FILMS from AFAR

This review was originally published by The Alliance of Women Film Journalists . “A director makes only one movie in his life. Then he breaks it up and makes it again.” The Jean Renoir quote captures the way many auteurs, Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar included, seem to chip away at the same ideas and themes over and over again. His entertaining new melodrama,  Bitter Christmas (Amarga Navidad) , is clearly carved from the same marble as his other globally acclaimed works.  Add to this the irony that celebrity can reduce a person’s physical world at the same time it expands their global reputation, as Almodóvar himself has acknowledged in interviews, and you may approach an explanation for why his films feel both increasingly centered around his own individual experience and immediately recognizable to viewers around the world.  Bitter Christmas  is just such a package. The film is widely expected to premiere internationally at Cannes, but since its March 20 release in Spain it has sparked debate about the role of autobiography in the director's films – and creative works in general. That is entirely the movie’s point.  Leonardo Sbaraglia (co-star of the also semi-autobiographical  Pain and Glory ) stars as Raúl Durán, a version of the auteur – an aging film director in a creative slump yet still peppered with international awards, tributes and lucrative invitations. His assistant, Mónica (Aitana Sánchez-Gijon, who has a riveting monologue in 2021’s  Parallel Mothers ), quits in an early scene to care for her partner Elena, who has fallen into a deep depression following the death of her son.  But we don’t meet Elena or know her story until much later in the film. Instead, we’re introduced to Elsa (a mesmerizing Bárbara Lennie), a filmmaker with two “cult” films to her credit and a career in advertising (“cult,” we’re told in a funny exchange, means just a few people liked it). Elsa is dating the strapping and good-natured fireman-slash-stripper Beau (a genial Patrick Criado), but she’s suffering from migraines and begins experiencing panic attacks on the one-year anniversary of her mother’s death.  On doctor’s advice, she takes a restorative trip to the Canary Island of Lanzarote with her friend Patricia (Victoria Luengo, who had a small role in  The Room Next Door ). Patricia has just discovered that her husband is cheating on her, and Elsa feels strongly that he’s no good for her. Later, Elsa invites her depressed friend Natalia (Milena Smit, co-star of  Parallel Mothers ) to join her on the volcanic island.  It takes a minute before you realize that the movie you’re watching about Elsa and friends is actually the film Raúl is writing. And thus begins a circular tale of filmmakers appropriating from reality to create fiction, which in turn provides a window into real life. More than one scene involves arguments about this creative process, as in a rousing climactic confrontation in which Mónica accuses Raúl of ‘vampirism.’ In response, with a gleam in his eye, Raúl scraps his original script and starts a rewrite – inspired by Mónica. Bitter Christmas  could have, and maybe should have, ended right here. Almodóvar has managed to evoke surprising tension out of the writing process in a montage that includes a blinking cursor on a blank screen. There’s also an earlier moment in the film where the words “FIN” (end) appear. Elsa’s story has ended, at least in Raúl’s first draft, but you’re only about two-thirds into the film you’re actually watching.  It’s all very meta and diverting, if you’re willing to go along for the ride. The advanced-age audience at the Madrid theater where I saw the film at an early evening screening last Friday seemed to be enjoying the ride, though I was surprised by how little they laughed. This film is lighter than others in Almodóvar’s recent oeuvre and has some comedic moments that I found very funny. His appreciation for the male physique, a welcome flipping of cinema’s traditional male gaze, could make some viewers uncomfortable. Everything is reminiscent – all part of Almodóvar’s “one movie” – the themes, actors, color palette, settings, music, framing, references and more. And some scenes and characters in  Bitter Christmas  feel directly plucked from earlier films. Compare Lennie’s Elsa in sunglasses and Hollywood waves with Angela Molina at the cemetery in  Live Flesh , or her red dress with Marisa Paredes’ iconic look in  The Flower of My Secret.  When Elsa offers to feed her dying mother, you might flash to Antonio Banderas tenderly assisting his elderly mother in  Pain and Glory  – or the dead/dying mothers in  Volver, All About My Mother  and more. Sbaraglia, meanwhile, channels Banderas channeling Almodóvar, who is also in Elsa’s DNA. It's not easy to write originally  about  Almodóvar’s movies either, compounded by the fact that he curates intricately designed packages around his premieres, from detailed production notes and omnipresent interviews to winking symbolism, easter eggs and self-aware dialogues. Still, in Spain, he enlivens debate.  Christmas  landed third at the Spanish box office on its opening weekend, with close to 100,000 tickets sold.  There’s at least one well-known local critic who pans Almodóvar’s every film, to the point that it’s become part of the premiere experience here. Another price of fame, or maybe prolonged familiarity. At this stage – well into the maestro’s fifth decade of cinema – it’s fair to conclude that you either like Almodóvar's movies (his “one movie”), or you don’t.  I do, and I liked this one more than others.  Images courtesy of Warner Bros.

This interview was originally published by the Alliance of Women Film Journalists . Tangier-born writer-actor-director Maryam Touzani says that with her new film Calle Málaga , she wanted to “celebrate the beauty of aging and the freedom that can come with aging.” The story turns on a 70-something woman, played by Spanish veteran Carmen Maura, who insists on remaining in her home in Tangier—against all odds. In doing so, she remakes her life, finds new love and reinforces her connections with her Moroccan roots, the place where she was born and raised as part of a Spanish immigrant community. The subject was personal for Touzani, whose own blended Moroccan-Spanish family gave inspiration to Calle Málaga . I really wanted to pay tribute to the Spanish community that a lot of people don't know about,” she says. “I wanted to explore this theme of attachment, of belonging. What does it really mean to belong? What makes up who we are—the spaces, the people, our houses, our street.” Touzani has directed three feature films, and all three have been selected to represent Morocco at the Oscars—despite dealing with difficult and sometimes even taboo subjects in Moroccan society, like homosexuality ( The Blue Caftan ) and unwanted pregnancy out of wedlock ( Adam ). Her first two features premiered at Cannes, while Calle Málaga won the Audience Award at Venice last September. “I've always been attracted by characters that are made invisible, or somehow put aside or erased,” she notes. Her films feature women, like Maura's María Angeles in Calle Málaga , who take control of their own lives and destinies, often outside of society’s accepted boundaries. “The place of women in public… is not necessarily the same power that the women will have in houses,” Touzani admits. She conveys this duality in her frequent use of interior settings and chiaroscuro lighting, contrasting golden-lit interiors off the bright Mediterranean light outside. Now, Calle Málaga is the opening film at the Málaga Film Festival, running in the Spanish Mediterranean city from March 6 to 15. AWFJ sat down with Touzani in Madrid before opening night to talk about the film, her exceptional career and whether movies have the power to change society. Here is that conversation, edited for length and clarity. All of your films have been selected to represent Morocco at the Oscars. Does that surprise you, considering your films deal with difficult subjects? It’s not something that has anything to do with the filmmaker themselves. It’s the trajectory of the film. When you have a film that opens at an important festival and there is something positive happening around it, that makes it easier for the film to get selected to represent its country… It’s an independent committee that watches the films… But once you have a start in an important festival and there is good press around the film, it’s always helpful. You've taken your films to festivals all over the world. Do reactions differ in different countries? What I've noticed and what is very heartwarming is that, for instance talking about Calle Málag a, the audience response was warm in the same manner in countries that were very different and cultures that were very different. And that's heartwarming, especially with a film like this that's even more personal than the rest… Globally, what I felt is that at the end of the day, we are brought together by the same emotions, and reactions generally are quite similar. I think that when there is a human connection with a film, at the end of the day, that brings us together wherever we are from. One of the things that I wrote about this story is that it's a cliche that older women become kind of invisible when they age, and I thought the character of María used that invisibility as an asset. Can you talk a little bit about what it means to be a woman in Moroccan society, and if that invisibility is useful in some ways? I think that being a woman in Moroccan society is not very different from being a woman in any other society, honestly, when you bring it down to the core. I think there's something very common everywhere. But it's true that I've always been attracted by characters that are made invisible, or somehow put aside or erased. And it's true that here I also wanted to show and celebrate these aging bodies. His, and especially hers, because I think that women's bodies in cinema are really cast aside. We're expected to age in a certain manner, and the reality is not that. So, it’s just not shown. And I really wanted to show this woman celebrating her body. She’s the one that invites him into her life, undresses him, undresses herself. And it's really undressing herself physically, but it's also saying: this is who I am. I stand tall. I'm proud of my aging body. I'm proud of all these marks that the years have left on me. And my body is beautiful and I'm beautiful the way I am, and I'm proud to show it. I want him to look at me, but I want to show myself the way I am. To just be proud of that and not have to hide and not have to be what somebody else expects, and just really celebrate the beauty of aging and the freedom that can come with aging as well. because I think that aging can be something very liberating. Whereas in our societies, we put older people into boxes of how we're supposed to act, what we're supposed to be. All these expectations that are thrown upon us and that are just like shackles, right? And I really want María to break all these shackles and break free and say, no, I'm a woman. I'm almost 80. I choose to show my body. I choose to age the way I want to age. I want to have that freedom. Carmen Maura has actually said that in a lot of interviews, that she's ‘free’ now. She said if you had asked her five or 10 years ago to take her clothes off, she wouldn't have. Yeah, and I think that's a beautiful thing as well with aging. It’s the power that can come with it. It's the strength and the beauty that can come with it. I think the beauty in aging, we don't see that in our societies. For me, that was also why I wanted to film these skins up close, to show these wrinkles. Because for me, they're these beautiful marks that life has left upon us, a life that we've had the privilege to live. And not everybody has that privilege of growing old. As I grow older, and as I lose people that have maybe not reached that age, I realize how precious it is. Something that I see across your films, even your short films, is that you shoot a lot of interiors, and it feels like women kind of dominate those spaces. You often have women talking to each other from their balconies in your films. What you're saying is very interesting because it's true that we are, at the end of the day, in a very matriarchal society and women do dominate interiors. There's a lot of respect for mothers, for grandmothers. What a mother has to say in Moroccan society is extremely, extremely important… It’s interesting regarding the place of women in public, which is not necessarily the same power that the women will have in houses. Touzani went on to talk about her Spanish-Moroccan family, growing up in a “double culture” and speaking Spanish at home with her mother and grandmother. Is some of that in the character of María? It definitely is because my grandmother was a very rebellious woman with a lot of personality, a lot of character and quite a lot of humor. And this long white hair as well—she used to put up in a bun, but it was really long. I remember as a child—she passed when I was 12—I was very, very close to her. I had my bedroom, but I would sleep in her bedroom, sometimes even in her bed, cuddled to her. I loved her so much, but I remember I was just fascinated by her. I remember being fascinated by her skin, by her wrinkles… I just loved observing her. And her energy—she passed at 82, but she had so much energy. I never saw her take a nap ever in her life until the last month where she got sick… She had this energy, like María Angeles in the film, and I think that did really inspire me also for the writing of this character. So you were very familiar with the Spanish immigrant community in Tangier? I was very familiar with it because of course my grandmother had a lot of friends from this community… They were all very close. And in Calle Málaga, what was interesting as well… there was this mixture of Jewish, Christians, Muslims and they would exchange recipes, be together on the holidays, at feasts, and there was this kind of living together that was very, very peaceful. It was beautiful, and I always heard about this. That's why the film is called Calle Málaga [though it’s actually filmed on a different street]—I really wanted to pay tribute to the Spanish community that a lot of people don't know about… Some of her [my grandmother’s] friends whose kids had left—they were older, and they decided not to leave and wanted to stay in Tangier. I saw their attachment, this visceral attachment to their city. And as a child, as a young woman, it's something that really hit a chord inside me. I really was very sensitive to what made this attachment so strong. I think that's why I wanted to explore this theme of attachment, of belonging. What does it really mean to belong? What makes up who we are—the spaces, the people, our houses, our street. And it's also because I was so close to the Spanish community and I saw the Spanish community die off little by little—for the majority, because their children left, grandchildren are born abroad, etc.—and then this bond disappears… It was really also a tribute to these people. I think memory is very important… Through the film, I also wanted to keep these people alive somehow, because they are people that were there, that existed, that had feelings that were rooted in this land. Touzani spoke about the film being a way for her to maintain a connection with her mother, who passed away suddenly at the age of 72. “I really needed to feel that she was close to me. It was something soothing about the language and also the things that you see in the film,” like certain cultural aspects, foods María cooks, etc. They “represented home and going back home to Tangier without my mom.” Calle Málaga was her first feature film shot in Tangier and in Spanish. Your other two films were not filmed in Tangier, right? I think that I unconsciously wrote the film in Tangier because I knew it was the only way for me to force myself to go back there and face her [my mother’s] absence and face these beautiful memories, but without her, you know? And try to find peace and try to make sense and continue loving the city. So, it was very hard. Shooting was very hard because every street corner was a memory. It sounds cathartic. Yeah. What I'm living is still part of this whole process. When I go to Málaga in a few days, my Spanish family is going to be there and they're going to discover the film, and that's also part of it. So that’s why it was [filmed] in Spanish. And it was very interesting, very soothing for me to find myself on set surrounded by Spanish, because a big part of my team was Spanish and of course the dialogues were in Spanish. Just to be there and to hear Spanish around me was something that felt comforting. Do you ever face backlash in Morocco for the topics that you have chosen to make movies about? Have I ever? Yes, but from individuals that don't agree or that maybe don’t accept… For instance, in The Blue Caftan , if I did come across these kinds of reactions, which I did, it really made me realize even more how important and essential it was that this film exists in Morocco and that it be screened. It was opened in theaters, and this was the first time ever that a film that talks openly about homosexuality was screened in theaters… I think it means that there is a desire for an opening of dialogue, which is really what I want to do as well with the film. It's just being able to open a conversation, to be able to create a debate, to contribute in some way to making things advance. So, any backlash that I could have received, I never see it in a negative way. I always see it in a positive way because I always think that if there is some kind of backlash, it means that there is a necessity as well. Do you think film has the power to change society? Oh, I definitely think so. Otherwise, I wouldn't be making films. It's true! I think that it has a power to contribute, at least, to a significant change, because I think cinema is something that is accessible to everybody. It’s something that can reach you easily. And it gives you access, through your emotions, to a reality that is not necessarily yours, that you don't necessarily know, that you think maybe you don't agree with, but then you plunge into the life of a character for an hour and a half or two hours or whatever it may be, and you're in a completely different reality and your emotions take over. It's not your intellect. It's not your preconceptions, it's not all these barriers that you've necessarily created, and it can break through, in a manner, and… create a dialogue between your heart and your mind. And that can help change your vision. I've had a lot of people come up to me, for instance, after The Blue Caftan , and tell me things that were extremely touching about their preconceived ideas, about all they thought they never wanted or they were completely closed to, and how they saw things differently now. And for me, these are the biggest rewards… I think that cinema does have a way to contribute to changing things. And if you change just one person's perception, and then just one other person, and then one other person, at the end of the day, it can make a difference.   Images courtesy of Strand Releasing and Málaga Film Festival.

Informative, humanizing, and at moments downright scary, this eye-opening documentary is sure to make waves. Interviewees in The Plastic Detox  ask how it’s possible that industrial companies have been allowed to make such prevalent products without knowing or addressing the potential and proven harms. Viewers will want to know the same after this wake-up call, which explores the correlations between plastic chemical exposure and a huge range of illnesses, defects, and health problems. The film could inspire individual and societal action. Make this film required viewing – and then run out and buy your bamboo toothbrush.   What makes it so impactful is the combination of science, through engaging animated explainers and expert interviews, with human stories, including six couples experiencing unexplainable fertility issues and a majority-Black community in Louisiana that stands up to big industry. A barrage of proof is supplied to show that the chemicals in plastic are everywhere and have detrimental health effects on humans and the environment, while a lack of regulation at the government level has left us (and our planet) vulnerable. You’d be forgiven for not expecting a happy ending, but the documentary surprises there as well.  This review originally ran on Common Sense Media . Images courtesy of Netflix.

This tragic, strange, beautifully filmed, hypnotic movie is both hard to watch and tough to take your eyes off. Sir ā t was a finalist for best international film and best sound design Oscars. That latter nomination recognizes the sensory experience of the film, which sets striking frames of the desert to the pulsating techno beats and haunting strains of rave music. The technical work on display from the sound team, cinematographer Mauro Herce, director Laxe, who co-wrote the script with regular collaborator Santiago Fillol, and the rest of the film’s creatives conjures a story that is limited in scope but meticulously developed. When tragedy strikes, you’re both unprepared and yet not totally surprised. Laxe has called it a spiritual film, a rite of passage, and a ceremony of death. It is also an exercise in realism, with many non-professional actors and actual raves.   The characters encounter military troops declaring a state of emergency and evacuating citizens, while radio reports refer to a war that will change the world. Do you notice World War III when you’re at the end of the world, a character asks? “We’ve been at the end of the world a long time,” another replies. Such cryptic messages and moments of suggested metaphor or deeper symbolism feel rife in this evocative film. Small humans face existential crises in the vast desert, the title signifies a path between hell and paradise, the alternative communal lifestyle is at odds with the individual drug trip, and a televised scene of a spiritual hajj pilgrimage is reminiscent of the ravers in communal trance (its melodic prayers fade into rave music). Like a hallucination or awakening, what it all means might be up to each viewer’s interpretation and experience. Review originally published by Common Sense Media Images courtesy of Neon

My answer is no, but maybe I need to "read the damn book," as the Columbia Journalism Review admonished. This article was originally published by The Alliance of Women Film Journalists . A lot has been written about the depiction of female journalists in "She Said," director Maria Schrader and scriptwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz's adaptation of New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey's book about their Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein. Reviewers have praised the film for offering what other investigative journalism movies (think "All the President's Men" or "Spotlight") have not -- the female perspective, especially outside the newsroom. Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey (played by Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan) are seen juggling family life and work in the film. They're also covering a story that impacted women especially, so most of their sources are female. Their reporting helped invigorate the #MeToo movement, which empowered women around the globe to publicly denounce sexual misconduct and has resulted in some very high-profile men, like Weinstein, being held accountable for inappropriate and even illegal behavior, as well as some changes to workplace oversight (as end credits describe). Stating the obvious, as a journalist and a woman, I was excited to see this film and predisposed to like it. I am its target demographic: according to The Hollywood Reporter , almost half of opening weekend ticket sales went to people aged 45 and older, and more than 60 percent of viewers were "older females." Unlike many critics, I was surprisingly underwhelmed by this movie. I wasn't convinced by the depiction of the reporters' uniquely female concerns, nor by its portrayal of high-stakes investigative journalism. I do think the film does an excellent job of portraying the fragility of survivors and the potential long-lasting impacts of sexual violence. I'll try to explain here, knowing I'm treading into controversial territory. We are apparently so starved for these kinds of stories that critiquing the ones we get might be considered bad form. Juggling Work & Kids Never Looked So Easy The buzz about She Said is that we finally get to see female journalists at home, outside their work, and juggling motherhood and marriage. Woodward and Bernstein didn’t appear to have families of their own in their paper-cluttered apartments — work was their life, according to the 1976 film about their Watergate investigation. The same can be said of many on-screen journalists, including women, though three-dimensional depictions are out there, including recent ones like Danish series Borgen and the new ABC/Hulu show Alaska Daily . If only the portrayal of Kantor and Twohey’s home lives were more realistic. For example, both reporters are apparently married to saints. These are husbands who never appear to lose their patience, don’t mind at all when phones ring in the middle of the night and who are never, ever not available when the women need to work long hours or fly across the continent or ocean. It’s hard to imagine there wasn’t at least occasional tension or scheduling problems. Their Hollywood-ization diminishes the realism, in my opinion. Twohey struggles with postpartum depression in the film. Mulligan portrays this in an honest and understated way. Both Kantor and their female editor, Rebecca Corbett (played by Patricia Clarkson), are empathetic in talking to her about it. But the depression seems to magically disappear when Twohey gets back to work. I was left wondering if the book gave this more attention. Meanwhile, Kantor has two children, and her older daughter is precociously attuned to the subjects her mother is working on. As a mom, I know what it is to have a child’s watching eyes and listening ears at sometimes inconvenient moments. But a scene where Kantor breaks down after Facetiming with her daughter, who uses the word “rape” for the first time on their call, feels forced — and not just because of Kazan’s noticeable acting (for me, an issue throughout the film). The idea of showing her older daughter as aware of and impacted by Kantor’s work on the Weinstein story is commendable, but it’s done in a heavy-handed way in that it involves the daughter asking difficult and pointed questions about the investigation almost every time she’s alone with her mom on screen. It’s an issue of adaptation. It’s one thing to try to condense months or years of lived experience into a 320-page book, and yet another to adapt that to 129 minutes of screen time. Things get lost, and many experiences must be concentrated into far fewer emblematic moments. That seems to be the case with the reporters’ home lives and families in this film. Journalists Take Better Notes It’s also the case with their work lives. The movie has to condense a ton of reporting legwork into bits and pieces, crafting an ultimately disjointed portrayal of investigative journalism based as much on trying to create suspense and elicit emotion from viewers as on representing the actual work of journalists. It makes me think that the most qualified writers and directors for films about journalists might be former journalists themselves. For example, we see a lot of interactions between the journalists and Weinstein’s alleged victims, but Kantor and Twohey rarely record conversations and barely take notes in these scenes. The implication is that more thorough, on-the-record interviews take place off-screen, but these aren’t shown. Will every viewer make that assumption? The film builds up to a final scene where multiple people are painstakingly editing the final draft of the story, but the grunt work beyond the tracking and initial meetings with sources and off-the-record conversations — the recording and triple-checking of facts, the call-backs, the sifting through documents — is, again, more suggested than shown. Twohey also seems to conduct an awful lot of very sensitive phone calls while walking the busy streets of New York City, according to this movie. Of course journalists have to take calls while on the move, but I find it difficult to believe this reporting veteran would choose to make important calls herself while out walking among noisy crowds and city traffic. My guess is the filmmakers wanted New York City to feel like a character in the film — it’s the setting where Weinstein reigned supreme and, of course, home base for the paper, one of the few left with the resources to support investigative work like Kantor’s and Twohey’s. This could be a stretch, but I wonder if the treatment of the setting isn’t also related to the fact that the director and scriptwriter are both not originally from the US? NYC represents a lot of things and is often tasked with representing America as a whole. Weinstein & the Women The filmmakers also make the odd choice to use an actor to play Weinstein but only have him heard on calls or seen from afar or from behind. Maybe the idea was to make him seem more menacing by showing him less? Was the actor necessary, in that case? Same for the recreated flashbacks of some victims’ stories. The film does include what appears to be the actual recording of Weinstein taped by a woman who wore a police wire. Will audiences unfamiliar with the details of these individual cases understand what’s real and what’s reenacted/acted? Does it matter? One aspect I think the film handles very well is the portrayal of the female journalists as extremely patient and notably empathetic with their sources. A scene where a man offensively tries to hit on the journalists at a bar and Twohey (Mulligan) lashes out at him hints at the reality that many female journalists may have a more lived empathy than their male counterparts for female victims of sexual harassment and assault. The film also shows how both journalists themselves received or perceived threats for their reporting. By far the most compelling part about this screen adaptation, for me, isn’t the female journalists but rather the victims/survivors. It’s hard to take your eyes off Samantha Morton and Jennifer Ehle, playing two former Weinstein assistants, as they waver between tears and steely resolve in recounting past experiences with him. Ashley Judd, another Weinstein accuser, makes a surprising and powerful appearance as herself in the film. Their stories lay out how a powerful predator can get away with abusive behavior for decades, and how his actions can have devastating and long-lasting effects. “Read the Damn Book” I found myself wondering constantly during the movie just what She Said was leaving out in its adaptation of the book. A Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) critique of the film subtitled Read the Damn Book reminded me to put this tome back at the top of my to-read list. I gather that in their book, Kantor and Twohey describe in detail the steps involved in piecing together their story and convincing women to go on the record. The film attempts to show this too, but it leaves a lot out and expects audiences to make connections and fill in blanks themselves. On the recent recommendation of a friend, I’ve been reading Ronan Farrow’s book, Catch and Kill , about his own investigations into Weinstein for NBC and The New Yorker, which shared the Pulitzer with Twohey and Kantor. So I’m up on the details of the multiple allegations that broke this story open. I honestly had to rely on that reading to keep track of names and events alluded to or mentioned in passing in She Said . My teenage daughter watched with me and we had to pause regularly so I could explain what was going on. The problem is, the film should stand on its own without requiring viewers to read the book or know the details of the investigation beforehand. Again, it’s a matter of adaptation — selecting what to include and what to leave out. I think the film relies too heavily on viewers knowing the ‘story’ behind the story and takes audience investment (particularly among its target demographic) for granted. On its opening weekend, even despite positive reviews, the film had “one of the worst starts in modern times for a major Hollywood studio release,” as The Hollywood Reporter put it, sending analysts into a tizzy trying to explain why. Kantor and Twohey’s reporting deserves continued attention and praise. Flawed or not, the film could reach more and different audiences than the book, and it has the potential to inspire renewed interest in the power of journalism as well as the importance of holding the powerful accountable. And that would be a good thing. Images courtesy of Universal Pictures and Penguin Press.

This is a sensitive piece of filmmaking with insights into the band's origins as well as how its members today, once head-banging punk rockers, now feel about their lives and legacies. The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel is also a film about the wild and creative milieu of Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s. The use of a digitally engineered voice for Hillel, the beloved bandmate who died of a drug overdose in 1988, could raise eyebrows. But it comes across as natural here in between the other bandmate interviews, which get surprisingly emotional, and alongside montages of their early days and Hillel's original artwork and writings. It's also interesting to reflect on the free-range life of kids in the 1970s, with all its pros and cons, as compared to childhood today. Review originally published by Common Sense Media Images courtesy of Netflix

Costa Rican director Antonella Sudasassi spent two and a half years talking with older women for her film  Memories of a Burning Body (Memorias de un Cuerpo que Arde) , Costa Rica’s submission for the International Oscar. “In the beginning, I was looking for a specific kind of woman,” she says. “I was looking for someone more traditional, who got married, had kids, always lived with her husband and eventually died or divorced or whatever.” “I also looked for someone who was more open about her sexuality,” she adds, admitting that she thought her initial “idea of talking about sexuality and trying to understand how women of that age live their sexuality” might be funny and full of “juicy details.”  Sudasassi initiated the project out of a longing to have had these conversations with her own grandmothers before they died or lost their memories.  But through the long conversations with the women, which took place during the COVID shut down, Sudasassi says she “realized that it was about something else. It was about identity. It was about understanding themselves as women.” “And quite honestly, when I started talking to them, I realized that they had never talked about this with absolutely anybody, not even their mothers, daughters, sisters or granddaughters. They’d never talked about this, and they had such a need to talk about it. It felt a bit urgent for them to talk about it.”   Indeed, the women interviewed reveal very personal information. There are eight voices in the film in total, though only one woman is seen on screen (and younger versions of her), and she is an actress embodying the group of interviewees. Sudasassi says she decided to “intertwine” their voices and stories and wrap them into one “because I felt like there was such a common experience, even if the context was different.” The result is a fascinating piece of documentary work (that some are calling fiction because of the dramatized reenactments of the women’s words). In an interview with AWFJ, Sudasassi explains her process. Read the interview on AWFJ.org at this link . Read my review of the film here.

As a woman in one of the 22 short films in Palestine’s International Oscar entry, From Ground Zero , says, the loved ones lost in the ongoing war in Gaza are at risk of becoming “just numbers.” This film aims to resist that happening. But it also aims to go beyond stories of human suffering, according to producer Rashid Masharawi, who conceived of, organized and financed the anthology. On the one hand, he notes, the film intends to “document what’s going on.” On the other hand, he says, “I want this film to be shown internationally. It’s about life, it’s about love, it’s about hope. It’s about resistance. It’s not trying to show complaining all the time.” Masharawi is an award-winning, Gaza-born filmmaker ( Curfew , Haifa and many more) responsible for launching the Cinema Production and Distribution Center in Ramallah, which offers training and workshops for aspiring filmmakers as well as a mobile cinema and a children’s film festival. The film doesn’t focus on “political discussions or debates.” Instead, “It has to do with our life, with our culture, with our history. It has to do with people who want to have all these dreams – to make stand-up comedy, to paint, to dance, to sing. It’s about life.” There is also a heavy presence of women creatives in this collection, something that “was not easy,” Masharawi notes, “because women are having a difficult life during this war. They are more responsible for lives and family, kids, food, for many things, than men are. Besides, they live in tents and they have no privacy.” Getting them to take time to make a film was tough, but he says “it was very important for me to have maximum women.” I spoke with Masharawi by Zoom from France about the inspiration and logistics behind this collection. From Ground Zero had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Read the full interview here on the Alliance of Women Film Journalists page. Read my review of From Ground Zero here.

“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