Halfway through French director Céline Sciamma’s inspiring period drama “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” it occurred to me: There had not been a single man on screen for over an hour.
Author: Aviva Dove-Viebahn
Aviva Dove-Viebahn is an Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies at Arizona State University and Contributing Editor, Scholar Writing Program for Ms.
A Look Back at “High Art” and its Legacy
Twenty-two years later, “High Art” (1998)—director Lisa Cholodenko’s first feature film—resonates simultaneously as a timeless meditation on love, loss and art and as a trenchant drama with distinctive roots in 1990s aesthetics, culture and social issues.
The Feminist Lens: Nia Malika Dixon Tells Stories for Black, Muslim Women
“The world needs to see us. The world needs to see everybody, you know? People don’t know these stories, unless we write them.”
The Feminist Lens: Tess Paras Talks #MeToo Movies and Inclusive Casting
“I was reading all this stuff about feminism every day and trying to think about these large questions and I thought, what’s a comedic take on it?”
The Feminist Lens: Why Michele Meek Celebrates a Diversity of Icons in Film
“It’s always a problem of calling attention to the discrimination that exists and then also not wanting to have to think about gender anymore. Yeah, that would be great, but we’re not there yet.”
Shouting in Silence: The Ms. Q&A with Former “Handmaid’s Tale” Costume Designer Ane Crabtree
“I’m a child of an immigrant and a child from poverty. I’m a woman who’s been through various forms of abuse. I know that those mind games of making something beautiful out of ugly is what I do for a living. I want the world to feel that.”
The Ms. Q&A: How “Thelma & Louise” Turned Jennifer Townsend into a Filmmaker
“It wasn’t a normal day-to-day kind of world I was living in at that time after seeing that film… It just lit up some place in my brain and in my heart and in my soul. There are no words. You can’t explain it when something like that happens. You just experience it. And it takes you and it leads you. You’re not leading it.”
When Abortion Becomes Ordinary
When TV comedies like Shrill tackle abortion, they do away with the drama.
A Return to Separate and Unequal: Education Equity is at Stake in the 2018 Elections
Since Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Education Department has been threatened with massive budget cuts, faced repeated risk of wholesale elimination and suffered many smaller blows adding up to significant injury— and students are feeling the pain.
Seeing Red
Crumbling classrooms, 25-year-old textbooks and insulting pay? Teachers are not going to take it anymore. With their #REDforED rallies and walkouts, our nation’s predominantly female educators are reminding us of the lesson we learned in kindergarten: Listen to the teachers.