Fans of films and trendy hashtags will be aware of Women in Film’s #52FilmsByWomen, an online pledge you can take right now that is open to anyone looking to raise the profile of women in the director’s chair. All you have to do is sit in your own chair and watch 52 films made by women – all before 2016 ends.
That’s exactly what I’m doing.
This month, Kiwi filmmaker Michelle Joy Lloyd has kindly helped me out with this quest. At the end of 2014, Lloyd directed and co-wrote a bold feature debut with indie romance darling Sunday (which is available to rent and buy On Demand), earning praise from the likes of Graeme Tuckett from The Dominion Post (“It’s our own indigenous Before Sunrise“) and Helen Wong from The Listener (“Blessed with talent and chemistry”).
For the first entry on my April hit-list, Lloyd pointed me towards a film I’ve never heard of…
Filmmaker Michelle Joy Lloyd Recommends…
#13 Ambrosia | co-written and directed by Rhiannon Bannenberg
“I was blown away after watching the Australian indie film Ambrosia, even more so after finding out how it was made.
“The lead character India travels back to her childhood home to spend time with her brother, boyfriend and a childhood friend. From there unfolds a surreal series of events when a new face appears.
“Beautifully captured, the first time writer/director/editor Rhiannon Bannenberg also shot the film herself at age 23, along with composing original music. She and her collaborators had no previous film experience, and while all this sounds like a recipe for disaster, the result is a pure and raw piece of art that I would highly recommend seeking out.” – Michelle Joy Lloyd
#14 25 April | directed by Leanne Pooley
Gallipoli has been covered extensively in many documentaries and narrative features, but 25 April uses an animated pseudo-doco approach to separate itself as something novel.
With the recent history-altering revelation of how many troops actually served in Gallipoli, you might think this would be the worst time to release an historical film about the ANZACs. Fortunately for director Leanne Pooley, who previously conquered a Mt. Everest movie with Beyond the Edge, this animated recreation of our past relies more on personal stories rather than spitting wads of facts – and is more affecting because of it.
Pooley subverts the typical ‘talking heads’ format in a number of clever ways, and Flux Animation Studio utilises a fairly clever graphic novel-style art direction to mask what wouldn’t have been a high budget for a typical animated feature. The mix of mocap, hand animation, 2D and 3D doesn’t always work, but it never muddies the film’s sense of clarity. These soldiers were courageous. This war was a fatal farce. The Turkish enemies were far more respectful to the ANZACs than the British allies. And this film paints the emotions – not the statistics – vividly and distinctly.
’25 April’ Releases in Cinemas Thursday, 28th April
#15 American Mary | written and directed by Sylvia and Jen Soska
Here’s one you won’t find at the top of any Metacritic list…
Following their delightfully-named feature debut Dead Hooker in a Trunk, the Soska sisters delivered a body modification horror that gets itself neck-deep in blood and limbs but remains unique and classy enough to sidestep away from being trashy. (Unlike Nurse 3D, which happily rolled around in its own rubbish.)
As a broke med student, Mary finds herself performing underground surgeries on people in the market for… well… freaky shit. But when the film reveals who the REAL freaks of the film are, it puts Mary in a devastating position that fills her with a bloodlust she needs to quench.
American Mary is a deliciously nasty piece of work that horror fans should eat up. Even if you’re not of that fanbase, the film has the power to surprise with how much empathy it shows for its lead and the characters she physically transforms.
#16 American Psycho | co-written and directed by Mary Harron
The film that was meant to kill Christian Bale’s career instead brought it to life in Mary Harron’s on-point adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s difficult-to-digest novel.
Rather than do a by-the-numbers gore-porn thriller, Harron took this tale of a wealthy investment banker with psychotic tendencies and explored the mutated mindset of upper-class privilege and masculine vanity. Don’t get me wrong; the film still goes way up Fucked St. before taking a sharp left on Messed Up Boulevard. But the true quality in American Psycho is how it extends lunacy from banal bloodshed (e.g. murder-by-chainsaw fantasies) to neurotic narcissism (e.g. a very sad obsession with business cards).
Originally, they were going to give David Cronenberg a stab at it (sorry…) until he dropped out. I’d be upset about that, but such disappointment feels irrelevant when Harron’s version is so eye-piercingly effective.
#17 The Prince of Egypt | co-directed by Brenda Chapman
It’s pretty backwards that, in 1998, an American animated film about Egypt was totally fine with having Egyptian characters in their natural skin colour whereas Hollywood of today has gotten a bit wishy-whitey-washy with 2014’s Exodus: Gods and Kings and this year’s Gods of Egypt. Granted, the voice cast for The Prince of Egypt is as Caucasian as a Smash Mouth reunion concert, but I still give DreamWorks Animation props for getting something seemingly basic right that this decade’s films still somehow struggle with.
Brenda Chapman (who would go on to do Pixar’s Brave) directed The Prince of Egypt with Steve Hickner (Bee Movie) and Simon Wells (Mars Needs Moms), making her the first American woman to direct an animated feature for a major studio. It may not be the most lauded film in that ‘last hurrah’ era of blockbuster 2D animation (I send my personal hurrahs towards Mulan, The Road to El Dorado and The Emperor’s New Groove), but it is perhaps the final animated relic of its kind – the type to use two dimensions on the grandest scale with a tale that deserves such epic storytelling.
‘The Prince of Egypt’ DVD and On Demand options
The list of #52FilmsByWomen continues with…
February (including one pick from Deathgasm producer Morgan Leigh Stewart)
March (including one pick from NewsHub’s Kate Rodger)
Movies By Women Coming to NZ Cinemas in April
Sherpa directed by Jennifer Peedom
Mavis! written and directed by Jessica Edwards
25 April directed by Leanne Pooley
