In her screening introduction, director Rita Baghdadi reasoned that she created Sirens, part of the World Documentary competition at Sundance this year, in order to make a film about women in the Middle East that wasn’t just about victimhood or struggle. What emerges is a beautifully-wrought and surprising portrait of Lebanon’s first and only all-women’s thrash metal band, Slave to Sirens.
Author: Aviva Dove-Viebahn
Aviva Dove-Viebahn is an assistant professor of film and media studies at Arizona State University and a contributing editor for Ms.' Scholar Writing Program.
Sundance 2022: “Nanny” Is an Arresting Tribute to Immigrant Mothers with a Haunting Twist
Arresting and restrained, Nikyatu Jusu’s horror film Nanny will lure you in and remain with you long after the credits roll.
(This is one in a series of film reviews from the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, focused on films by women, trans or nonbinary directors that tell compelling stories about the lives of women and girls.)
Sundance 2022: “Calendar Girls,” a Joyful Documentary About Women for Whom Age Is Just a Number
Currently premiering at Sundance, Calendar Girls is a documentary about a Florida dance troop made up of women aged 50-plus. Embracing whimsy in unicorn-themed headbands one minute and then discussing heavy subjects like death and assisted suicide the next, the Calendar Girls offer their perspectives on what it means to grow older while exploring the power of friendships, leisure, work and learning new things even later in life.
Sundance 2022: “Girl Picture” Is a Lively and Loving Slice-of-Life Look at Teens Teetering on the Cusp of Adulthood
Winner of the Audience Award in the World Cinema: Dramatic category, Girl Picture manages to be a rare pleasure: an introspective film chronicling the tumultuous emotions, bewildering betrayals, and passions of young adult friendships and romance without devolving into unrealistic melodrama or saccharine platitudes.
Sundance 2022: “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power” Is an Edifying, If Familiar, Look at Film Language and the Male Gaze
Nina Menkes’s documentary Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power is based on a lecture Menkes, a filmmaker herself, began giving about the representation of women in film. Brainwashed has a clear thesis: The visual language of film (and its “male gaze”) objectifies women characters, a phenomenon that is further linked to employment discrimination and sexual harassment in Hollywood and beyond. (Of course, media studies and gender studies programs have been actively attempting to challenge these long-held patriarchal structures for decades.)
Sundance 2022: Film “Leonor Will Never Die” Is a Playful and Sincere Reflection on the Intersection of Art and Life
What’s particularly wonderful about Leonor Will Never Die is its seamless, unpretentious blend of fantasy and reality—not to mention the charismatic Leonor herself, a fabulous character so far outside of what we usually envision when we think of action stars. It will make you think, in the best possible ways, about the intersection of art and life, the process of writing and editing, and the innovative promise of film.
Sundance 2022: “TikTok, Boom.” Interrogates the Rewards, Risks and Politics of One of the World’s Most Popular Apps
The documentary TikTok, Boom. by Shalini Kantayya persuasively argues that TikTok’s curation results in viewers finding themselves in narrower and narrower silos, where they only see videos that confirm their biases and undergird their beliefs, with little regard for fact, accuracy or diverse perspectives. On the other hand, the app has a potential democratizing effect.
Ultimately, Tiktok, Boom. functions as an edifying look at the experiences of digital natives, Generation Z and beyond, and how these young people try to make meaning in the world.
Sundance 2022: Supernatural Thriller “Master” Explores the Everyday Horrors of Racism—and the Living Nightmares They Can Become
Mariama Diallo’s debut feature film Master, which she wrote and directed, deftly navigates several registers in terms of genre—slipping from supernatural horror to intellectual drama to psychological thriller and back again.
The film doesn’t pull any punches. Its biting critique of the abysmal state of American race politics, particularly in the hallowed halls of the ivory tower, is vicious and direct. And while I won’t give away the end, I will say that it’s largely satisfying and entirely unexpected—perhaps offering a new and effective rejoinder when the horrors of the past inevitably bleed into the present.
Sundance 2022: “Am I OK?” Is a Love Letter to Female Friendships and the Shifting Priorities of Adulthood
Am I OK?, directed by Stephanie Allynne and Tig Notaro (who are romantic partners as well as professional ones) and written by Lauren Pomerantz, is a love story about female friendship. The rom-com takes a nuanced approach to exploring friendship and the ways those relationships can change and grow as we embrace adult decisions and come into our own.
‘Framing Agnes’ Tells the Stories of Trans Lives Past and Present in Inventive, Captivating Documentary
“Framing Agnes,” a documentary about transgender women and men who were interviewed in the 1960s as part of a ground-breaking UCLA gender health research project, is one of the most captivating documentaries I’ve seen in quite a while.
Directed by Chase Joynt, the doc uses the relatively well-known case of “Agnes,” a trans woman who worked the system to her advantage in order to receive surgeries that were usually denied to transgender patients, as a jumping off point.