ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

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Opening October 25 to 31, 2021- Margaret Barton-Fumo reports

Margaret Barton-Fumo , ,
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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 October 25 to 31 that are of particular interest:  

Monday, October 25  

  • Treat – Cadence13 (Podcast Platforms) – USA – Billed as the first feature-length “podcast movie,” directed by Jaki Bradley and starring Kiernan Shipka. A seemingly perfect American town makes a deal with a mysterious outsider to help it recover from social turmoil.

Wednesday, October 27 

  • Hypnotic – Netflix – USA – Thriller co-directed by Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote. A young woman seeking self-improvement enlists the help of a renowned hypnotherapist, but after a handful of intense sessions, she discovers unexpected and deadly consequences. Starring Kate Siegel.

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  • Passing – Netflix (Cinemas; Netflix release Nov. 10) – UK / USA – Drama written and directed by Rebecca Hall, adapted from the novel by Nella Larsen. Passing follows the unexpected reunion of two high school friends, whose renewed acquaintance ignites a mutual obsession that threatens both of their carefully constructed realities. Starring Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga and André Holland.

Friday, October 29 

  • 13 Minutes – Quiver Distribution (Cinemas, VOD) – Canada / USA – Action film written and directed by Lindsay Gossling. Four families in a Heartland town are tested in a single day when a tornado hits, forcing paths to cross and redefining the meaning of survival. Starring Thora Birch, Amy Smart and Anne Heche.

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  • Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story – Greenwich Entertainment (Cinemas, VOD) – UK – Documentary directed by Posy Dixon about Beverly Glenn-Copeland, a sci-fi obsessed woman living in near isolation who wrote and self-released Keyboard Fantasies in Huntsville, Ontario back in 1986.

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  • Last Night in Soho – Focus Features (Cinemas) – UK – Edgar Wright-directed horror-thriller set in 1960s London. Starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, Thomasin McKenzie. Co-written by Edgar Wright with Krysty Wilson-Cairns.

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  • A Mouthful of Air – Sony (Cinemas) – USA – Drama written and directed by Amy Koppelman, starring Amanda Seyfried. Julie Davis writes bestselling children’s books about unlocking your fears, but has yet to unlock her own. When her daughter is born, that trauma is brought to the fore, and with it, a crushing battle to survive.

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  • The Souvenir: Part II – A24 (Cinemas) – UK – Sequel written and directed by Joanna Hogg, starring Honor Swinton Byrne. In the aftermath of her tumultuous relationship with a charismatic and manipulative older man, Julie begins to untangle her fraught love for him in making her graduation film, sorting fact from his elaborately constructed fiction.

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  • Speer Goes to Hollywood – Realworks LTD (Cinemas) – Israel – Documentary directed by Vanessa Lapa, co-written by Lapa and Joelle Alexis. A cautionary tale about Albert Speer’s 1971 attempt to whitewash his past with a Hollywood adaptation of his bestselling wartime memoir, Inside the Third Reich.

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  • Violet – Relativity Media (cinemas in NY & LA; theatrical expansion Nov. 5) – USA – Directorial debut by actor Justine Bateman. Drama starring Olivia Munn. Violet realizes that her entire life is built on fear-based decisions, and must do everything differently to become her true self.

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

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Margaret Barton-Fumo

Based in New York, Margaret Barton-Fumo has contributed to Film Comment since 2006. Her monthly online column, “Deep Cuts,” focused on the intersection of film and music. She has interviewed such directors, actors, and musicians as Brian De Palma, James Gray, Harry Dean Stanton, and Paul Williams, and has additionally contributed to Senses of Cinema and Stop Smiling. She is the editor of Paul Verhoeven: Interviews, published by the University Press of Mississippi.