‘The Female Gaze’ Arrives Oct. 7
Film Movement to release boxed set “The Female Gaze” showcasing essential recent films directed by women.
The wide range of 21st-century cinema created by women is represented in the boxed DVD set “The Female Gaze,” to be released by Film Movement (www.filmmovement.com), a distributor of award-winning independent and foreign films. The seven-film collection arrives October 7.
The seven films in the collection date from 2001 to 2012 and represent filmmakers from the United States, France, Peru, Turkey and Germany. Several of the titles, each offering a unique female perspective on contemporary society, have received awards, and all have earned accolades for their wide-ranging styles, themes and performances.
Included in “The Female Gaze” are:
“Arcadia” (U.S., 2012, d. Olivia Silver) Winner of the Crystal Bear — Best Film, Generation Kplus — at the Berlin Film Festival. Academy Award and Golden Globe nominee John Hawkes (The Sessions, Winter’s Bone) stars with Ryan Simpkins (Revolutionary Road) and Ty Simpkins (Little Children) in a drama about a broken family on a cross-country drive to a hoped-for better life in California.
“Madeinusa” (Peru/Spain, 2006, d. Claudia Llosa) Grand Jury Prize Nominee, Sundance Film Festival; Winner, Best Actress, Cartagena Film Festival. Magaly Solier (Blackthorn) stars as a teenage girl named Madeinusa, who lives in an isolated mountain village in Peru and takes part unquestioningly in a yearly religious ritual — until a young man arrives from Lima and changes her world.
“Watchtower” (Turkey, 2012, d. Pelin Esmer) A man (Olgun Simsek, Toss-Up) who has lost his wife and child retreats from society by taking a job as a lookout fireguard in a watchtower in the mountains of Turkey. But he is drawn back to life by a desperate young woman (Nilay Erdonmez) and her newborn child.
“Foreign Letters” (U.S., 2012, d. Ela Thier) A comedy-drama set in the 1980s and centering on an Israeli girl (Noa Rotstein) newly relocated to the U.S. and a Vietnamese refugee (Dalena Le) who becomes her unlikely friend in this strange new land.
“The Queen of Hearts” (France, 2009, d. Valérie Donzelli) In her feature directing debut, a rom-com musical, actress Donzelli (Declaration of War) stars as a neurotic woman who, distraught over being dumped by her boyfriend (Jérémie Elkaïm, Polisse), falls into ill-judged relationships with three very different men — all also played by Elkaïm.
“Inch’Alla Dimanche” (2001, France, d. Yamina Benguigui) Winner, FIPRESCI Prize, Toronto Film Festival. A tradition-bound woman (Fejria Deliba, A Real Life) leaves her Algerian homeland with her three children to join her husband in France and struggles to adjust to a life in exile.
“The Forest for the Trees” (2003, Germany, d. Maren Ade) Winner, Special Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival. As an awkward, idealistic high school teacher (Eva Löbau, Inglourious Basterds) begins her first job in the city, things turn out to be much tougher than she had imagined
About Film Movement:
Launched in 2003, Film Movement is a full-service North American distributor of award-winning independent and foreign films, based in New York City. Film Movement has released more than 250 feature films and shorts from 50 countries on six continents, including top prize winners from Sundance, Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Berlin, Tribeca and other prestigious festivals. Film Movement releases its films through numerous distribution channels, including thousands of art-house cinemas, universities and libraries; home video; television outlets; Cable Video on Demand (including its very own branded cable VOD platform-Film Festival on Demand-available in over 40 million US homes); In-flight Entertainment and broadband outlets. In late 2013, Film Movement launched RAM Releasing, a genre label to distribute thriller, suspense and noir films across all platforms. For more information, please visit www.filmmovement.com.
