September 2018
FEMILIST:
SEPTEMBER 2018
*FEMALE CREATORS*
Ioana
Uricaru / Lemonade
Ioana Uricaru is a Romanian writer-director whose first feature, Lemonade, just won the Best Director
award at the Sarajevo film festival this month.
Her work is not only beautiful and moving, but also socially and
politically important. As with her
previous work, Lemonade is a poignant look into our country’s immigration issues
and serves as a twist on the American Dream--a sort of reverse-fairytale. The film is inspired by Iona’s own experience
as a Romanian-American immigrant.
Logline: While
working in the US on a temporary visa as a caretaker, Mara, a 30 year-old
single mother from Romania marries Daniel, an American patient she’s been
caring for. She applies for a green card
for her and her son but the process falls unexpectedly off course. Mara is
faced with abuse of power on every level and forced to answer a dark question
about herself- how far would you go to get what you want?
Variety Film Review: Variety
Film Review
Aminder
Dhliwal /Woman World
Aminder Dhliwal is a Canadian animator, artist, and filmmaker
currently living in Los Angeles. While
studying animation at Sheridan College in Ontario, Aminder got the opportunity
to intern at Nickelodeon back in 2011, which resulted in her snagging an artist
position at the company. She worked on a
number of shows including Sanjay and Craig, Fairly Odd Parents, etc before
moving over to directing at the Cartoon Network. It was after attending the Women’s March of
2017 that she was inspired to create the webcomic, Woman World. After finding a
major following on Instagram, the comic is now coming out in print edition with
the intention to grow the story and following even more.
Logline: Woman World is a hilarious and wildly popular instagram comic about a
world where men have become extinct.
Desiree
Akhavan / The Bisexual
Desiree Akhavan is a bisexual American-Iranian filmmaker and actor
with two feature films under her belt.
Her second feature film, The
Miseducation of Cameron Post, won the grand jury prize at Sundance this
year and all of her work explores the issue of identity formation for gay or bi
characters in a world where people often see things in only black or white. She
was also cast by Lena Dunham in Girls
after Lena saw her first feature, Appropriate
Behavior. Her series, The Bisexual,
was just picked up this month by Channel 4.
Logline: A taboo sex comedy set in East London that
takes a painfully hilarious look at the difference of dating men and women from
the perspective of a person who finds herself doing both.
Ashley
Clements / Sina
Ashley Clements is best known for starring as Lizzie in the 2012 Emmy
award winning webseries, The Lizzie
Bennett Diaries. She’s remained
active as an actress since then starring in smaller features and series
projects including Non-Transferable
and Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery
Dinner Party. However Clements grew
tired of waiting around for other people to cast her in roles and decided to,
as she puts it, “give herself permission” to do what she loves by creating and
starring in her own digital series entitled Sona,
which launched this month on Legendary’s digital platform, Alpha.
Logline: Sona is set in a future where aliens are no
longer welcome on earth, and will follow a Space Corps officer (Clements) who
is married to an alien and is now trapped in a malfunctioning escape pod. The
series will use flashbacks to recount the decisions that led to her isolation,
and in the process touch on pertinent social issues including mental health,
immigration, and betrayal.
Imogen
Thomas / Emu Runner
Imogen Thomas is an Australian filmmaker and graduate of NYU whose
first feature film, Emu Runner, was
selected as part of TIFF’s Discovery program.
She’s been making short films since the 90’s and her work often explores
the hidden dreams and personal realities of indigenous Australians living in
wide-open spaces, far away from mainstream culture. Imogen developed Emu Runner in collaboration
with Freya Barker, a Ngemba Aboriginal woman.
Logline: Emu Runner is a lyrical story about the impact
a mother's death has on an Aboriginal family living in an isolated community,
which is perched on an ancient river and surrounded by sprawling plains. The
story is seen through the eyes of Gem, a spirited 8-year-old girl, who deals
with the grief of her mother's death by forging a bond with a wild emu, a
mythical bird of her ancestors.
A subtle slice of life character piece about an older Australian woman
who is forced to face her own prejudices when she gets temporarily stranded in
a remote country town.
*ARTICLES*
How a
Transplanted Face Transformed a Young Woman’s Life by Joanna
Connors
National Geographic | August 2018
This article is an absolute must-read for anyone interested
in…humans. It’s the harrowing story of
a young woman who shot herself in the face in a suicide attempt when she was
18. She survived, and as of today she’s
had THREE faces; the one she was born with, the ones the surgeons crafted after
the incident to keep her alive, and the one that used to belong to Andrea
Schneider before she died of a drug overdose.
The article is about much more than just the science of a face
transplant. It’s a story about
identity-how we form it, how we re-shape it, and how life goes on in the most
unexpected of ways.
A Girl’s
Guide To Missiles by Karen Piper
Viking | August 2018
A professor returns
to the California military base where she grew up to make sense of her family’s
role developing weapons for the US government.
A
Sisterhood of Nurses by Lucette Lagnado
The Wall Street Journal | August 2018
As a girl in Manila in the late ’60s,
Teresa Santos set her heart on becoming a nurse because she was dazzled by the
starched white uniforms and jaunty caps nursing students wore. She trained in
her native Philippines and in 1979, was hired by Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.
Five classmates from the same nursing college in the Philippines joined her
there: Connie Arostegui, Patricia “Peachy” Hain, Joyette Jagolino, Nora Levid
and Gertrudes Tan. Over the past 40 years, the six women have been not just
friends and colleagues, but family. What carried them through personal and professional crises in their adopted
country and back home were the extraordinary bonds they formed with one another
through their work.
*Rights are available. Contact Ben Rosen at brosen@storiedmediagroup.com for more
info.
My Voice
Got Deeper. Suddenly People Listened. By Thomas
Page McBee
The New York Times | August 2018
A few months after he began injecting
testosterone, Thomas discovered that one of the startling new privileges of his
male body was that he could silence an entire room just by opening his mouth.
The Marines
Didn’t Think Women Belonged in the Infantry.
She’s Proving Them Wrong. By Thomas Gibbons-Ness
The New York Times | August 2018
First Lt. Marina A. Hierl is 24 years old and the first woman in the
Marine Corps to lead an infantry platoon.
At present, 37 women have attended the 13 week Marine Corps’ Infantry
Office Course at Quantico, Va. Only 2
have passed, and Heirl was the only one who was given a platoon of 35 men to
lead. Earning their respect was no easy
feat.
*BOOK*
Caged by Ellison
Cooper
Caged is Ellison Cooper’s first published novel. Before turning her hand to writing fiction,
Cooper had a lengthy career as an archeologist/archeology professor, and then
as a murder investigator in Washington D.C as well as being an outspoken
political activist. She began to write
as a sort of mental refuge once her son grew ill and her mind was in a constant
state of worry. Caged is the result of 1
year and 8 months of writing during which time Ellison channeled the constant
oscillation between fear and hope from her own life into the structure and feel
of her novel.
Logline: Caged finds doggedly
determined and tough FBI special agent and neuroscientist Sayer Altair in a
clock-ticking race to nab a depraved killer who’s trapping young women in cages
at undisclosed locations while taunting and toying with the law.
Mercury News Article: Son’s
Worrisome illness lands first-time author Ellison Cooper a three-book deal
*PODCAST*
Sold in
America hosted by Noor Tagouri
Podcast network, Stitcher, just announced a slate of new podcasts
coming this fall including one hosted by the fearless young Muslim journalist
and activist, Noor Tagouri. Sold in America will be an in-depth
expansion of the television series of the same name and will explore the faces
and personal stories of the U.S sex trade. The Series will premiere on October
10th.
Logline: This deeply personal and deeply reported series takes
listeners across the country to meet the human faces of this billion-dollar
sex-trade, uncovering its surprising misconceptions.
Comments
Post a Comment