Top10 #52FilmsByWomen 2016
9. Waiting dir. Anu Menon
Anu Menon’s feature follows two people— Tara (Kalki Koechlin) and Shiv (Naseeruddin Shah), who meet each other as their spouses are in critical condition at the hospital. Shiv’s wife has been in a coma for a long period of time, and doctors are pushing him to make that decision. Their points of views collide as they learn to share their hopes and dreams.
Here’s our original posting.
8. Familia dir. Louise Archambault
Shout out to Arsaib! One of my favorite discoveries of last year~
The film follows Sylvie Moreau’s Michele, a single mother who has a gambling problem, pushing her and her teenage daughter to hit the road and visit her childhood friend, Janine (Macha Grenon), who seems to have her life all set, but not really.
7. Nil Battey Sannata dir. Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari
Otherwise known as The New Classmate, Iyer Tiwari’s feature debut follows the lives of a mother-daughter duo— Chanda (a fabulous Swara Bhaskar) is a maid whose daughter has lost the will to study (math!) because “son of a doctor becomes a doctor; daughter of a maid becomes a maid!” In order to encourage her to continue, she enrolls in the same class as her kid… which, obviously, is embarrassing for the kiddo.
Through good ole mother-daughter competition, Chanda will try to get her daughter to pass her exams, hopefully teaching her how to search for her own drive!
6. Queen of Katwe dir. Mira Nair
Mother-daughter relationships estuvieron a la orden del día! Mira Nair’s biographical sports drama was one of them, too. Not only was she able to make chess accessible, but she created one of the most touching mother-daughter interactions. Lupita, as Phiona’s mother, was tough. But it was her tough love that made Phiona’s journey all the more satisfying as a viewer. Why didn’t this make more money, it saddens me.
Here’s Rodrigo’s review of the film, which was one of those blink-and-you’ll-miss-it releases that plague our local cinemas~
This year, I sort of petered out on watching films by the end of the year. Sherpa, a documentary about Everest guides, was probably the best female-directed film I watched. I did finally get around to Eve’s Bayou and I see why it’s considered a classic. Finally got around to Sakuran too, which could have been improved by at least a better sound mixer but was still engaging. About 111 Girls (Darbare 111 dokhtar, 111 Girls) was also good. I watched a few others that were okay. The Falling was satisfying overall but had the potential to be really great imo.
My most-watched performer was a lady, though – Meiko Kaji, in six films!
Six films! I’m still waiting if Letterboxd will be sending me my End of the Year email.
re: six Meiko Kaji films: I got a free Mubi trial when they had the Stray Cat Rock films on there, and I had already borrowed Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter from the library and saw Lady Snowblood 2 on Hulu before Criterion left them.
Sherpa was free on National Geographic Channel/OnDemand for a while here too.
Yeah, I meant I needed that email because I couldn’t count how many films of one person I’ve seen. xD My watching is so random. lol
What are you mostly using for streaming nowadays? I’ve found a brand new site for Indian streaming, Einthusan. I asked, and it’s available down here, but haven’t been lucky with streaming speed with no account, so I haven’t tested a full movie yet. There’s a couple of good titles there~
I haven’t tried any new streaming sites yet, although I do appreciate that the local libraries have subscriptions to sites like hoopla
FYI, Bangalore Days is available on that site (by Anjali Menon), and not related to this list— Sairat is also available. Good movie, left me depressed LOL