Female Film Critics 24/375
Life is not a spectator sport, as the saying goes, and — if you’re doing it right — neither is being part of the Cajun culture. As Abby Berendt Lavoi and Jeremey Lavoi’s loving documentary Roots of Fire makes clear, those who cherish their connection to this culture tend to go all-in, especially when it comes to the toe-tapping, accordion-infused music that’s been played for generations in Louisiana dance halls.
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If you’ve ever doubted that one person really can make a difference when it comes to systemic change, just spend two hours getting to know Black model/1970s fashion icon/activist Bethann Hardison via the thoroughly engaging documentary Invisible Beauty. Though, fair warning: Her passion, drive, and relentless activism may leave you feeling somewhat inadequate about your own internal drive by the time the credits roll.
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Prolific author, keen observer, insightful storyteller, compulsive writer, incisive tweeter. Joyce Carol Oates is all of these things and more, as director Stig Björkman makes abundantly clear in his thoughtfully constructed, affectionate documentary Joyce Carol Oates: A Body in Service of Mind. Tracing Oates’ life and career over the course of several decades, Björkman makes it clear that she has well earned her reputation as an iconic American writer.
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Perseverance is at the heart of Sahar Mosayebi’s moving drama Orca, which is based on the true story of Elham Asghari, the Iranian open-water swimmer who defied the legal and cultural limitations placed on women in Iran by making and breaking world records. In the process, she’s helped bring attention to the challenges faced by Iran’s female athletes, who long for the opportunity to compete in all sports, not just the officially sanctioned ones.
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Themes of identity, memory, trauma, and the possibility of second chances come together in a potent blend in writer/director Ellie Foumbi’s gripping debut feature Our Father, the Devil. Part character study, part thriller, it centers on a woman whose horrifying past unexpectedly comes back to haunt her years after she believes she’s left it behind — and she isn’t at all ready for what that might mean.
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Juliette Binoche shines as a writer caught between honesty and authenticity in director Emmanuel Carrère’s compelling drama Between Two Worlds. Based on the non-fiction book by French journalist Florence Aubenas, the film explores what happens when an undercover writer with the best of intentions about sharing the realities of working-class life gets closer to her subjects than she planned, threatening both her objectivity and her connection to the community she’s come to feel a part of.
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Part Only Murders in the Building, part Nancy Drew, and part Wednesday, Susie Searches is a charming, appealingly quirky little mystery with some genuinely surprising twists. Stylish and well-acted, this story about an earnest, ambitious armchair detective (played by Kiersey Clemons) marks the feature directorial debut of Sophie Kargman, who co-wrote the screenplay with William Day Frank based on their 2020 short, also titled Susie Searches, in which Kargman originated the title role.
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Coming-of-age dramas don’t get much more authentic than Gina Gammell and Riley Keough’s War Pony. Born out of the two women’s deeply personal, long-standing relationship with the Oglala Lakota people of the Pine Ridge Reservation, the film follows two young Lakota men as they deal with the ups and downs of their daily lives. In the process, it offers a frank but tender look at the realities of contemporary life at Pine Ridge.
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Does any part of you still doubt that the United States’ relationship with the Indigenous people who called North America home long before anyone ever thought of naming it “America” in the first place is based in duplicity, theft, and genocide? If so, then watching Laura Tomaselli and Jesse Short Bull’s compelling Lakota Nation Vs. United States will make it crystal clear that, as one interviewee eloquently puts it, “Fundamentally, the intent of the United States is to gain access to native land.” Lakota Nation Vs. United States is an ardent call for justice.
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“Life finds a way.” This classic line from Jurassic Park is referenced more than once in director Mel Eslyn’s Biosphere, and there couldn’t be a more apt way to summarize the story of this quirky, unexpected dramedy about two lifelong best friends (Mark Duplass, who co-wrote the film with Eslyn, and Sterling K. Brown) who may be the last people left alive on Earth after an unspecified planet-ending disaster.
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