Written by Taylor B. Hinds, Edited by Liberté Grace

New female filmmakers are on the rise in Hollywood; making waves at major film festivals and closing deals with industry giants to bring their original perspectives to the mainstream. 

However, it’s not their gender that has everyone talking, but their fresh take on subjects like the American teen experience, family loss, love and in one case—even voodoo.

Their under-represented stories are not only giving audiences an insight into personal and previously unseen worlds, but a deeper look into the minority cultures around us, that have had little visibility in the history of cinema. 

These are just five new female directors on the rise whose feature films premiered at key festivals in 2019; garnering the coveted attention of audiences and industry decision-makers alike. 

Tayarisha Poe

This year, Tayarisha Poe debuted her first feature film, Selah and the Spades, at the Sundance Film Festival. The film started as a multimedia project in 2014. When conceiving the film, Poe drew from her own experiences of boarding school life; creating an underground world of student factions, that gave us an insider look into the lesser-known freedoms and conflicts of boarding school teenagers. 

Selah and the spades (2019) Trailer - courtesy of the artist

Citing inspirations as diverse as Clueless and The Godfather, when speaking to Filmmaker Magazine, Poe said: “I like stories about people who do something that everyone agrees is wrong, but no one thinks they are wrong in doing it.”

Set at the prestigious Haldwell Boarding School, Poe’s protagonist, Selah, is the leader of her ‘faction’ called the Spades—known for supplying alcohol, pills, and other illegal substances to their fellow students. Selah walks the line between being feared and loved on her search for her successor in the spring of her senior year.

Notably Poe’s well-developed millennial characters unapologetically showcase young women in their power; a vision often lacking in mainstream movie-making.

Poe, along with her producer, Lauren Mcbride, raised almost all of the money needed for the feature film through the Sundance Catalyst program. 

When asked what drives her directorial vision, Poe told Filmmaker Magazine, “I am always eager to see stories about the marginalia of black-girl life, about the mumblecore minutiae of being a human being. In the film—and in all Western storytelling—there is this awful assumption that only the relatable, ‘everyman’ story can be successful, and therefore must be the only story told, with white characters at the centre of it, and that’s just not my jam.” 

After generating significant buzz at Sundance, Selah and the Spades was acquired by Amazon. Set to be developed into an episodic series, Poe will breathe more life into her intricate world of burnouts, theatre kids, and the cheerleader mafia, that won the affection of audiences and critics alike in Park City earlier this year.

Lulu Wang

Lulu Wang’s second feature, The Farewell is one of only a few films to introduce Hollywood to the concept of diaspora. Diaspora is defined as floating between two cultures; feeling like you belong nowhere. Wang’s protagonist, Billie, played by Awkwafina, is a second-generation American immigrant, from a Chinese family, struggling to find her identity. 

The Farewell (2019) Trailer - Courtesy of A24

When her grandmother is diagnosed with stage-four cancer, Billie flies to China for a family wedding that is put on so that her relatives can say their final goodbyes, without letting the family matriarch know that she is dying. Not only does the impending loss of Billie’s grandmother weigh on her, but equally, the fine line she must walk between both cultures—creating a palpable tension, offset brilliantly by Wang’s wickedly humorous dialogue. 

In China, they call Bille, “too American”. In America, she is seen as Chinese—leaving her displaced from both cultures. Wang admitted that The Farewell was not well received in the beginning phases of pitching the project, by both Chinese and U.S. production studios. 

According to Wang, neither understood the guilt of her protagonist and the separation she felt from the norm. She was quoted by the Guardian as saying, “Both sides were looking at it in a binary way, where it’s East versus West, as opposed to finding the bridge between the two, or the space in-between, to be able to navigate both.” 

The exceptionally well-acted drama showcases Awkwafina’s talents outside of her better-known comedy and music persona. Wang, whose inspiration for the film came from her own life story, offers a strong character-driven second feature, that succeeds in speaking to both Western and Chinese audiences—an achievement that makes her directorial vision one to watch.

Danielle Lessovitz

Danielle Lessovitz premiered her directorial debut, Port Authority at the Cannes Film Festival this year. This film’s love story dives into the thorny grey areas of sexual orientation. Paul meets Wye and falls in love with her at first sight, later discovering that she is transgender—sending him on a search for his own sexual identity and masculinity. Lessovitz displaces the a-typical mainstream white-male role to the outskirts of the queer culture, that engulfs her protagonist’s life. 

Port Authority (2019) trailer - Courtesy of the artist

Lessovitz’s debut was executive produced by Martin Scorcese. His support of emerging filmmakers with his production company, Sikelia Productions, helped to bring her feature to Cannes. When asked by Deadline if she was excited to show the acclaimed director her work, she responded with, “No, I feel like I’m showing a crayon drawing as a preschooler to a master painter.”   

Lessovitz has been praised for casting Leyna Bloom, a trans actor, as Wye.  She commented to Deadline, “If trans actors aren’t playing cis roles, then why vice versa?”

Lessovitz admits to the privileges she has felt as a white filmmaker and shared a piece of wisdom for other filmmakers in her position. She told Indiewire, “We need to have conversations, especially as white allies. How do we tell these stories that are important to us and relevant to us?

How do we do it in a way that’s consistent with the deeper humanity that runs through all of us? And we need to have a middle ground where we’re not working in a space that’s commercial or fetishistic and sort of wanting to exploit or profit off of the beautiful cultural contributions of a class of marginalised people.”

Alice Furtado

Alice Furtado’s feature debut, a horror film, Sick, Sick, Sick also premiered at Cannes this year. The story centres around a young girl, Sylvia, who falls in love for the first time and tragically loses her young lover in an accident. 

Sick, Sick, Sick (2019) trailer - Courtesy of the Artist

True to its title, Sick, Sick, Sick, explores three representations of psychological illness; being lovesick, physical sickness brought on by grief, and the sickness of a lover’s obsession to bring a lost love back to life. Furtado facilitates her exploration into the dark and selfish sides of love through the use of horror and voodoo set-pieces.

Furtado has said that the most challenging part of the film was creating the visual aesthetics. Expressing her concerns in an interview with Women and Hollywood, she explained, “It was important to me to be close to Sylvia’s skin and share her unclear vision of things.”

She noted that due to her unique approach, it was harder than usual to cover the scene, but after much rehearsal with her DP and though she had her doubts, she was happy taking the risk; one that has resulted in unforgettably sensuous and hyper-realistic images.

Furtado is a member of the select well-known group of female Brazilian filmmakers. In an interview with European Women’s Audiovisual Network she admitted, “Our country is very patriarchal. It's very important to show female characters and have female directors.”

When asked what advice she would give fellow female directors, she said, “Maybe that they think of themselves as directors above all, and that they stay honest with themselves. Being close to our truth is possibly the best way to convince people that we know what we’re doing.” 

Minhal Baig

Minhal Baig has served as a story editor on Bojack Horseman, as well as a staff writer on Ramy. She is most well-known for her second feature film, Hala, executive produced by Jada Pinkett Smith. Hala was originally a short featured on Short of the Week and Nylon. It served as a proof of concept for the feature film. The feature script made it to The Black List and gave Baig the momentum she needed to start pitching it to more executives. 

Hala (2019) trailer - courtesy of Apple+ TV

Similar to the conversation around diaspora in Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, Hala tackles the identity struggles of a second-generation immigrant living in the United States. A coming of age story with a twist, Hala focuses on a teenage girl learning to balance becoming her own individual and the expectations of her family and culture. 

Baig broke into making feature films by creating a lot of her own opportunities, as most female filmmakers are forced to do. She is a strong advocate of sticking to one’s vision when directing scenes that might make people feel uncomfortable, despite receiving many notes in her career to make her work more palatable for commercial audiences. 

Hala was one of the first feature films to be acquired by Apple. In an interview with Variety, Baig said, “There are many people navigating the world with identities that are fluid and evolving, in a way that can make sense to all of us.” 

Filmmaking can act as an arbiter of society’s wisdom, educating the general population about social and cultural issues that might otherwise go unnoticed. Thanks to these artists and the support they have earned, we are another step closer to finally hearing everyone’s stories.

Minhal Baig said it best in her interview with Free the Bid, “Directing is really about outlook; we need a diversity of outlooks to really represent the breadth of life’s experiences.”