When Parisienne begins, we meet the beautiful Lina (Manal Issa), an eighteen-year-old freshman from Beirut, studying abroad in Paris. She’s eating dinner at her uncle’s house in the suburbs, the only connection to home she has in this strange country, when he attempts to rape her. She stops him, violently, before running out into the night […]
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.
TIFF15: Leanne Pooley discusses her animated war doc 25 April
Leanne Pooley’s boundary-pushing animated documentary 25 April follows six New Zealanders’ experiences during the World War I Battle of Gallipoli in 1915. The battle was an important part of New Zealand history because of how poorly the British treated their colonial forces: underquipped, under-supported troops were deployed in Turkey for what ended up being a pointless […]
Gillian Armstrong talks Women He’s Undressed
Director Gillian Armstrong discusses Australian costume designer Orry-Kelly and her gorgeous documentary about his life and craft — with a side of Cary Grant and Bette Davis.
Australian writer-director Sue Brooks talks Looking for Grace
Looking for Grace director Sue Brooks sat down at TIFF15 to discuss how she approached aesthetic, what inspired her to make the film, and the lack of funding for female-helmed films.
Breathe explores toxic female friendship
There’s a fine line between close friendships and toxic ones, and for teenage girls, there’s perhaps an even finer one between sapphic love and best friends. Melanie Laurent’s Breathe joins the ranks of such female-centric and female-directed films as Ginger and Rosa and Me Without You, which explore when two female best friends can become poisonous to […]
TIFF15 shorts showcase emerging female directors
According to the Data Visualization firm Silk, only 27% of the films screening at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival — 69 of the 400+ films — were directed by women. The numbers get worse if you exclude short films entirely. Worse, only 9% of the films in TIFF’s Discovery section, a program dedicated to […]