LUMI: Four International Women's Day Favourites

Tomboy (2011) Dir. Celine Sciamma

Streaming on: MUBI

Before Celine Sciamma’s 2019 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady on Fire established her as the leading feminist figure in modern arthouse cinema she was quietly garnering critical attention with her lower budget features on female identity and sexuality. Her second feature, Tomboy, is an understated study of a 10-year-old’s confrontation with limiting gender roles when she begins to live an alter-ego life as a boy on her summer holiday. Sciamma’s eye for childlike visuals creates a warm and celebratory atmosphere that side-steps traditional, more dramatic representations of non-binary struggles to craft a delicate and loving coming-of-age narrative.

Trouble Every Day (2001) Dir. Claire Denis

Streaming on: MUBI

Claire Denis, another French director who in many ways blazed the trail for her successors like Sciamma, does not make traditionally feminist films. In Trouble Every Day, her ultra-violent, hyper-sexualised take on the vampire genre, two newly-wed vampires in Paris try to curb their bloodlust. Needless to say, they fail. This defiant presentation of sexuality and violence on screen shows female horror can be just as brutal as any films in the genre. Not for the squeamish.

Marie Antoinette (2006) Dir. Sofia Coppola

Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video

This historical drama stars Kirsten Dunst as the ill-fated teenage Queen of France in the years leading up to the French Revolution (and her execution). What could have been a forgettable and dusty entry in the genre is instead joyfully modernised by director Sofia Coppola. Deliberately anachronistic (in one scene Marie wears Converse) with a post-punk soundtrack including music from The Cure and New Order, Coppola captures the spirit of Gen Z teenage girls through the lens of 18th Century French Royals, portraying Antoinette as an authentic teenager for the first time on screen.

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) Dir. Maya Deren

Streaming on: MUBI

This is only 14 minutes long, so you have no excuses. Maya Deren is one of the most influential filmmakers of all-time and Meshes of the Afternoon is her most famous film. Don’t be turned off by how old the movie is, it is unlike anything else you’ve ever seen on screen. In parts a dream but mostly a nightmare, you will struggle to uncover any story here, but the visuals of the reflecting-man will haunt your own dreams or, even better, inspire you to film them. A fitting legacy for the most daring of female directors.

- Dylan Kelly