Category Archives: drama,

6,0-6,9, comedy, drama,, female director, female lead, love, romance,

“Just Wright” by Sanaa Hamri (USA, 2010)

Just Wright

Just like her first feature, Hamri’s third movie uses romance to break prejudices – this time against non-canon forms of beauty / More formulaic than her first feature / Good performance by Queen Latifah / Same fatherly figure as in her previous two movies 🙂

Cast: Queen Latifah, Common, Paula Patton, James Pickens Jr., Phylicia Rashad, Pam Grier
Directed by Sanaa Hamri
Written by Michael Elliot
Music by Lisa Coleman, Wendy Melvoin
Cinematography by Terry Stacey
Film Editing by Melissa Kent

7,0-7,9, drama,, female director, female lead, first feature, love, romance,

“Something New” by Sanaa Hamri (USA, 2006)

Something New

“The boy is just white, he’s not a martian!”
Romantic comedy built around the racial divide: a black woman does not accept her feelings towards a white man / great performance by Sanaa Lathan / nice choregraphy
The rom-com part of the movie is handled in the first half hour, which allows Sanaa Hamri an hour time to dig deeper and create tensions by showing subtly how prejudices, family values, differences in humor, etc. interfere in this mixed-race relationship.
“”Something New” delivers all the usual pleasures of a love story, and something more.” [Roger Ebert]

Cast: Sanaa Lathan, Simon Baker, Mike Epps, Donald Faison, Alfre Woodard, Blair Underwood, Golden Brooks, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Taraji P. Henson, Earl Billings
Directed by Sanaa Hamri
Written by Kriss Turner
Music by Lisa Coleman, Wendy Melvoin
Cinematography by Shane Hurlbut
Film Editing by Melissa Kent

8,0-8,9, drama,, female director, female lead, love, sex

“Things Behind The Sun” by Allison Anders (USA, 2001)

Things behind the sun

A woman who has been gang-raped when she was young comes to term with her past when she hears what really happened from the one who was her boyfriend at the time. A hard film to watch!
Just like in her preceding movie, music is used to help defining the personage and carrying the emotional content.

Cast: Kim Dickens, Gabriel Mann, Aria Alpert Adjani
Director: Allison Anders
Writers: Allison Anders, Kurt Voss
Music by Sonic Youth
Cinematography by Terry Stacey
Film Editing by Chris Figler

8,0-8,9, drama,, female lead, love, male director, romance,, sex

“Princess Cyd” by Stephen Cone (USA, 2017)

Lesbian love seen through the eyes of male directors

Princess Cyd

Sex and relationships in the eyes of a teenage girl and a woman in her late 40’s.
Stages 3 women in a finely-tuned coming-of-age and out-of-the-closet story, with balanced personages, multi-faceted sexual identities, and an healthy racial distribution.
“You may look at Miranda, and think immediately, ‘Oh, okay, I know who that woman is’. You would be wrong. The same for Cyd. ‘Oh, okay. Bored teenager sunbathing in a bikini. I know who that is’. Again, you would be wrong.” writes Sheila O’Malley.

Cast: Rebecca Spence, Jessie Pinnick, Malic White, James Vincent Meredith, Tyler Ross, Matthew Quattrocki
Director: Stephen Cone
Writer: Stephen Cone
Editor: Christopher Gotschall
Director of Photography: Zoe White
Original Music Composer: Heather McIntosh

7,0-7,9, drama,, female lead, love, male director, romance,, sex

“Thelma” by Joachim Trier (Norway, 2017)

Lesbian love through the eyes of male directors

Thelma

A girl succeeds at accepting her sexual identity by resisting the religious constraints imposed on her

Cast: Eili Harboe, Kaya Wilkins, Henrik Rafaelsen. Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Grethe Eltervåg
Director: Joachim Trier
Writer: Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt
Cinematographer: Jakob Ihre
Editor: Olivier Bugge Coutté
Composer: Ola Fløttum