The Most Exciting Films at Sundance Were Made by Women
The festival’s showcase of movies by Janicza Bravo, Eliza Hittman, Kirsten Johnson, and others could be a sign of positive change in an industry struggling to diversify.
A few days into my movie-crammed expedition to the in Park City, Utah, I had an idle thought that I realized was a surprising one: I had yet to watch a film directed by a man. That’s the result of careful and inclusive programming efforts from America’s premier independent-film festival, which has been a crucial launchpad for many filmmakers and stars over the decades. It also could be a hopeful sign of change for an industry figuring out the best ways to tell new stories and broaden the range of people who get to tell them. Many of this year’s outstanding works deal with exactly these topics: the process of crafting personal narratives, and the idea of female agency in an often patriarchal
