Opening April 20 to April 23, 2021 – Margaret Barton-Fumo previews

The Alliance of Women Film Journalists highlights movies made by and about women. With a vigilant eye toward current releases, we maintain an interactive record of films that are pertinent to our interests. Be they female-made or female-centric productions, they are films that represent a wide range of women’s stories and present complex female characters. As such, they are movies that will most likely be reviewed on AWFJ.org and will qualify for consideration for our annual EDA Awards, celebrating exceptional women working in film behind and in front of the camera. Our members are feature writers, columnists and regular contributors to a variety of media outlets and many of us publish regularly on the festival circuit. Our critical voices are widespread and diverse. We invite you to join us in tracking weekly releases of particular interest. And we welcome information about new films that will help us to keep our records updated and our critics alert. Below is a concise list of new releases set for the week of April 19 to 25 that are of particular interest:  

Tuesday, April 20  

• At Night Comes Wolves – Gravitas Ventures (VOD) – USA – Horror about a woman who abandons her marriage and falls in with a small cult bent on ending misogynistic culture and transcending to a place beyond the stars.

 

• The Marijuana Conspiracy – Samuel Goldwyn Films (VOD) – Canada – Drama starring a female ensemble cast. In 1972, young women looking for a fresh start in life endure isolated captivity in a 98-day experiment studying the effects of marijuana on females.

Friday, April 23  

• Bloodthirsty – Barnstorm Media (Cinemas, VOD) – Canada – Female-centric horror starring Lauren Beatty as Grey, an indie singer who is having visions that she is a wolf. Written by Wendy Hill-Tout and Lowell, directed by Amelia Moses.

 

• My Wonderful Wanda – Zeitgeist/Kino Lorber (Cinemas, VOD) – Switzerland – Swiss-German comedy/drama about a Polish woman who looks after an elderly man in his villa by the lake. Co-written and directed by Bettina Oberli.

 

• Paris Calligrammes – Icarus Films (Virtual Cinemas) – Germany/France – Latest documentary from criminally underrated German director Ulrike Ottinger. A cinematic poem with the city of Paris at its center. Ottinger looks back at her time living in Paris in the 1960s when she was a young painter.

 

• Sisters with Transistors – Metrograph Pictures (VOD-Metrograph) – UK – Documentary following the story of electronic music’s female pioneers; composers who embraced machines and their liberating technologies to utterly transform how we produce and listen to music today. Written and directed by Lisa Rovner.

 

• Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street – HBO/Screen Media Films (Cinemas) – USA – Documentary written and directed by Marilyn Agrelo. A look inside the minds and hearts of the Sesame Street (1969) creators, artists, writers, and educators who together established one of the most influential programs in television history.

 

• Together Together – Bleecker Street Media (Virtual Cinemas) – USA – Romantic comedy written and directed by Nikole Beckwith. A 40-year-old man hires a young woman and their relationship challenges their perception of love.

 

• Wet Season – Strand Releasing (Cinemas) – Singapore/Taiwan – Latest film from Singaporean director Anthony Chen (Ilo Ilo); a melodrama about a teacher and student at a Singapore high school who form a special, self-affirming bond, highlighting themes of class and social prejudice.

 

• Wildcat – Saban Films (Cinemas) – USA – Drama starring Georgina Campbell as an ambitious reporter stationed in the Middle East who is taken captive after her convoy is ambushed.

Film descriptions are adapted from press releases. Links are provided tp our full reviews. Stay tuned in for next week’s releases! Contact us if we’ve overlooked anything.