Mustang, Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s directorial debut, charts five sisters’ resistance, as they both grow into and reject a narrow notion of womanhood. But Ergüven privileges perspectives that a Western audience can understand and approve of, making the story too familiar and incomplete.
Women Directors
In honour of #52filmsbywomen, we've collected all of our reviews of films directed by women and interviews with female directors all in one place.
Anne Zohra Berrached on 24 Weeks at Berlinale
Director Anne Zohra Berrached discusses 24 Weeks — her Berlinale Competition film about a couple who must decide whether to have a late abortion when they discover their child will have Down Syndrome — about the challenges of the subject matter and why she wanted non-professional actors for some of the parts.
Things to Come is a less damning portrait of misfortune than Eden
Berlinale correspondent Elena Lazic examines how Mia Hansen-Løve’s last two films, Eden and L’Avenir (Things to Come), reverse-engineer seemingly cliched stories in order to find the emotional truth and realism buried within them.
Unlocking the Cage on chimpanzee rights
Do intelligent non-humans like chimpanzees, elephants, and dolphins deserve human-like rights? According to Steven Wise, the animal rights lawyer at the centre of Chris Hegedus’ and D.A. Pennebaker’s documentary Unlocking the Cage, it’s overdue.
Landscape and limbo in Fish Tank
In Fish Tank, physical boundaries stand for social boundaries — the constraints imposed by gender and class and the walls we build for self-protection
Anna Rose Holmer on her Sundance hit The Fits
Holmer discusses how working with the New York City ballet influenced her film, how she used sound and editing to tell the story, and the shooting rules she set for herself.