Still from Mosquita Y Mari Each year I receive great emails from Jill Livestre, about the films I might enjoy at Out Takes , New Zealand's Reel Queer Film Festival, on in Auckland right now and opening tomorrow in Wellington. Many of the films in the festival will otherwise never reach a big screen here. (And because we're such a small country any 'niche' festival is challenging to organise sustainably. So I imagine that there are gaps because some films are unaffordable.) I treasure Out Takes , partly because it's the closest New Zealand has to a women's film festival: our last women's festival was Mahi Ata Mahi Atua: Women's Work in Film in 2003. Last year I was disappointed that Out Takes included few films directed by women and that the directors and actors were overwhelmingly white. But the gender mix this year is amazing and wonderful. Here are the stats, with last year's in brackets. Narrative films (long): twelve (22). Woman-directe...
The Development Project's blog— For women who make movies. And for the people who love them. Globally.