- Walking with Shadows / feature / Aoife O’Kelly
- Watermelon Juice / short / Irene Moray
- What Do You Know about the Water and the Moon / short / Jian Luo
- White Girl / short / Nadia Latif
- White Riot / feature / Rubika Shah
