I watched over 150 movies directed by women in 2020. Hear me out...

To everyone who loves movies, there is almost no single person more important than one named Alice Guy-Blaché. She was one of the first people ever to direct pictures. One of the first, possibly the first human being to see film’s potential as a narrative fiction medium, rather than just a documentary one.​In all the books and essays I read at university, and of all the professors I’ve studied under, none ever even mentioned Alice Guy-Blaché. The reason we’re here in the first place. She herself was very concerned about her exclusion from film history when she was at the tail-end of her life.​What set her apart from all the Lumières and Griffiths is most obviously one thing. Even if it is starting to turn around now, how many other women we’ll never know of are lost to oblivion?​In 2020 I decided to watch more films directed by women than I have before. I realized that many of those films (especially older ones) wouldn’t come to me. You have to seek some of these out. Something that I’m still pretty bad at, even after this year.​Watching films specifically directed by women isn’t about excluding male filmmakers, or about indulging women simply because they’re women. Half of every person ever is a woman, but only a fraction of film in the collective canon is made by them. And given the example of madame Blaché, it’s almost unreasonable to think it’s by choice.​Look for example at the joke that is 1001 Movies You Have to See Before You Die. Out of a total of 1235 films included, the number directed by women: 59. How embarrassing is that...​Half of every person carries perspectives and views of the world that we almost never see. And there’s no reason for it. We should seek those perspectives out.​So that’s why I watched more films directed by women than I had before. For that perspective to be somewhat unobscured. Half the perspective really.​-​I’ve found some filmmakers that turned out to be some of my favourites by doing this. Other than the great Céline Sciammá, Lynne Ramsay and Agnès Varda, who already were some of my favourites, I’ve discovered a few others that I’ve previously overlooked:​Lois Weber, one of the all time greats of the silent era. Her short film Suspense. (1913) is a skeleton of every single home invasion thriller ever made from 1913 to at least 2019.​Lynne Stopkewich whose macabre romance/thriller Kissed (1996) is so fearless and devastating that I have no idea why it isn’t on every list about sexual awakenings. It handles possibly the only real taboo subject left.​Angela Schanelec who portrays some of the most interesting and relatable emotional paradoxes. I especially recommend The Dreamed Path (2016)​To mentioun a bare minimum amount... I’d love to mention more but this post is already way way too long. Take a look at the list above for some more recommendations if yer curious.​I was inspired by Gothenburg Film Festival’s 50/50 Vision project in 2020, where half of their selected films were directed by women. Read about that achievement in THR here!​Of course there are groups of people who deserve the same treatment. POC directors, LGBTQ+ filmmakers, some groups of disabled people and more. You can only do so much on your own.​Thanks for reading! Hope you see some great films in 2021. via /r/movies https://ift.tt/3rISrzN