Feminism as a concept has gone in and out of vogue since the first suffragette demanded the right to vote, but throughout history there have always been remarkable women, prepared to claim their power in the name of a cause ('Ride to Freedom: The Rosa Parks Story', 'Veronica Guerin'), or just to rediscover their own self-worth ('Shirley Valentine', 'My Brilliant Career'). This collection does not only contain films about the political struggle of women to achieve equality ('Iron Jawed Angels'), if it did it would be a very short list because despite the fact that the rise of women in the workforce and in politics was one of the defining movements of the 20th century, very few films have been made on the subject - filmmaking being still a largely male-dominated pusuit. Now, as women are making films in greater numbers than ever, our own Niki Caro is a good example of someone ready and willing to tell a story about the oppression, and ultimate triumph of women in the 'post-feminist' 1980s ('North Country'). Perhaps women as an audience are now ready and willing to hear their own stories.
Set in 1980s Bucharest during Ceaucescu's brutal reign, this intense drama centres on two young women, one of whom finds herself pregnant. Her best fr... Read more
Jodie Foster plays a woman plagued by fear and obsessed with revenge after she and her partner (Naveen Andrews) are attacked on the streets of New Yor... Read more
Marleen Gorris' winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film centres on an elderly woman who recalls her life in a small Dutch village on the day... Read more