Women in Film: BBC Introducing Arts

Cultural historian Janina Ramirez presents a collection of intriguing and exciting short films by emerging women directors and artists. Each film gives a female perspective on modern-day topics from body image and new love to grief and belonging. Expect honest and refreshing storytelling that will make you laugh, make you cry and make you think. In a Room Full of Sisters; Blood Stains; Bridging the Gap; Cake; Ding-Ding, Next; Fruity; In Perpetuum; Owulide; White Dwarf; Cosmic Domestic; The Dead Are Jewels to Me; The Presence of Absence

Convivencia

Soundcheck

When a major record label rep appears during a band’s soundcheck, their quietly talented guitarist must decide between the safety of staying with the band that holds her back, and the uncertain freedom of standing alone.

passive

An experimental piece of video art inspired by Laura Mulvey's The Gaze

Sense and Sensibility

A story of love, family, and sisterhood based on Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.

Faat Kiné

A forty-year-old woman refuses to give into the stigma of unwed motherhood and climbs the ladder of success in a male dominated field.

Smile, Please

A supporting actress faces the final episode of the television show she grew up in, unsure of her own identity and what’s next as she transitions between the 1950's sitcom and modern day.

Opaline

When teenage siblings shelter in their grandmother’s abandoned house from an exterior contamination, Opaline slips into her interior self. Shot in gritty black-and-white Super 8, the film takes us into a grungy spiral of dreams and paranoia. 

Different Girls

After discovering her boyfriend's infidelity with sex workers, Sabina, a trans woman, is drawn into a painful grieving process and a deep crisis of inferiority. When the opportunity arises to experience that same betrayal from the other side, she must decide whether to give in to the impulse of validation or seek her own revenge.

JOHN

After mistreatment at her law firm, a black female lawyer disguises herself as a white man.

A Stitch of Vintage

Cami, an aspiring fashion designer is determined to show that fashion and beauty have no age

Sangkar Yang Berpindah

Clara Campoamor, the Neglected Woman

Spain, 1931. Under the Second Republic, women are eligible, but cannot vote. Victoria Kent and Clara Campoamor, the first women in the Spanish Parliament, intend to fight for women's rights, and Clara knows that the first step is to get the women's vote approved…

Knot

Glória manages to get a divorce and moves away, taking her daughters and the desire to start over. As she tries to turn the new house into a home and her body into a place of belonging, she faces, on the factory floor, a delicate competition for a supervisor position between colleagues and her best friend. Courage takes shape as anguish seeps into the flesh.

Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons

Penthesilea, the first of six films made by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, traverses thousands of years to look at the image of the Amazonian woman in myth. It asks, among other questions, is the Amazonian woman a rare strong female image or is she a figure derived from male phantasy? The film explores the complexities of such questions, but does not seek any concrete answers.

Orchid Moon

Lost in a whirlpool of loss and regret, Harry Bradshaw attempts to find innocence.

2 in the Bush: A Love Story

Emily has just been dumped by her girlfriend, kicked out of her apartment, and fired from her job. Her best friend hooks her up with a new gig: personal assistant to a dominatrix. But when Emily falls for her new boss -- and her new boss's boyfriend -- she must decide what risks are worth taking for love. 2 in the Bush is an unconventional romantic comedy about dungeons, a fish named Archimedes, and the many forms that love takes.

Every Kind of Fruit Bearing Tree

Frustrated Emma is circling the drain of forty, and life isn’t quite how she imagined it would be. Something needs to change, but if you’re doing your best and nobody appreciates you, what more can you do?

Se tu avessi parlato

I don't want to have to be loud

She is defined; from birth on. The role she has to play, who she is and what she is made of is not determined by her. If one’s own body and gender are a political issue, it is about time that one’s own voice is heard.

Eleanor the Great

94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.

Hands of Stone

The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.

Call Me Crazy: A Five Film

A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.

Under the Same Moon

Tells the parallel stories of nine-year-old Carlitos and his mother, Rosario. In the hopes of providing a better life for her son, Rosario works illegally in the U.S. while her mother cares for Carlitos back in Mexico.

Strange Weather

Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.

O.G.

Louis Menkins is five weeks away from being released after 26 years in prison. He is faced with the decision to put his own release at risk in order to protect a young man named Beecher from growing gang controversies.

The Girl in the Book

The story of a young writer's transformation when her past invades her present.

The Trials of Cate McCall

In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.

The Safety of Objects

In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.

Effie Gray

A look at the mysterious relationship between Victorian art critic John Ruskin and his teenage bride Effie Gray.

Nothing Personal

Alone in her empty flat, from her window Anne observes the people passing by who nervously snatch up the personal belongings and pieces of furniture she has put out on the pavement. Her final gesture of taking a ring off her finger signals she is leaving her previous life in Holland behind. She goes to Ireland, where she chooses to lead a solitary, wandering existence, striding through the austere landscapes of Connemara. During her travels, she discovers a house that is home to a hermit, Martin.

Salomé

After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé comes before her king with an unreasonable demand. Beguiled by John the Baptist, and then scorned for the sake of his god, lascivious Salomé—encouraged by her mother, the vindictive, Herodias—commands that John be executed and his head delivered on a silver platter.

Bastard Out of Carolina

A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.

The Pumpkin Eater

Jo, the mother of seven children, divorces her second husband in order to marry Jake, a successful but promiscuous screenwriter. Though they are physically and emotionally compatible, they are slowly torn apart.

Goodbye June

Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.

I Believe in Unicorns

Feeling awkward and isolated, an imaginative and strong-willed teenage girl runs away from home with an older punk rock drifter.

Lucky Them

More interested in partying and flirting with young musicians than work, veteran rock journalist Ellie Klug has one last chance to prove her value to her magazine’s editor: a no-stone-unturned search to discover what really happened to long lost rock god, Matt Smith, who also happens to be her ex-boyfriend. Teaming up with an eccentric amateur documentary filmmaker, Ellie hits the road in search of answers.

A Father's Miracle

After being falsely accused of a terrible crime, Hector, a man with a neurological disability, goes to a secret prison. His goodness conquers the prisoners, who plan to prove their innocence.

All Day and a Night

While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.

Holy Lands

When lapsed Jew and former cardiologist Harry suddenly decides to spend his retirement as a pig farmer in Nazareth, Israel, the move deeply shocks his family and his new neighbours. Back in New York, Harry’s ex-wife Monica is trying to manage the lives of their adult children, Annabelle and David, as well as her own.