WOMEN MAKE FILM: A NEW ROAD MOVIE THROUGH CINEMA
UK, 2019 | 840 mins | Cert 15 | Dir. Mark Cousins | With Tilda Swinton, Jane Fonda, Adjoa
Andoh, Sharmila Tagore, Kerry Fox, Thandie Newton and Debra Winger
Using almost a thousand film extracts from thirteen decades and five continents, Cousins asks how films are made, shot and edited; how stories are shaped and how movies depict life, love, politics, humour and death, all through the compelling lens of some of the world’s greatest directors – all of them women.
‘A sprawling 14-hour lesson in film history told through the eyes of female directors’
Little White Lies
‘An eye-opening, tantalizing resource’
Hollywood Reporter
On the whole, Cousins’s is a fascinating foray into the world of film-making. It’s a visual feast, an
odyssey exploring the craft and yet another reminder — in case it were needed — that women do
indeed make films. And great ones too.
Morning Star
EPISODE 1
The first of five programmes explores how directors achieve tone, introduce characters, capture conversations and handle framing and tracking shots. The examples used range across the decades and around the globe, including the pioneering Hollywood director Dorothy Arzner, Elaine May, Agnès Varda, Vĕra Chytilová, Maren Ade and Yuliya Solntseva.
EPISODE 2
The journey continues in a wide-ranging programme that focuses on movement, simplicity of style, the story of films about children, dreams, the power of the close-up and the way discovery and revelation shape some of cinema’s most iconic moments. A lavish feast of rare clips are woven together likes pearls on a string as we are encouraged to appreciate the skill of Andrea Arnold’s American Honey, Sabina Sumar’s Silent Waters, Alice Guy’s Madam’s Cravings, Maya Deren’s Meshes Of The Afternoon, Aparna Sen’s 36 Chowringhee Lane and many, many others.
EPISODE 3
Available from 1 June
Sex, religion and politics are among the themes in the third programme of the documentary with a dazzling look at how women directors have filmed bodies, shown sex on screen, created some of the best films about religion and tackled politics from the silent era to the 21st century. Examples here include Leni Reifenstahl’s notorious The Triumph Of The Will, Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days, Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl, Donna Deitch’s Desert Hearts, Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher and Yuliya Sointseva’s Soviet fantasy The Enchanted Desna.
EPISODE 4
Available from 8 June
Melodrama, memory, classic genres and tense emotions come under the spotlight in the fourth programme of the documentary. Women’s contribution to science-fiction, squirm-making horror and unbearably tense thrillers ranges from Rachel Talalay’s Tank Girl to Marleen Gorris’s A Question Of Silence via Carol Morley’s Dreams Of A Life and Ida Lupino’s Outrage. Gems of memory and time take us to the work of Chantal Akerman, Maria Plyta and Mati Diop. Filled with names you will know and filmmakers that go to the top of the list of talents you are keen to explore further.
EPISODE 5
Available from 15 June
The journey ends with the biggest themes of love, death and the meaning of life. That allows for a final stunning selection of work by women directors that includes Euzhan Palcy’s Sugar Cane Alley, Jane Campion’s The Piano, Kinuyo Tanaka’s Love Letters, Caroline Leaf’s The Street and Binka Zhelyazkova’s The Attached Balloon. The whole stunning work concludes with a song and a dance courtesy of Alice Guy, Margaret Tait, Celina Sciamma, Vera Stroyeva and the irreplacable Agnès Varda. Our understanding of cinema history will never be the same again.
Episodes released each week – more info HERE
Watch the trailer HERE
