Film

‘Pink Belt’ Documentary Follows Aparna Rajawat’s Mission to Train Women and Girls in Self-Defense Across India

PUBLISHED 4/17/2026 by

Even as a child, Aparna Rajawat could see how boys in India were more respected, safer and freer than girls.

Wanting a way to defend herself, Rajawat cut her hair short and disguised herself as a boy, attending karate lessons behind her father’s back with the help of her mother and sister. By the time he discovered her secret, she was so good her coach was able to convince her father to let her continue. She went on to become a national champion and compete internationally, all while she was a teenager.

But that’s only the beginning of Rajawat’s story—a story in which her own achievements are only a backdrop to a life-long quest to inspire other Indian women and girls to achieve their dreams and protect themselves in a country where, despite its many advancements, incidents of sexual assault are still rampant and survivors struggle to get justice.

Enter Pink Belt Mission, Rajawat’s nonprofit, through which she works as a motivational speaker as well as training thousands of girls and women in self-defense.

It’s also the subject of a new documentary directed by John McCrite. A remarkable film, Pink Belt starts with Aparna Rajawat’s story, but goes much further, illuminating a path for anyone who cares about human rights to take that first step towards making a difference in their own communities and beyond.

‘The Other Roe’ Film Shines a Light on Forgotten Abortion-Rights Case Doe v. Bolton

PUBLISHED 4/15/2026 by

On June 24, 2026, we’ll reach the fourth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s infamous Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. This year, which would have been Roe’s 53rd anniversary, also coincides with the United States’ 250th, reminding us that while the U.S. has been independent since 1776, American women are still far from having full rights and power over our own bodies.

Roe v. Wade, which passed in 1973 and stood for 49 years, gets most of the credit for establishing the national right to abortion. Many people think of Roe as the first big bookend ushering in the right to abortion in the U.S., with Dobbs as the other bookend taking that right away again.

However, Roe wasn’t the only groundbreaking case that paved the way for abortion rights in the U.S. 

Doe v. Bolton, Roe v. Wade’s lesser-known companion case, was argued before the Supreme Court in 1973 the same day as Roe and was equally crucial to abortion rights in the United States.

‘First They Came for My College’: The Takeover of a Florida College and the Students Who Refused to Disappear

PUBLISHED 4/9/2026 by

When I told coworkers and friends I was going to see a documentary about the right-wing takeover of a small public Florida college, the reaction was immediate and unanimous: Why would you do that to yourself? Too depressing. I’d be too angry.

They weren’t wrong. Premiering at SXSW last month and directed by Patrick Bresnan, First They Came for My College is, at times, almost unbearable to watch—a slow, procedural dismantling of a public institution, carried out in meeting rooms and press conferences and budget lines.

But what stayed with me wasn’t only the anger—it was the stubborn, surprising insistence on community, joy and showing up anyway.

Netflix Documentary ‘Inside the Manosphere’ Exposes a Digital Pipeline to Misogyny

PUBLISHED 3/22/2026 by

On March 11, Netflix released Inside the Manosphere, a new documentary by Louis Theroux that hit the No. 1 spot on Netflix. It is an uncomfortable but necessary examination of how the manoverse—a loose conglomeration of men’s rights and red pill influencers, podcasters and politicians—exploits and harms young boys and teenagers.

At the heart of the documentary is a profound inequity in the influencer space between the experiences and expectations of men and women. While the male content creators are eager to proclaim traditional values, they exalt “one-sided monogamy,” where they expect women to remain loyal to them (“my wife doesn’t talk to any men”) while they have multiple partners. While they shame women who do sex work on OnlyFans, one of the influencers, Harrison Sullivan, funds an OnlyFans creator house. His excuses—that it’s just business, that he would never allow his own daughter to do OnlyFans—attempts to create distance and deniability between him and his commercial choices and consequences. 

A majority of the influencers Theroux speaks to seem to be aware of the harm they cause. Sullivan even warns Theroux that young teenage boys should not be watching their content, and blames the parents that would allow their children to consume this content. Several seconds later, we see the influencer taking photos with young fans.

What’s worse is witnessing how damaging the manosphere rhetoric is to men.

When content creator Justin Waller meets up with two of his fans on the street, one of them shares, “He’s one of my greatest role models,” and when asked what he has learned from Waller and others’ content says, “Life as a man, you’re born without value. We have to build that value.” Waller jumps in and says that women are born with value because of their beauty but “nobody’s gonna invite him on a trip to Miami. … He has to be valuable to other men.”

How devastating that these men are raised not just to accept, but to thank, influencers and content creators that tell them they are born without inherent value. 

‘The Bride!’ Speaks Back: Rage and Autonomy in Gyllenhaal’s Frankenstein

PUBLISHED 3/12/2026 by

Women are often stereotyped as overly talkative—gossiping, ‘blabbing’ or labeled ‘chatty Cathys.’ Archie Bunker in the television series All in the Family often tells his wife Edith to “stifle yourself” to stop her talking. Recently, one critic argued that “the bride” (played by Jessie Buckley) in writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s new movie of the same name, talks too much.

What makes Gyllenhaal’s reinvention of James Whale’s 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein story so compelling is precisely because this fabricated lady has her own voice and uses it loudly and in a rage. We’re glad she speaks.

Missiles, Memes and Masculinity: When the White House Turns War Into Entertainment

PUBLISHED 3/10/2026 by

Following the illegal strikes of war against Iran, the White House transitioned from traditional diplomacy to digital propaganda, releasing a series of highly stylized videos that blurred the lines between state-sanctioned violence and Hollywood entertainment. By splicing real military strikes with iconic imagery from films like Gladiator and John Wick, the administration did more than just trivialize the human cost of an illegal war; it reanimated an antiquated patriarchal script that equates manhood with domination.

Beyond the troubling optics of movie tropes and videogame aesthetics lies a deeper systemic framework. As we navigate the twenty-first century, the real challenge facing American society is not the defeat of “enemies” abroad, but the transformation of manhood at home. To build a more humane world, we must move beyond the spectacle and embrace a courage defined by care, empathy and the bravery to reject violence, even when our own government insists that violence is what makes a man.

Oscar-Nominated Documentary ‘The Devil Is Busy’ Shows What It Takes to Keep an Abortion Clinic Safe

PUBLISHED 3/9/2026 by

Tracii’s day begins early—before dawn. She arrives at work, turns on the lights and thoroughly searches the building for intruders. Then she checks outside, where it’s still dark, making sure no one is hiding in the woods or behind a dumpster.

Tracii is the head of security at an abortion clinic in Atlanta, and is also the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary short, The Devil Is Busy. Directed by Christalyn Hampton and Geeta Gandbhir, the film follows Tracii over the course of a long, stressful day at the clinic, as she works tirelessly to ensure not just the safety but the comfort of the women seeking care. (Neither her last name, nor the name of the clinic, gets mentioned in the film.)

Available to stream on HBO Max, The Devil Is Busy is a compelling portrait of a deeply compassionate woman on the frontlines of the abortion war. It packs a lot into 31 minutes, exploring not just the precarious status of abortion care post-Roe v. Wade, but also the fraught intersection of race, religion and women’s health.

The film arrives just as advocates mark Abortion Provider Appreciation Day, observed each year on March 10. The date honors Dr. David Gunn, an abortion provider murdered by a white supremacist anti-abortion extremist in 1993. Since 1996, supporters have used the day to recognize the courage and compassion of abortion providers—people like Tracii—whose work continues despite harassment, threats and political attacks.

Sundance 2026: In Documentary ‘One in a Million,’ a Syrian Girl’s Life in Exile Reveals the Long Road After War

PUBLISHED 3/6/2026 by

Winner of Sundance’s Audience Award in the World Cinema Documentary category, as well as the Directing Award for filmmakers Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes, One in a Million lives up to its title. It homes in with a laser focus on the experiences of Israa, a Syrian girl whose family undertakes the perilous migration to Germany after the start of the Syrian civil war.

When the filmmakers first meet Israa in 2015, she is an inquisitive 11-year-old selling cigarettes on the street in Turkey while her family waits for the chance to cross the Mediterranean. The journey that follows—overcrowded rafts, long treks across multiple borders and nights spent sleeping on the street—contains harrowing moments, but it ultimately occupies only a sliver of the film’s larger story.

Once the family arrives in Germany, where the filmmakers check in with them over the next nine years, One in a Million reveals a far more complicated and intimate portrait of migration and acculturation.

As Israa grows from child to teenager to young adult, she navigates questions of identity, freedom and belonging, while her mother Nisreen becomes increasingly confident and independent in a country that offers opportunities she was denied in Syria. The result is a quietly riveting portrait of family life in transition, showing how the experience of displacement continues to reshape relationships, expectations and the possibilities of who each person might become.

(This is one in a series of film reviews from the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, focused on films by women, trans or nonbinary directors that tell compelling stories about the lives of women and girls.)

Sundance 2026: ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’ Is an Empathetic, Slice-of-Life Portrait of One Teenage Girl’s Summer

PUBLISHED 3/3/2026 by

For adults who’ve conveniently blocked out memories of their own teenage angst, director Paloma Schneideman’s Big Girls Don’t Cry may bring all those feelings roaring back—but it’ll also urge you to have a little empathy for the younger version of yourself.

A New Zealand entry in Sundance’s World Cinema Dramatic competition, the film is a sensitive, insightful portrayal of how teenagers struggle to sort out their own mixed motivations while shuttling constantly between big adult feelings and childlike urges.

(This is one in a series of film reviews from the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, focused on films by women, trans or nonbinary directors that tell compelling stories about the lives of women and girls.)