As told through clips from 183 female directors, Part 3 of this epic revisionist history of the cinema focuses on women’s integral role in the development of film art, specifically how directors portray bodies, sexuality, home, religion, work, politics, changing gears, and comedy.
Mark Cousins delivers a staggering alternate history of cinema, taking inspiration from groundbreaking film scholars such as Cari Beauchamp, Claire Johntson, and Lynda Miles. His long-time collaborator Tilda Swinton serves as executive producer. Cousins has conducted extraordinary research in film archives around the world to expose us to over 700 film clips from 183 female directors. He organizes the material like a class, teaching us the themes and techniques of cinema, but using only women filmmakers as examples. For the Festival, Cousins has divided this 14-hour work into five programmes:
Programme 1: How directors achieve tone, believability, introduce characters, capture conversations, and handle framing and tracking shots.
Programme 2: How directors stage scenes, capture journeys, discoveries, depict the adult child, exercise economy, editing, point of view, and close-ups.
Programme 3: How directors portray bodies, sexuality, home, religion, work, politics, changing gears, and comedy.
Programme 4: How directors handle melodrama, sci-fi, depictions of hell, tension, stasis, what is left out, story reveals, memory, and time.
Programme 5: How directors depict interiors, the existential, love, death, endings, and song and dance.
Women Make Film overturns our understanding of cinematic history. While movements from #TimesUp to the Festival's own #ShareHerJourney have forced deeper reckoning for the professional barriers against women, what's less understood is the global breadth of female filmmakers who overcame those obstacles. Guiding us through these revelations are the narration voices of Swinton, Sharmila Tagore, Jane Fonda, Adjoa Andoh, Thandie Newton, Kerry Fox, and Debra Winger.
Each part stands alone. You can sample just one or view them in any order. Whatever you choose to explore, a world of discovery awaits you.
THOM POWERS
Screenings
Scotiabank 6
TIFF Bell Lightbox 4