The Future is Female (Directors) III
December: The Future is Female (Directors) III, FLMTQ Releases 270-274
During the month of December Filmatique presents The Future is Female (Directors) III, a collection of exemplary features from a new canon of female directorial voices.
Lila Avilés's eerie and atmospheric The Chambermaid observes the quotidian rhythms of a high-class hotel through the eyes of a female maid in Mexico City, while Talya Lavie's Zero Motivation paints a similarly sterile portrait of labor and duty in present-day Israel. Afia Nathaniel's Dukhtar embarks on a journey through northern Pakistan, as a desperate mother flees everything she has known in a perilous attempt to save her daughter from an arranged marriage. Joanna Hogg's Exhibition examines how space, art, and memory form indelible entanglements while Anita Rocha da Silveira's sultry and startling Kill Me Please traces the strange reverberations a wave of murders effects upon a group of listless teenagers in Rio de Janeiro.
Screening four debut features alongside the third film from celebrated British auteur Joanna Hogg, Filmatique's The Future is Female (Directors) III series observes common themes in regions as diverse as Israel, Pakistan, Brazil, Mexico, and the United Kingdom—tales of labor and exploitation, memory and desire, privilege and perseverance.
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The Chambermaid, Lila Avilés (2018)
The Chambermaid, Lila Avilés / Mexico, 2018
Eve works as a chambermaid at a luxurious hotel in Mexico City. Steeped in architectural splendor and sumptuous textures of privilege, Eve's surroundings are privvy to others, not her. She labors invisibly, a fleeting presence populating non-spaces—service elevators, corridors, cleaning facilities. With repetition, Eve's monotonous days tending anonymously to the needs of others evoke the restlessness of her own dreams, which linger in these absent spaces.
Charting the emotional landscape of the female laborer across spaces not designed for her consumption, The Chambermaid poignantly captures forms of subjugation both overt and subtle. Lila Avilés's feature debut premiered at Toronto, the San Sebastián International Film Festival, AFI Fest, and New Directors/New Films.
Dukhtar, Afia Nathaniel (2014)
Dukhtar, Afia Nathaniel / Pakistan-Norway-USA, 2014
Allah Rakhi lives in the Hunza Valley with her husband, a local tribal leader, and their ten-year-old daughter Zainab. Violence has plagued their community for some time, due to a rivalry with Tor Gul, the neighboring strongman. Peace is promised on one condition—Tor Gul desires Zainab's hand in marriage. Rather than seeing her daughter assume this fate, Allah Rakhi sets off with her into the surrounding wilderness.
Focalizing the social issue of child brides through a humanizing journey of two women's fight for survival, Dukhtar offers a thrilling journey through northern Pakistan. Afia Nathaniel's debut feature premiered at Toronto International Film Festival, Busan, and BFI London. The film was Pakistan's official submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards, but was not nominated.
Exhibition, Joanna Hogg (2013)
Exhibition, Joanna Hogg / United Kingdom, 2013
D and H are both artists. They are also a couple. They have, furthermore, decided to sell their modernist home in London, where they have lived together for more than two decades. The process of saying goodbye is long, languorous, and governed by tumult, as latent aspects of their shared history in this space—fears, dreams, and memories—ripple to the surface.
A masterfully detached study of spatial relations and the creeping dysfunction of its characters, Exhibition delves into the vicissitudes of class privilege among an ostensibly bohemian couple. The third feature from British filmmaker Joanna Hogg (The Souvenir) premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival, Rotterdam, BFI London, Vancouver, and Thessaloniki.
Kill Me Please, Anita Rocha da Silveira (2015)
Kill Me Please, Anita Rocha da Silveira / Brazil-Argentina, 2015
Bia, Michele, Mariana and Renata live in an affluent neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. Considered the cool girls at school, they are both priveleged and neglected by their parents, who more or less leave them to their own devices. A wave of murders suddenly appears, terrorizing their neighborhood—instead of fear, however, the girls feel a mutual and morbid fascination with the victims.
Blending elements of slow-burn horror and female coming-of-age, Kill Me Please weaves a captivating portrait of female adolescence in which teenage sexuality, desire, and death intermingle in unsettling ways. Anita Rocha da Silveira's debut film premiered at SXSW - South by Southwest, the Venice International Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, and Rio de Janeiro, where it won Best Director and Best Actress.
Zero Motivation, Talya Lavie (2014)