The Arbor
Women’s Work: Essential Films by Female Filmmakers
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1h 30m
Directed by Clio Barnard | 91 mins | 2010
Andrea Dunbar’s first play, "The Arbor"—a grimly autofictional work about a Yorkshire schoolgirl who falls pregnant, named for the council estate where she lived—premiered in London’s West End when she was just 18. By her untimely death at age 29, she’d produced two further plays, one film adaptation (1987’s "Rita, Sue and Bob Too"), and several children. Clio Barnard’s formally inventive docufiction looks back at the troubled playwright and her legacy.
Up Next in Women’s Work: Essential Films by Female Filmmakers
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Lore
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Cate Shortland followed her moody and startling feature debut, "Somersault" (2004), with another bruising story of a teen girl expelled from home—in this case, by history in the making. Abandoned by her high-level Nazi parents in the wake of Hitler’s d... -
Girlhood
Directed by Céline Sciamma | 113 mins | 2014
Set in the suburbs of Paris, Sciamma’s coming-of-age story stars Karidja Touré as Marieme, a 16-year-old who finds a sense of sorority, camaraderie, and mutual support when she joins up with an amateur “gang” of girls her age—much to the chagrin of her... -
The Competition
Directed by Claire Simon | 121 mins | 2016
The Competition begins, significantly, with the image of a locked gate—that of La Fémis, one of the most prestigious film schools in the world, offering hands-on training from working professionals and accepting only 40 students per year from hundreds of...
