awfj presents – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

AWFJ Presents: ELECTRIC SHADOWS – Review by Susan Wloszczyna

February 13, 2023February 19, 2023 Susan Wloszczyna awfj presents, Chinese films, Electric Shadows, Film Movement, Qi Zhongyang, Xia Yu, Xiao Jiang

Set during China’s Cultural Revolution, female director Xiao Jiang’s 2004 feature debut, Electric Shadows, is akin to Italy’s 1989’s Oscar-winning Cinema Paradiso as it focuses on how a makeshift outdoor theater brings together a village of cinema lovers. When we first meet film addict Mao (Xia Yu), he is footloose and fancy free. He earns a living by toting water jugs from place to place on his bike. He especially loves action movies, as an image of a Blade Runner poster with Harrison Ford’s face materializes on screen. But by accident, he tumbles into a wall of bricks and is conked on the head with a brick by an angry woman named Ling-Ling (Qi Zhongyang). When she gets arrested, she gives Mao the keys to her apartment and tells him to feed her fish.

Reviews

AWFJ Presents: REVOLUTION: NEW ART FOR A NEW WORLD – Review by Nell Minow

February 8, 2023February 12, 2023 Nell Minow awfj presents, Chagall, documentaries, Film Movement, Kandinsky, Margy Kinmonth, Revolution: New Art for a New World, Sergei Eisenstein, Stalin

“Victims or vanguards?” That is the challenge faced by the artists in Revolution: New Art for a New World, a documentary about the freedom-seeking artists who helped overthrow Russia’s repressive tsarist regime, only to find themselves repressed by its totalitarian replacement, Stalin. And the answer, sadly, was both. Down with abstraction. Up with realist monuments to revolutionary leaders, “monumental propaganda.” An artist who capitulated found one kind of success. A copy of his portrait of Lenin was hung in every Soviet schoolroom. Another ended up designing textiles for tractors.

Reviews

AWFJ Presents: DEAD PIGS – Review by Margaret Barton Fumo

February 3, 2023February 23, 2023 Margaret Barton-Fumo awfj presents, cathy yan, David Rysdahl, Dead Pigs, Federico Cesca, Film Movement, Zazie Beetz

Cathy Yan’s 2018 film Dead Pigs is a dazzling debut ahead of her better-known followup, the blockbuster superhero film Birds of Prey (2020). Dead Pigs premiered at Sundance, where it won a Special Jury Award, but it wasn’t released in the US until February of 2021. It’s a shame the film has received limited exposure because it is a delightful comedy that appeals to a wide audience. There is something to be said for Yan’s ability to incorporate serious, sweeping topics into a lighthearted film. Unbeknownst to the audience from the start of the film, the characters in Dead Pigs are acting in an ensemble, linked together by a rickety family tree.

Reviews

AWFJ Presents: QUEEN OF HEARTS: AUDREY FLACK – Review by Liz Braun

January 27, 2023January 27, 2023 Liz Braun awfj presents, documentaries, Film Movement, Queen of Hearts: Audrey Flack, woman artist

Queen of Hearts: Audrey Flack is a love letter to the artist and a mini-lesson in 20th Century gender politics and American art history. Directors Deborah Schaffer and Rachel Reichman trace the career of the now-91-year-old Flack by letting her do most of the talking. From Josef Albers getting handsy with her while she attended Yale to the exigencies of being a single mother and somehow finding time to paint, Flack’s history as a painter is also history of second wave feminism, entailing general survival in a male-dominated society and specific work in a milieu where women were barely acknowledged.

Reviews

AWFJ Presents: BURN BURN BURN – Review by Sherin Nicole

January 13, 2023January 11, 2023 Sherin Nicole awfj presents, burn burn burn, chanya button, Chloe Pirrie, Film Movement, Jack Farthing, Laura Carmichael

The sudden death of a loved one has a way of exposing our secrets—everything we’ve held on to comes pouring out. In grief, we are as vulnerable as when faced with our mortality and that need for healing makes us honest. Chanya Button’s Burn Burn Burn (2015) dissects human vanities and the dishonesties that block us from connecting, and it does it through an entirely preposterous pair of leading ladies, who only truly see themselves through the lens of their dead friend’s video messages.

Reviews

AWFJ Presents ARRANGED – Review by Sandie Angulo Chen

January 6, 2023January 6, 2023 Sandie Angulo Chen Arranged, awfj presents, Diane Crespo, Film Movement, Francis Benhamou, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Stefan C. Schaefer, Yuta Silverman, zoe lister jones

Directors Diane Crespo and Stefan C. Schaefer’s short-and-sweet film captures the joy of the two women bonding against the odds. Their blossoming friendship overcomes obstacles, including their parents’ cringe-worthy reactions to the co-workers socializing outside of school. Even at school they can’t escape narrow-minded (and laughably inappropriate) comments from the secular Jewish Principal, who is so uncomfortable with their modesty that she accuses them of being indoctrinated and offers them cash to buy something trendy to wear.

Reviews

AWFJ Presents: XXY – Review by Beth Accomando

December 23, 2022December 22, 2022 Beth Accomando Argentine films, awfj presents, Film Movement, Inés Efron, Klinefelter’s Syndrome, Lucia Puenzo, Sergio Bizzio, XXY

Lucia Puenzo’s directing debut is a coming of age film with a twist. XXY is about a teenager who was born with both male and female genitalia. Alex has been raised as a girl but at fifteen, she’s starting to question that identity. Puenzo’s film questions the way society has decided that there are only two ways to define sexual identity. Released in 2007, it remains is one of the few films to look to an intersex individual with genuine compassion and sensitivity in order to foster empathy and understanding.

Reviews

AWFJ Presents OH LUCY – Review by Liz Whittemore

December 16, 2022December 17, 2022 Liz Whittemore atsuko hirayanagi, awfj presents, Film Movement, josh hartnett, oh lucy, shinobu terajima

At the suggestion of her niece, lonely middle-aged Setsuko takes English lessons. When her plucky teacher John goes missing, Setsuko gets on a plane to California in search of love and a life-changing adventure. Atsuko Hirayanagi’s film explores hidden sadness and uncertainty through spontaneous and irrational behavior. Oh Lucy! underscores the lengths we’ll go to feel whole.

Reviews

AWFJ PRESENTS: ANTONIA’S LINE – Review by Leslie Combemale

December 9, 2022December 9, 2022 Leslie Combemale Antonia’s Line, awfj presents, Film Movement, Ilona Sekacz, Marina de Graaf, Marleen Gorris, Willeke van Ammelrooy

With Antonia’s Line, writer/director Marleen Gorris created a film that is a celebration of life and an unflinching look at the challenges intergenerational women faced throughout the 20th century. The feminist filmmaker achieved what many great female directors before her could not: Antonia’s Line (1994) is the first foreign-language film by a female filmmaker to win an Oscar. That’s almost 40 years after the introduction of the foreign language category. Given the Oscars’ rather spotty history in terms of truly rewarding the best films, the question is, “Is Antonia’s Line really that good?” The answer is a resounding yes.

Reviews

AWFJ Presents ONLY WHEN I DANCE – Review by Jennifer Green

December 2, 2022December 3, 2022 Jennifer Green awfj presents, Beadie Finzi, documentary, Film Movement, Irlan Santos da Silva, Isabela Coracy Alves Nascimento Santos, Mariza Estrella, Only When I Dance

It is only when he’s dancing that Brazilian teen Irlan Santos da Silva says he feels like himself. Born and raised in one of Rio de Janeiro’s impoverished favelas, ballet has offered Irlan an escape from the chaos of the city streets. He confides this to director Beadie Finzi’s omnipresent camera in the 2009 documentary Only When I Dance, an intimate character portrait of two young dancers following their passion to overcome the odds of their upbringing in the Brazilian metropolis.

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