Guest Posts – Page 2 – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

Yael Melamede talks ADA: MY MOTHER THE ARCHITECT – Yael Friedman interviews (Guest Post)

May 15, 2025November 28, 2025 Guest Post Ada Karmi-Melamede, Ada: My Mother The Architect, architecture, Louis Kahn, My Architect, Salty Features, Sharon Yaish, Supreme Court of Israel, the female gaze, Yael Friedman, Yael Melamede

There seems to be an endless appetite for depictions of the lone genius architect, both as a mythological creature walking amongst us, and as a metaphor for just about everything. And yet one of the best movies about one may never get its due. Ada: My Mother The Architect, by Yael Melamede, about her mother, Ada Karmi-Melamede, one of Israel’s most celebrated architects, is an extraordinary film that addresses all the big questions while also portraying a human being who is very much mortal. Yael Mellamede chats with Yael Friedman about making the deeply personal documentary.

Guest Posts Reviews

E.1027 – EILEEN GRAY AND THE HOUSE BY THE SEA – Review by Yael Friedman (Guest Post)

May 8, 2025 Guest Post Beatrice Minger, docudrama, documentary, E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea, Le Corbusier, the female gaze, Yael Friedman

The erasure of women from the annals of history is usually figurative – they are overlooked, conveniently forgotten, somehow missing from the picture. But Eileen Gray (1878-1976), the pioneering modernist Irish designer and architect, was almost literally removed from the architectural record by one of its most looming figures – Le Corbusier himself. A lovely new docudrama, “E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea,” by Beatrice Minger, revisits a chapter that sounds like a parable of how the great men of history can ensure they alone receive credit for shaping it

Essays Guest Posts

HORROR’S WARNING ABOUT IGNORING WOMEN – Essay by Stephanie Malone

April 11, 2025April 17, 2025 Guest Post CARRIE, guest post, hereditary, horror, promising young woman, rosemary;s baby, Stephanie Malone, the babadook, the female gaze, the lodge

A chillingly common thread in many iconic horror movies is the refusal to believe women when they voice their fears, their suspicions, or their trauma. This narrative mirrors a grim reality rooted in history: women have long struggled to have their experiences, especially those regarding mental health and abuse, taken seriously. The implications go beyond mere storytelling. Statistics from organizations like the National Network to End Domestic Violence reveal that over 70% of domestic violence cases are never reported, often because survivors fear that they will not be believed or that they will face retribution. Let’s dive into some unforgettable horror films where disbelief in a woman’s voice escalates the terror.

Essays Guest Posts

A REAL PAIN, Holocaust Tourism & Gaza – Essay by Yael Friedman (Guest Post)

March 26, 2025May 6, 2025 Guest Post A Real Pain, Gaza, guest post, Holocaust tour, jesse eisenberg, Jewish roots, Kieran Culkin, lithuania, Poland, the female gaze, vilna, vilnius, Yael Friedman

A Real Pain utilizes the familiar tourist trip as a convincing canvas. Nailing down the charmingly Bohemian Benji (Kieran Culkin) by booking a conventional tour by the more conventional cousin David (Jesse Eisenberg), made sense. It was a perfect vehicle for allowing their dynamics, personalities, the themes of memory and trauma tourism, to unfold. The exposition in this screenplay was a master class, even though the actors are laying versions of themselves, or because of it. It’s a neat sleight of hand to turn a character you think you know into one entirely invented. As fun as Benji was and as envious as the more straitlaced and neurotic David got, the tragedy of Benji’s character pierced deeply. He endeared and broke and enraged you in equal measure. We never really find out why Benji has been cast adrift in life, and we don’t need to. We meet him where he is and worry for what is next. Just enough is given to make it real and utterly palpable.

Essays Guest Posts Reviews

DAHOMEY – Essay by Yael Friedman (Guest Post)

January 24, 2025May 6, 2025 Guest Post art restitution, benin, dahomey, documentary, guest pst, international oscars, Malkenzy Orcel, mati diop, mubi, Wally Badarou, Yael Friedman

Dahomey, the new beautiful documentary from director Mati Diop, addresses the forces that wrested history from its original owners, and interrogates what it means to try and recompense for the past. The film plays witness to an unprecedented moment – the return by France of 26 objects (26 out of many thousands) to Benin – the once Kingdom of Dahomey (1600-1904). It is the first such return of the cultural heritage colonial powers plucked from their African vassal states. The Europeans carved up a continent and removed its sacred objects (among other sins), sending them across the Atlantic to sit in sterile vitrines in grand galleries, tourists strolling by once-mighty gods.

Festivals Guest Posts Interviews

Payal Kapadia, first Indian to win the Cannes Grand Prix – Mythily Ramachandran interviews (Guest Post, Exclusive)

June 12, 2024June 20, 2024 Guest Post All We Imagine As Light, cannes 2024, Cannes Film Festival 2024, Chhaya Kadam, Divya Prabha, Grand Prix, Indian filmmakers, Kani Kusruti, Mythily Ramachandran, Payal Kapadia, Thomas Hakim

At the recently concluded Cannes Film Festival, Indian director Payal Kapadia etched her name for eternity in the annals of cinema history by winning the ‘Grand Prix.’ Kapadia’s debut feature All We Imagine As Light, was singled out among 22 entries. Her contenders included Andrea Arnold, Francis Ford Coppola, Jia Zhange-Ke, Paolo Sorrentino, Sean Baker, and Ali Abbasi. Kapadia is the first Indian woman filmmaker to win the coveted prize. No other Indian director had ever competed for the honour nor bagged it. Thirty years ago, Malayalam director Shaji N Karun’s Swaham‘ qualified at Cannes for the competition category in 1994. Kapadia’s magic moment happened when AWIAL received a standing ovation for eight long minutes after its Cannes premiere.

Guest Posts Reviews

BLUE JEAN – Review by Justina Walford

May 29, 2023January 8, 2024 Guest Post Blue Jean, Georgia Oakley, guest posts, justina walford, Kerrie Hayes, lgbtq, margaret thatcher, Rosy McEwen, the female gaze

Dramas set in the 80s walk a tightrope, often forcing us into a sense of nostalgia, romanticizing the decade even though it was far from inclusive. LGBTQ coming-out films also walk a tightrope, usually stuck in a world of early LGBTQ challenges without showing a character existing beyond the struggle of identity. Blue Jean is both of these genres. Yet, the combination defies the challenges and comes off beautifully as a sincere dialogue and, in some ways, a sincere amends and admiration among generations.

Guest Posts Reviews

LOVE BETWEEN FAIRY AND DEVIL – Review by Dana Ziyasheva (Guest Post)

October 12, 2022June 21, 2023 awfj-admin Chinese films, chinese tv, Dana Ziyasheva, Love Between Fairy and Devil, netflix, Wang He Di

The Chinese show Love Between Fairy and Devil is such a carefully choreographed ballet of emotions and thoughts on the nature of love, power, and society — hammering home its points with an impossibly attractive cast and a highly addictive soundtrack — that I, a bone-weary middle-aged woman with grown-up kids, found myself pledging all my time (and the entirety of my soul) to it.

Guest Posts

AWFJ Exclusive Clip: SURVIVING SEX TRAFFICKING

April 13, 2022April 15, 2022 Jennifer Merin documentaries, guest posts, Sadhvi Siddhali Shree, Surviving Sex Trafficking, video clip

The documentary Surviving Sex Trafficking is sobering personal account from diretor/producer Sadhvi Siddhali Shree of her abuse at age six, unburied and brought up through meditation. Supported by actor Alyssa Milano, Jeannie Mai of The Real, and musician Jay Jenkins as executive producers, the production team travels to Houston, Hungary, Miami, Las Vegas, New Jersey, India, the Philippines, and Ethiopia, interviewing trafficking survivors and focusing specifically on three women with harrowing stories of their abuse. This is a crucially important documentary that reveals the ongoing abuse and exploitation of vulnerable girls and young women around the globe.

Guest Posts Interviews

Megan Mylan on SIMPLE AS WATER – Mythily Ramachandran interviews (Guest Post, Exclusive)

March 8, 2022October 14, 2023 Jennifer Merin documentaries, makenzie smith, megan mylan, Mythily Ramachandran, oscars shortlist 2022, simple as water, the female gaze

Academy award winner Megan Mylan’s latest documentary, Simple As Water, narrates the plight of four families ripped apart by the Syrian war. The film was shortlisted for an Oscar but did not make it to the final list of nominees. Mylan, who received an Oscar for her documentary, Smile Pinki, and an Independent Spirit Award for her Lost Boys of Sudan speaks with Mythily Ramachandran about filming Simple As Water and families in exile.