“Being a woman is beautiful,” says one of the elderly narrators of Costa Rica’s entry for the International Oscar, Memories of a Burning Body . “But there’s also an ugly side to it: you’re always vulnerable.” Judging by this year’s leading contenders for the International Oscar, the feeling is global. Countries around the world submitted women-centered stories for the non-English-language Oscar category this year, with female protagonists finding themselves in disadvantaged situations but also often discovering their own strength against all manner of obstacles. Some of these films made the shortlist for the award, announced Tuesday, Dec. 17, such as Brazil’s I’m Still Here , France’s Emilia Pérez , Germany’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig , Palestine’s From Ground Zero and the UK’s Santosh . Many did not, including Memories of a Burning Body . Notably, only three of the 15 shortlisted films were directed by women – four if you count the compilation film From Ground Zero , which includes seven female-directed short films out of 22 total. The shortlist is also dominated by European entries, though in three cases the films are set outside Europe ( The Seed of the Sacred Fig , Santosh and Emilia Perez ). Read the full article and see the shortlist at AWFJ.org Links to my reviews: Emilia Pérez , The Seed of the Sacred Fig, From Gound Zero , Santosh , Kneecap Images courtesy of film distributors.

The psychologist who popularized the concept of Emotinonal Intelligence talks about leadership styles. Originally published in SUCCESS+

After becoming one of the first countries in Europe to draft a law concerning the use of AI, Spanish filmmakers are experimenting, with caution: "We need to embrace it, but it cannot replace art." In March, Spain ’s government became one of the first countries in Europe to approve a draft law concerning AI, almost a year to the date after formal approval of the landmark European Artificial Intelligence Act provided a common legal framework for the development, commercialization and use of AI systems across Europe. AI is one of the most divisive issues in the entertainment industry today. A week after Spain’s draft law was unveiled, 400 Hollywood creatives signed a letter of concern about copyright protections for the arts and entertainment sector, pushing back against OpenAI and Google’s appeals to the U.S. government to allow their AI models to train on copyrighted works.  Meanwhile, James Cameron recently suggested filmmakers could save 50 percent on big-budget films by using AI, to which Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos replied he hoped AI could also make them “10 percent better.”  In a smaller industry like Spain’s, these are powerful arguments. “Technological advances are a welcome and important boost for an industry accustomed to fighting against giants, like high production budgets and excessive bureaucracy,” says Beatriz Pérez de Vargas, director of AI Alter Ego, the Invisible Intelligence , a three-chapter docuseries on AI for public broadcaster RTVE, which also won awards for its use of AI. Daniel H. Torrado, director of The Great Reset , which he bills as Spain’s, if not Europe’s, first entirely AI-generated feature, agrees. “All creators have a ton of projects in the closet, because many of them either can’t find funding or there are production issues to get them off the ground,” he says. His apocalyptic tech thriller — about an AI borne from the mind of a rogue hacker that threatens to destroy the world — “would have had unaffordable costs and production times” without AI, he says. “AI allowed us to simulate complex decisions early on and experiment without the budgetary risk that often paralyzes many independent creators.”  But, Torrado adds, “human oversight was constant. Every artistic, narrative andemotional decision went through my hands. AI was a powerful tool, not a substitute for the creator.” That’s a theme among those experimenting with AI right now. “We need to embrace it, but it cannot replace art,” says film and commercials director Paco Torres, who gives AI training sessions to private companies and government organizations around the world. “We cannot lose artists, the white paper, the creation from nothing, the emotions, the human interactions, the imperfection … We need to fail, to not be perfect — this is important because it’s how we get emotion.” Read the full story in The Hollywood Reporter

This article was originally published by Provoked Magazine In Amazon Prime’s The Idea of You , a 40-year-old single mom falls for a 24-year-old boy-band idol. And the internet loses its mind. She’s called a cougar, a stalker, the “sleaziest mom of the year.” He’s questioned about the relationship, while she’s shamed. The mom—played by Anne Hathaway—has to hide out until the hate subsides. The sequence points to a truth we all know: When women date younger men, people get weird. The man might be teased. The woman? She’s despised—at least in America. Older man, younger woman? That’s not news—it’s tradition. On screen, it’s standard casting. Off screen, it’s barely a headline. Cue the Double Standard But flip the ages, and now it’s a spectacle. Sure, real-life couples like Cher and Alexander Edwards, or Helena Bonham Carter and Rye Dag Holmboe, are shaking things up. But Madonna? Demi? They got mocked for trying. The cultural cynicism still clings. And yet—something is shifting. Streaming platforms are starting to flip the script on May-December romances. Maybe because they know who’s watching : older, often female audiences who’ve had enough of invisibility. Hollywood’s Age Gap Obsession Is Getting Older—but Not Wiser Take Lonely Planet , where 35-year-old Liam Hemsworth ditches his 28-year-old girlfriend to sleep with 58-year-old Laura Dern. Nicole Kidman—also 58—has recently been cast opposite men nearly half her age: 29-year-old Harris Dickinson ( Babygirl ), 37-year-old Zac Efron ( A Family Affair ), and 48-year-old Alexander Skarsgård ( Big Little Lies ). On paper, it looks like progress. But watch them closely, and something’s still off—more tired stereotypes than feminist reinterpretations. If these films really want to appeal to older women, the writers have some serious rethinking to do. The “cougar” trope has been prowling around Hollywood for decades, but it hasn’t evolved much. In The Graduate (1967), Anne Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson seduced college grad Dustin Hoffman (only six years her junior in real life). Fast-forward to 2003, when Diane Lane found herself (and a younger man) in Under the Tuscan Sun , a global hit that arguably sparked the era of Cougar Town, MILF Manor , and other half-baked series. Back then, the “older woman” was in her 30s or 40s. Now, she’s in her 50s. The age is aging—but the storyline isn’t. Still Seeking Worth in Another’s Gaze Across all these roles, there’s a common thread: The woman’s self-worth is unlocked, not by wisdom or success, but by the interest of someone. Hathaway’s Solène is a gallery owner with a full life, but she’s still stinging from her divorce. In Babygirl , Kidman is the top female at her firm willing to risk it all for a dominating young intern. In A Family Affair and Lonely Planet , Kidman and Dern play successful writers validated by the attention of brawny but bland young bucks. These women aren’t just hot, they’re whole. But the scripts can’t seem to imagine female confidence without male approval. The takeaway? The worth of women is still tied to being desired, while age only seems to intensify that need. And it’s not just the straight girls. In HBO Max’s new Sex and the City update, And Just Like That…, 59-year-old Cynthia Nixon’s Miranda leaves her husband for a younger woman—Che (Sara Ramirez), giving up a prestigious career opportunity to follow the aspiring actor to Los Angeles. Superficially Feminist Middle-aged women on screen are finally taking their lives into their own hands, which might look like empowerment. But scratch the surface, and these “feminist” portrayals start to unravel. Take Nightbitch , where Amy Adams goes feral from the boredom of motherhood. Or The Substance , where Demi Moore literally sheds her skin to become younger. Feminist anthems ? Maybe. But more often than not, these stories rely on the same tired cliché of women losing their identities as they age. Youth, often in the form of a virile man, calls to her like a siren. Go back, it tells her, not forward. At her Golden Globes acceptance speech, Moore said: “In those moments, when we don’t think we’re smart enough, or pretty enough, or skinny enough, or successful enough … know you will never be enough, but you can know the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick.” Inspiring, but also peculiar to hear from a 62-year-old actress who looks surgically engineered not to age. We Don’t Need Younger Men. We Need Better Writers. If these films want to empower women and truly appeal to them as viewers, they should show a less-than-perfect version of what a typical woman’s body and face look like at 40, 50, or 60. Hint: it’s not Hathaway, Kidman, or Moore. They should give them companions worthy of their characters and provide them with their equals—accomplished, kind-hearted, middle-aged partners, not still-maturing boys, abusive men, or selfish lovers. They should depict women feeling fulfilled at the height of their careers and personal lives, not over the hill, embarrassed to be seen, or ready to retire their hopes, talents, and dreams. It’s no coincidence that when And Just Like That… came out, a popular meme went around reminding people that the show’s glamorous cast were the same age as—wait for it—the then-cast of The Golden Girls . If middle age at the movies is no longer frumpy and grey, if 50 is indeed the new 30 on screen, then it’s high time for Hollywood to give these female characters the realistic confidence, distinction—and partners—they deserve. Images courtesy of Amazon Prime and Netflix

When there’s a sudden, unexpected gap in leadership, business operations can go haywire. Having a detailed succession plan is the blueprint to keep everything running smoothly.   Imagine a scenario where the leader of your organization has stepped down without advance notice and nobody is ready to take their place. Or a similar situation: a company finds itself at a loss when an owner who kept his leadership expertise entirely to himself winds up in the hospital unexpectedly for several months. These are just two examples of why succession planning is essential for any size organization. And they’re both examples that Jevon Powell, an organizational psy- chologist and president, owner and senior consultant of Seattle-based firm Scontrino Powell, has seen over his nearly 30 years in the business. In the first scenario, Powell says, “the organization was caught kind of flat-footed. They had to go to a temporary or an interim president. Now they’re being more thoughtful about what their next president needs to look like.” In the second scenario, he says, the leader’s “organization almost collapsed in his absence because nobody could take over his job.” “Effective, consistent succession planning helps prevent significant gaps in leadership, so if somebody leaves unexpectedly, we know what to do,” Powell says. Succession planning is the process of identifying key positions in an organization and nurturing a talent pipeline to potentially fill those positions as the need arises. As the scenarios above indicate, succession planning helps companies avoid gaps in business operations, loss of institutional knowledge or unnecessarily bumpy leadership transitions. It engages employees and adds value to organizations. “There’s a lot of research that highlights the importance of succession planning,” Powell says. “There is less consistent research around exactly which tools are going to be the most useful or the most effective. But certainly... one of management’s prime responsibilities is to ensure that they have a succession plan in place.” So how does an organization go about doing that? Read the full story in SUCCESS+ magazine

This article was originally published by Provoked Magazine . "Try to image a life where you are owned or controlled by the men in your life." This opening line of the documentary Dear Ms. pulls viewers into a past reality that, for many women, isn’t so hard to imagine today. Rights we thought were assured—control over our bodies, our money, our choices—once again feel as flimsy as a page torn from a magazine. While 64 percent of Americans see feminism as empowering, nearly half also call it polarizing, and a third consider it outdated, according to Pew Research . So how did we get from Ms. to this, and what does the turbulent, radical story of the magazine reveal about the unfinished work of feminism now? Inside the Ms. Documentary The story of Ms . is told through the eyes of three directors: Salima Koroma, Alice Gu, and Cecilia Aldarondo. They each bring a different lens to this history, starting from iconic covers of the magazine and delving into the complicated backstory of the fledgling feminist movement and its new mouthpiece. “We’re a movement, which means we’re messy, which means we disagree, which means we need to have hard discussions,” Aldarondo said. The documentary captures those tensions and contradictions, portraying Ms. not as a perfect movement, but as a living, evolving experiment in consciousness-raising. One that’s still unfolding in today’s fights over whose voices get heard, what feminism means, and who it’s for. ‘Feminism is a Dirty Word’ Koroma recalled telling Ms. co-founder Gloria Steinem that people her age see feminism “as a dirty word.” The legend’s response? “It’s always been a dirty word.” “I don’t know if we necessarily anticipated or even made this film expecting for women’s rights to be so threatened,” Aldarondo admitted. Gu agreed: “It’s easy to go through life like, I can drive a car, I have a bank account, my husband doesn’t beat me, and he wouldn’t even dream of it, thank God, I can wear pants. Look, the three of us … we’re all directors, we’re all women of color … We’ve come a long way, but … there’s still many, many areas where we have a long way to go.” The Origin Story Some of the other names originally considered for the magazine may sound more extreme today, like Sojourner, Lilith, Bimbo, or Bitch. But “Ms.” —combining Mrs. and Miss—represented a revolutionary new status of marital and professional independence for women in the 1970s. And men weren’t quite ready for it: ABC News Anchor Harry Reasoner gave the magazine six months. Then the debut edition sold out—and Reasoner had to apologize on air. There was a hungry market for topics like “De-sexing the English language” and “How to write your own marriage contract.” The inaugural edition splashed the shocker “We have had abortions” across two pages. More than 50 women signed their names—including many well-known public figures. Some hadn’t even had abortions. They signed in solidarity, risking legal action. Breaking Taboos “I think we were smarter than we thought we were,” Steinem says in the film of those early days. “A lot of these articles could still be relevant.” Decades before #MeToo, the magazine shone a light on dark realities, opening conversations on previously taboo topics. Ms. was the first women’s magazine to cover domestic violence in 1976 and the first national publication to feature sexual harassment on its cover in 1977. Why did it take a magazine to legitimize what women had long been screaming into the void? “It wasn’t something that was really talked about,” Gu noted, telling the story of a friend who recently admitted she’d been the victim of spousal abuse for a decade. “She’s a complete feminist. She’s very strong, she’s very vocal. So, it still happens. And a lot of these were secrets … I think it’s still hard to talk about.” Consciousness-Raising Group  Ms. stepped into the public sphere as a kind of “virtual consciousness-raising group,” Aldarondo underscored. “It was a way for women who were isolated, who didn’t have people around them to be able to go, ‘Hey, let’s go to this meeting.’ You have your magazine every month, and that’s your meeting.” Koroma pointed to the piles of letters Ms. received from women all over the country that affirmed this community—and gave the film its Dear Ms. title. “It’s a lot of women who are reading these things and saying, ‘Oh, that’s my experience too.’ And then they’re writing in and they’re connecting in that way as well. So I think also the letters were a place for this forum, this consciousness-raising group where women could express their experience.” All images courtesy of Getty Images and HBO.

Your partner has three friends: a college roommate he hasn’t called in a year, his brother, and you. Guess who’s carrying the weight? If this scenario sounds familiar, you might be “mankeeping.” When Mankeeping Gets a Name The term, coined last year by a pair of Stanford researchers , describes the social and emotional imbalances in many male-female relationships today. “I expected my kids to rely on me, but not so much my husband, for emotional support, encouragement, and counsel,” one woman told me. “If he acted on my suggestions, it would be easier. Instead, it’s draining.” And nobody’s talking about it. We’ve had the conversation about women’s unequal, unpaid, often underappreciated roles managing childcare and keeping house. But what about the emotional cost of our role in the “male friendship recession”? The Loneliness Epidemic It turns out otherwise potentially healthy heterosexual relationships are one more casualty of the loneliness epidemic , and women are bearing the burden. “It’s completely untenable and exhausting, and all the cracks in the relationship open that much wider and deeper,” said Marcus Berley , a licensed mental health counselor. The “male friendship recession” isn’t great for men either. They’re facing “increasing isolation, stunted emotional life, more bypassing of what their needs might be, and just defaulting into either what they think they’re supposed to do or into fantasy of how they’re going to solve it all,” Berley said. No Laughing Matter I admit I started this article a little tongue in cheek. The term “mankeeping” made me smirk, kind of like “manscaping” or “manosphere.” Then I began hearing from friends, and I realized just how serious, widespread—and, yes, exhausting—this phenomenon is. I sent an anonymous five-question survey to almost two dozen female friends, asking about their friend networks, social calendars, and the impact of relationship imbalances on these fronts—versus that of their male partners’. Email and text reactions came in fast and furious. They’d just been talking about this with a friend! They’re living this! Yes, they want to discuss it! Two women told me that the burdens of mankeeping had led, at least in part, to their divorces. Continue article here ---> https://provokedmagazine.com/mankeeping-is-real-and-women-are-exhausted/ Photo by Tim Mossholder: https://www.pexels.com/photo/male-and-female-signage-on-wall-1722196/

Published September 2025

Published November 2025

When I first saw  The Breakfast Club  at my local theater in 1985, I sat through two back-to-back screenings. My companion didn’t want to be seen in the lobby crying after the first show. That was the effect this film had on many of us Gen X-ers. Looking back now, it’s clear why—honest movies about teen life were rare back then. But today, I’m also a little embarrassed by  how  we were seen. When my teenage daughter first watched  The Breakfast Club  and predecessor  Sixteen Candles , she was shocked at what we had accepted as “normal” when we were her age. Ch-Ch-Changes Molly Ringwald, co-star of both iconic films, dropped a bomb in 2018 when she described those beloved artifacts as “racist, misogynistic, and, at times, homophobic.” Ringwald’s reassessment raised a question we’re still wrestling with—how to honor the cultural touchstones of our youth without ignoring what they got wrong. Forty years later, the film feels like a time capsule of everything we’ve outgrown—and everything we still haven’t. On the occasion of  The Breakfast Club  turning 40 this year, I took one of my best friends from high school to see it again in theaters. We were reminded of what we’d forgotten about those days, what this movie pioneered, and what its shortcomings reveal about a culture desperately due for change. One welcome difference: We were old enough to sip wine while watching this time. Continue article here ---> https://provokedmagazine.com/the-breakfast-club-turns-40-a-little-worse-for-the-wear/ Image courtesy of Universal Pictures

Buoyed by a nuanced and captivating performance from Brazilian star Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent is a mystery that twists and simmers its way to its only possible, reality-based, heartrending closure. The film took home top awards from last May’s Cannes Film Festival and has rightfully landed on year-end “best of” lists. Now it’s a major season awards contender, making the shortlist for the International Oscar and landing three top Golden Globe nominations (for drama, foreign language and – a first for a Brazilian man – dramatic actor). The story centers on Armando, a widowed former university professor turned political refugee using the pseudonym Marcelo as he hides out in 1977 Brazil. When a pair of hitmen are hired to take Armando out, he’s told to flee the country, but he won’t go without his young son, Fernando. He tells his story on a recorded audiotape (with some explanatory scenes fleshed out in flashback). Decades later, the tape is reviewed by a young university researcher who saves a copy and takes it to Armando’s son, now grown (also played by Moura). Even as details of Armando’s story are only slowly revealed, which could cause confusion for some viewers (or even turn some off from the purposefully meandering, nearly three-hour movie), Moura’s blend of sensitivity and strength – and the production team’s spellbinding capture of period details – infuse the mystery with a deeper significance that holds the viewer’s attention. In ways, Armando stands in for an entire nation facing a brutal, 21-year military dictatorship – and still living life in the meanwhile (as in a scene where the hitmen pursue their target through the busy streets of Carnival celebrations). He’s on the run, fearful for his life, still hopeful for his future, impossibly brave in the face of imminent threats – and ultimately doomed. In ways, he’s also the male counterpart to Fernanda Torres’ role last year as Eunice Paiva, a woman investigating the forced disappearance of her politician husband, based on real historical figures, in Walter Salles’ 1970s-set I’m Still Here . (It’s surely not lost on the Agent team that Torres became the first Brazilian actress to win an acting Golden Globe last year, and the film took home the International Oscar). Perhaps it’s telling that Agent is the second Brazilian film in as many years to tackle this ugly historical record. Could the current political climate be inspiring a cautionary revival of historical memory? While different, both films rely on simmering central performances, minute period details and a subtle rendering of the fear people lived with under the brutal regime. The violence is palpable in both films, but in Agent , it’s made more explicit in some very bloody scenes. And the regime, or the threat Armando faces, is likened to a predator shark via a substory involving a human leg found in the belly of a tiger shark and later imagined in an absurdly comical way to be terrorizing the city. The national obsession with the story of the shark and the leg is paralleled in the film’s storyline by the 1977 release of the film Jaws . This is just one of writer-director Kleber Mendonca Filho’s nods to the cultural role of cinema of that era, and just one of the elements of the film’s masterful period production detail, also including the music, a saturated color palette and the use of widescreen and split screen. The still used as the poster in the US, showing Moura in period wardrobe framed by a large mustard-colored oval phone booth with a red pay phone, perfectly captures that studied 70s look. Review originally published by AWFJ.org Images courtesy of Neon

Published January 2026