Opening April 18 to 24, 2023 – Margaret Barton-Fumo reports

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 17 to 23 that are of particular interest. Titles highlighted in red have links to full reviews:  

Friday, April 21

• Carmen – Sony Pictures Classics (Cinemas) – Australia / France / USA – Musical drama starring Paul Mescal and Melissa Barrera. Benjamin Millepied’s complete reimagining of CARMEN tells a story through an experimental dreamscape featuring an original score and songs.

 

• Dry Ground Burning – Gravitas Ventures (Cinemas) – Brazil / Portugal – Drama co-directed by Joana Pimenta and Adirley Queirós. In 2013 the military police of the Brazilian Federal District initiated a large operation against drug traffic in the peripheral city of Ceilândia, dismantling a series of illegal networks and arresting sixteen men.

 

• Gringa – Gravitas Ventures (Cinemas) – USA – Dramedy co-directed by Marny Eng and E.J. Foerster. A troubled teenage girl runs away to Mexico to find the father she has never known. Together they learn that a family can be put back together, even if all they have are the missing pieces.

 

• Judy Blume Forever – Amazon Prime – USA – Documentary co-directed by Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok about Judy Blume and the generations of readers who have admired her work. It will examine her impact on pop culture and the occasional controversies over her frankness about puberty and sex.

 

• Little Richard: I Am Everything – Magnolia Pictures / HBO Max (Cinemas, VOD) – USA – Documentary directed by Lisa Cortes about the one of a kind rock ‘n’ roll icon who shaped the world of music.

 

• One More Time – Netflix – Sweden – Swedish Dramedy. On her 40th birthday, Amelia makes a fateful wish to be 18 again back in 2002 but soon regrets it when she’s stuck reliving the day over and over again.

 

• Other People’s Children – Music Box Films / Wild Bunch (Cinemas) – France – Dramedy written and directed by Rebecca Zlotowski, starring Virginie Efira and Chiara Mastroianni. A childless woman forms a deep bond with her boyfriend’s young daughter.

 

• Plan 75 – Kimstim Films (Cinemas) – Japan / France / Philippines / Qatar – Sci-Fi drama co-written and directed by Chie Hayakawa. Government program Plan 75 encourages senior citizens to be euthanized to remedy an aged society. An elderly woman whose means of survival are vanishing, a pragmatic Plan 75 salesman, and a Filipino laborer face choices of life and death.

 

• River – Greenwich Entertainment (Cinemas) – Australia – Documentary co-directed by Jennifer Peedom and Joseph Nizeti. A stunning exploration of the timeless relationship between human civilization and Earth’s rivers, in all their majesty and fragility.

 

• Trenque Lauquen – Luxbox (Cinemas) – Germany / Argentina – Drama co-written and directed by Laura Citarella. With the strange disappearance of Laura, two colleagues, her older boyfriend, Rafael, and Ezequiel, learn of their recent discoveries, which may help them locate her. However, the story is bigger and stranger than they could imagine.

Film descriptions are adapted from press releases. Titles highlighted in red have links to full reviews. Stay tuned in for next week’s releases! Contact us if we’ve overlooked anything.