ESSENTIAL FILMS BY WOMEN

By: Kenji

Silences of the Palace (Moufida Tlatli)

*The HIStory of cinema is still to be re-written. Alice Guy-Blaché was one of the great pioneers of cinema, made hundreds of films, the first in 1896 before Méliès. Do check her out, there is skill and charm aplenty: I’ve done a list Alice Guy-Blaché, Queen of the Pioneers. In 1910s Hollywood, in films like Suspense, Lois Weber matched Griffith for panache. Lotte Reiniger was a
pioneering feature film animator in the 1920s, with her silhouettes in The Adventures of Prince Achmed, while Germaine Dulac is widely credited with the first Surrealist film, The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928). Before Fantasia’s animated abstract Bach Fugue there was Mary Ellen Bute’s. Maya Deren was very influential on the post-war American avant-garde, though i must say her husband in the 40s Alexander Hammid, who co-directed Meshes of the Afternoon, deserves more recognition too. Marie Menken is described by our great list-maker Grey Daisies as the unsung heroine of the avant-garde. Agnes Varda is the mother of the French New Wave, Chantal Akerman surely a major director, Jeanne Dielman one of the great minimalist films. Is the Bulgarian Binka Zheliazkova’s The Attached Balloon one of the neglected treasures of the world? In notoriously patriarchal Iran, there have been several prominent female directors, putting Hollywood to shame. Often female co-directors get overlooked; Miéville with Godard, Ágnes Hranitzky with Bela Tarr, Evelyn Lambart with Norman McLaren…

2009 was a strong year for women- Sight and Sound had an unprecedented 4 films by women, 2 by Claire Denis, in its annual top 8-, and maybe the 2010s will see an unprecedented flourishing? Certainly the major Oscars for Kathryn Bigelow and Hurt Locker (albeit a film i’m not keen on) may give impetus to female careers in Hollywood? Anyway, expect this list to be a grower! Update: 2 in the top 7, 4 of the top 23, by women in Sight and Sound’s 2010 poll; steady if not spectacular. Further consolidation with Susanne Bier’s In a Better World winning the “Foreign Language” Golden Globe. But of course the attention of Hollywood and Anglophone critics is mereley the tip of an iceberg, with so many fine but neglected films from a wide range of countries*

This site is honoured to have Chantal Akerman, Maria de Medeiros, Sally Potter, Julie Dash and Sadaf Foroughi among the users. Sally Potter has even done a list, My Teachers, as has Julie Dash. And good to now have Agnes Varda’s liaison with the site and her films being championed

Mädchen in Uniform, dir Leontine Sagan, Germany, 1931

This is still a surprisingly neglected film in the history of cinema. It’s about an orphaned teenage girl who attends a Prussian all-girl boarding school, which is run by the headmistress with a rod of iron. The girl develops a crush on a pretty and kind female teacher, but problems arise when she goes public about her feelings.

This certainly wasn’t the first German film with prominent lesbian tones- the much more famous Pandora’s Box comes to mind, and of course we had Marlene Dietrich in trouser suit serenading a woman in (the Hollywood film) Morocco, but here the sexual urges go beyond flirtatiousness. It’s a surprise to read that at the time critics were more interested in the critique of authoritarian education, since the film has become something of a landmark Lesbian cult classic. I very much like the way both main themes, of authoritarianism (going beyond education to the whole disciplined and intolerant state machine), and same-sex love are handled; of course in a repressive system they are linked, and the Nazis were quick to ban the film on coming to power not long after.

The sexual frissons are not only sensual but also delicate and very poignant, with excellent central performances. Although officially co-directed by a man, to my mind this is very much Sagan’s film. Today we still have boarding schools, maybe less authoritarian, but in many countries they are part of and support a privileged class system. In such cases, get rid of them, i say.

Another of my favourite films by a female director, Innocence, by Lucile Hadzihalilovic, is set in a girls’ boarding school, albeit a more mysterious and less aggressive establishment

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A longer list of significant films by women:

Adams: Come Early Morning

Ade: Everyone Else
Forest for the Trees

Adler: Under the Skin

Ahmad: Talentime

Ahtila: Love is a Treasure

Ahwesh: The Colour of Love

Akbari: 20 Fingers

Akerman: All Night Long
The Captive
D’Est
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Je Tu il Elle
News from Home
Night and Day
Les Rendezvous d’Anna

Albert: Nordrand
State of the Nation: Austria in Six Chapters

Alvarez: the Sky Turns

Amaral: Hour of the Star

Amodeo: What about Me

R.Anderson: Black Harvest

Ando: Kakera

Angelidi: Thief or Reality

Antoniak: Nothing Personal

Ardant: Ashes and Blood

Arden: Anti-Clock
The Other Side of the Underneath

Asia Argento: Scarlett Diva

Armstrong: Little Women
My Brilliant Career
Oscar and Lucinda

Arnold: Fish Tank
Red Road
Wuthering Heights

Arzner: Christopher Strong
Dance, Girl, Dance

Babbit: But I’m a Cheerleader

Bacha: Budrus

Bachir: Rachida

Baichwal: Manufactured Landscapes

Balasko: Gazon Maudit

Bani-Etemad: The May Lady
Nargess
Under the Skin of the City

Barnard: The Arbor

Bausch: The Complaint of an Express

Beatt: The Invisible Frame

Belzberg: Children Underground

Bemberg: I, the Worst of All

Benacerraf: Araya
Reveron

Benning: It Wasn’t Love

Berg: Deliver us from Evil

Berman: American Splendor

Bertini: Assunta Spina

Bertucelli: Since Otar Left

Besson: Quelque part quelqu’un

Bharadwaj: Closet Land

Bier: After the Wedding
Brothers
In a Better World

Bigelow: The Hurt Locker
Near Dark
Point Break
Strange Days

Bird: Priest

Blank: Crossing Borders

Bollain: Even the Rain
Flowers from another World
Take my Eyes

Bonnaire: Sabine

Borden: Working Girls

Breillat: A Ma Soeur
Brief Crossings
The Last Mistress
Romance

Briski: Born into Brothels

Bronstein: Yeast

Bute: Synchromy 4

Campion: An Angel at my Table

Bright Star
A Girl’s Own Story
The Piano
Sweetie

Cardoso: A Costa dos Murmurios

Caro: Whale Rider

Cattet: Amer

Cavani: The Night Porter
Ripley’s Game

Chaud: Himalaya, Land of Women

Cheung: An Autumn’s Tale

Child: Mayhem

Cholodenko: High Art
The Kids Are All Right

Chou: Drifting Flowers

Chytilova: Daisies
Fruit of Paradise
Something Different

Clarke: Bridges-Go-Round
Connections
Cool World

Coixet: My Life without Me

Coolidge: Rambling Rose
Valley Girl

Coppola: Lost in Translation
Marie Antoinette
Somewhere
The Virgin Suicides
Somewhere

Corsini: Leaving

Covi: Babooska

Cruikshank: Quasi at the Quackadero

Daley: Robert Having his Nipple Pierced

Darmawan: Sugiharti Halim (segment from the omnibus “9808”)

Dash: Daughters of the Dust
Illusions

Julie Dash

Davaa: Cave of the Yellow Dog
Story of the Weeping Camel

Delpy: 2 Days in Paris

Demoris: Mafrouza – Oh Night!

Denis: Beau Travail
Chocolat
The Intruder
35 Shots of Rum
Trouble Every Day
White Material

Deren: At Land
Divine Horsemen
Meshes of the Afternoon
A Ritual in Transfigured Time

Despentes, Trin Thi: Baise-Moi

de Hirsch: Peyote Queen

de Saint-Phalle: Daddy

de Van: Dans ma Peau

Di Nata: Arisan

Djebar: The Nouba of the Women of Mount Chenoua

Doillon: Contre Toi

Donzetti: Declaration of War

Dorrie: Keiner Liebt Mich
Men

Droumeva: The Letter

Dulac: L’Invitation au Voyage
The Seashell and the Clergyman
The Smiling Madame Beudet

Dunye: The Watermelon Woman

Duras: Le Camion
India Song
Les Mains Négatives
Nathalie Granger
Le Navire Night
Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta Désert

DuVernay: I Will Follow

Edzard: Little Dorrit

Egorova: Partisan Songspiel

Elek: Lady from Constantinople

Enyedi: My Twentieth Century

Export: Invisible Adversaries
Remote..,Remote

Faris: Little Miss Sunshine

Farrokhzad: The House is Black

the great Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad

Ferran: Coming to Terms with the Dead
Lady Chatterley

Fiennes: Over Your Cities Grass will Grow

Fontaine: Nathalie

Foroughi: Féminin, Masculin
Sara in 10 Minutes

Foster: Little Man Tate

Friedrich: Sink or Swim

Garcia: The Adversary

Gautier: Free Fall

Germanika: Everybody Dies But Me

Gerwig: Nights and Weekends

Gleize: Carnages

Gomez: One Way or Another

Gorris: Antonia’s Line
A Question of Silence

Granik: Down to the Bone
Winter’s Bone

Greenwald: Songcatcher

Grisebatch: Longing

Guzzanti: Viva Zapatero!

Guy: Falling Leaves
La Fée aux Choux
Heroine
La Saucisse

Alice Guy-Blaché

Hadzihalilovic: Innocence

Haines: Children of a Lesser God

Hammer: Double Strength
Dyketactics

Hamon: The Love Life of the Octopus

Haneda: Into the Picture Scroll

Hansen-Love: All is Forgiven
Father of my Children

Harron: American Psycho

Hausner: Lourdes

Heckerling: Clueless
Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Henning-Jensen: Palle Alone in the World

Hogg: Archipelago
Unrelated

Holland: Europa Europa
In Darkness
Olivier Olivier
Screen Tests
The Secret Garden

Holofcener: Lovely and Amazing

Honigmann: O Amor Natural

Honkasalo: The Three Rooms of Melancholia

Hranitzky: Werckmeister Harmonies
The Man from London
The Turin Horse

Huang Shuqin: A Soul Haunted by Painting

Hui: Boat People
Love in a Fallen City
Song of the Exile

Huillet: Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach
Class Relations
From the Clouds to the Resistance
Not Reconciled
A Visit to the Louvre

Hunt: Frozen River

Inoue: Woman who is Beating the Earth

Jackson: The Snowman

Jakoubowska: The Last Stage

Jansen: Calimucho

Jaoui: Look at Me
The Taste of Others

Jenkins: Monster

Jeong Jae-eun: Take Care of my Cat

Jolie: In the Land of Blood and Honey

July: Me and You and Everyone We Know

Kaplan: Charles et Lucy
Nea

Karina: Vivre Ensemble

Kawase: Forest of Mourning
Katatsumori
Shara
Suzaku

Keaton: Heaven

Kedzierzawska: Crows

Kim So Yong: In Between Days
Treeless Mountain

A.Kobayashi: Dan Carter

Koppel: Harlan County, U.S.A

Kove: The Danish Poet

Krumbachová: The Murder of Mr Devil

Kuras: The Betrayal

Kusama: Girl Fight

Labaki: Caramel

Lambart: Begone Dull Care

Law: Autumn Moon
Goddess of 1967

Leaf: Metamorphosis of Mr Samsa
The Street
Two Sisters

Le Besco- Bas-Fonds

Lemmons: Eve’s Bayou

Leopold: Guernsey

Letourneur: La Vie au Ranch

Liappa: A Quiet Death
The Years of the Big Heat

Lingford: Pleasures of War
What She Wants

Link: Nowhere in Africa
A Year ago in Winter

Linkevitch: Traces

Liu Jiayin: Oxhide
Oxhide II

Llosa: MadeinUSA
The Milk of Sorrow

Lockhardt: Lunchbreak

Loden: Wanda

Longinotto: Divorce, Iranian Style
Hold me Tight, Let me Go
Runaway
Shinjuku Boys

Lupino: The Bigamist
The Hitch-hiker
On Dangerous Ground

Maclean: Kitchen Sink
Jesus’ Son

Hana Makhmalbaf: Buddha Collapsed out of Shame
Joy of Madness

Marzieh Makhmalbaf/Meshkini: The Day I Became a Woman
Stray Dogs

Samira Makhmalbaf: The Apple
At Five in the Afternoon
Blackboards
Two Legged Horse

Samira Makhmalbaf

Maldoror: Sambizanga

Mañá: Morir in San Hilario

Marais: The Unpolished

Marketaki: John the Violent

Marshall: Awakenings
Big

Martel: La Cienaga
The Headless Woman
The Holy Girl

Mattuschka: Cerolax 11
NabelFabel
S.O.S Extraterrestria

May: The Heartbreak Kid
Mikey and Nicky
A New Leaf

Medeiros: The Captains of April

Mehta: Earth
Fire
Water

Meier: Home

Menken: Glimpse of a Garden
Go! Go! Go!
Visual Variations on Noguchi

Menkes: Bloody Child

Merlet: Artemisia

Meszaros: Adoption
A Diary for my Children

Meyers: Something’s Gotta Give
What Women Want

Miéville: Deux Fois Cinquante Ans du Cinéma Francais
Ici et Ailleurs

Milani: The Hidden Half
Two Women

Miller: Personal Velocity

Mnouchkine: Moliere

Moffatt: Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy

Mumenthaler: Back to Stay

Muratova: Asthenic Syndrome
Brief Encounters
Chekhov’s Motifs
Long Farewells

Nair: Monsoon Wedding
The Namesake
Salaam Bombay

Nakadate: The Wolf Knife

Nelson: My Name is Oona

Neshat: Turbulent
Women without Men

Nishikawa: Dear Doctor
Yureru

Novaro: Danzon

Obomsawin: Incident at Restigouche
Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance

Olson: 575 Castro Street

Omarova: The Recruiter

Osmond: Deep Water

Ouardiri: Mokhtar

Palcy: A Dry White Season
Rue Cases Negres

Euzhan Palcy

Park Chan-Ok: Jealousy is my Middle Name
Paju

Peirce: Boys Don’t Cry

Pessoa: Tragic Story with Happy Ending

Petrie: Sister Teresa

Pitt: Asparagus

Poliak: Pin Boy

Polley: Away from Her

Potter: Gold Diggers
Orlando
The Tango Lesson
Yes

Proskurina: Truce

Rached: Four Women of Egypt

Rainer: Film about a Woman who

Ramsay: Gasman
Morvern Callar
Ratcatcher
We Need to Talk about Kevin

Raynal: Deux Fois

Reichardt: Meek’s Cutoff
Old Joy
Wendy and Lucy

Reiniger: The Adventures of Prince Achmed
The Little Chimney Sweep

Riefenstahl: The Blue Light
Olympia
Triumph of the Will

Rist: i’m a Victim of this Song

Rodriguez: The Brickmakers

Romand: Mix Up

Ros: La Monos

Rossellini: Green Porno, Scandalous Sea

Rots: Kan door Huid Heen

Rozema: I’ve Heard the Mermaids Sing

Sach: Investigation of a Flame

Sagan: Madchen in Uniform

Sanders-Brahms: The Future of Emily
Germany, Pale Mother
Shirin’s Wedding

Savoca: Household Saints

Schanelec: Passing Summer

Scherfig: An Education
Italian for Beginners

Schneemann: Fuses
Snows

Sciamma: Naissance des Pieuvres

Scott: Strangers in Good Company

Seidelman: Desperately Seeking Susan
Smithereens

Aparna Sen: 36 Chowringhee Lane
Mr and Mrs Iyer

Serreau: Three Men and a Cradle
Think Global, Act Rural

Sevcikova: Jakub
Old Believers

Shariar: Daughters of the Sun

Shepitko: The Ascent
Motherland of Electricity
Wings

Larisa Shepitko

Shortland: Somersault

Shub: The Fall of the Romanoff Dynasty

Shum: Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity

Silver: Chilly Scenes of Winter

Solntseva: Enchanted Desna
Poem of the Sea

Sontag: Promised Lands

Speth: The Days Between
Madonnas

Spheeris: The Decline of Western Civilization

Spinell: Viki Ficki

Stopkewich: Kissed
Suspicious River

Stratman: Kings of the Sky

Streisand: Yentl

Strubb: Lost Persons Area

Suwichakornpong: Mundane History

Tait: Aerial

Takesue: Summer of the Serpent

Tan Chui Mui: Company of Mushrooms
A Tree in Tanjung Malin
Love Conquers All

Tanada: Moon and Cherry

Tanaka: The Moon has Risen

Taviani: Return to the Aeolian Islands

Taymor: Frida
Titus

Templeton: Peter and the Wolf

Terry: Fambul Tok

Theodoraki: Close, So Close

Thomas: Foreign Land

Tlatli: The Season of Men
Silences of the Palace

Torres: Oriana

Trinh T Minh-ha: The Fourth Dimension
Reassemblage
Surname Việt Given Name Nam

Trotta: The German Sisters
The Lost Honour of Katherina Blum
Rosa Luxemburg

Tsangari: Attenberg

Ann Turner: Celia

Sarah Turner: Perestroika

Tyrlova: Modra Zasterka

Ullmann: Faithless
Sofie

Varda: The Beaches of Agnes
Le Bonheur
Cleo from 5 to 7
The Gleaners and I
L’Opéra Mouffe
La Pointe Courte
Vagabond

Agnes Varda

Vernant: Il était une Fois….Sasha et Désiré

Veysset: Will it Snow for Christmas?

Vihanova: The Pilgrimage of Students Peter and Jacob
Squandered Sunday

Villaceque: Riviera

Villaverde: A Idade Major
Os Mutantes
Transe

Wagon: Le Secret

Walker: Waste Land

Ward: Beautiful Kate

Weber: Suspense

Weill: Girlfriends

Weiss: Guardian of the Frontier

Wertmuller: Love and Anarchy
Seven Beauties
Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny..

Wild: A Place Called Chiapas

Wilson: As If I’m Not There

Yang Yong-hi: Dear Pyongyang
Sona, the Other Myself

Youssef: Marjoun and the Flying Headscarf

Zbanic: Grbavica, Land of my Dreams

Zhang Nuanxin: Sacrificed Youth

Zhelyazkova: The Attached Balloon
The Last Word
The Swimming Pool

Innocence (Hadzihalilovic)

Turbulent (Neshat)

Jeanne Dielman (Akerman)

Tragic Story with Happy Ending (Pessoa)

Daisies (Chytilova)

The list below is in year order. I’m hoping many more films by Alice Guy-Blaché will be added to the site, and too many others on the list above are also missing. As well as personal favourites, i’ve included some popular hits and landmark films i’m less keen on.

My favourites:

The Attached Balloon (Zheliazkova)
Innocence (Hadzihalilovic)
Jeanne Dielman (Akerman)
Silences of the Palace (Tlatli)
Werckmeister Harmonies (Hranitzky) co-d
Madchen in Uniform (Sagan)
Brickmakers (Rodriguez) co-d
The House is Black (Farrokhzad)
Adoption (Meszaros)
Le Bonheur (Varda)
From the Clouds to the Resistance (Huillet) co-d
A Tree in Tanjung Malim (Tan Chui Mui)
Invisible Adversaries (Export)
Take Care of my Cat (Jeong Jae-Eun)
The Ascent (Shepitko)
The Other Side of Underneath (Arden)
Women without Men (Neshat)
Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (Huillet) co-d
Daughters of the Dust (Dash)
The Day I Became a Woman (Meshkini)
The Piano (Campion)
Begone Dull Care (Lambart) co-d
Orlando (Potter)
La Cienaga (Martel)
Katatsumori (Kawase)
Celia (Turner)
Story of the Weeping Camel (Davaa) co-d
Archipelago (Hogg)
Foreign Land (Thomas) co-d
Quasi at the Quackadero (Cruikshank)
The Love Life of the Octopus (Hamon) co-d