I'm still working out my final MSPIFF schedule, but here are some of the films I'm excited about:
First Daughter and the Black Snake: Winona LaDuke believes Big Oil is the black snake that was predicted in Native American prophecy and that will bring about the destruction of the earth. This doc is about her fight against Enbridge. #Directed byWomen Website. Trailer.
Sami Blood: A narrative film about a Sami (indigenous Swedish people, reindeer herders, formerly known as Lapplanders) girl's life in the 1930s, when Sweden decided Sami were inferior and treated them the way Native Americans were treated in the US. She is shipped off to a Swedish school and beat if she spoke her native tongue or dressed as her family dressed. An interview with the director. Film Clip. Website. #DirectedbyWomen
Starless Dreams: A documentary about a teen girls' detention center in Tehran. Website. Trailer.
In Between: Narrative coming of age story of three Palestinian Israeli young women. Trailer. #DirectedbyWomen
Lipstick Under My Burka: Narrative film about four rural Indian women finding their personal and sexual power. Website. Trailer. #DirectedbyWomen
Anatomy of Violence: Deepa Mehta's latest film, a genre-crossing narrative film about a true story of a woman who was gang raped on a bus that comments on rape culture in our society. Website. Trailer. #DirectedbyWomen
150 Milligrams: The story of a French doctor who fought pharmaceutical companies to take a drug off the market that was killing women primarily. Website. Trailer. #DirectedbyWomen
MSPIFF has a new program this year, Black Cinema: Under the Skin. All five films are directed by Black people, one by a Black woman. I will do my best to see all five.
There are three films (that I've found so far) that are about Black people but directed by white people.
I rolled my eyes when I saw the blonde white woman featured as the director of Dispatches From Cleveland, a documentary about the movement for justice for Tamir Rice, featuring his mother Samaria Rice. But a visit to their website revealed that most of their team was comprised of Black people. This one might not suffer from the problem films directed by white people but about black or brown people suffer from: the white gaze, films created for white audiences that reinforce stereotypes and white supremacy. Their blog is an interesting read.
Step, a documentary about three teen Black girls in Baltimore striving to go to college, is directed by a white woman. It was bought by Fox Searchlight at Sundance this year, and will be released in early August. The description at Fox screams white gaze. I'm going to see it just so I can say for sure one way or another but if something better is showing at the same time, I'll wait until August.
The film Quest, a doc about one Black family in north Philly, is directed by a white man, edited by a white woman, and produced by a Black woman. I will see this one. I'm from Delaware and Philly feels like home to me.
I am like FINALLY, a documentary about the hand-clapping games I learned as a child, from my peers: Let's Get the Rhythm No adult taught me these games. How do they get spread and why haven't they been studied before? Website. Trailer. #DirectedbyWomen
