With more women directing, BBC heralds new golden age of cinema
French-Senegalese filmmaker Mati Diop’s feature debut, Atlantics (2019), made her the first black female director to compete for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. (Image Courtesy: BBC).
When BBC Culture polled the greatest films directed by women, only nine of the top twenty-five were released before 1990, and a fifth of the top one hundred are dated 1999, 2008, 2014, or 2017, which seems to be symptomatic of a new filmmaking golden age, according to BBC News. Australian critic and Hollywood-based presenter Alicia Malone says the rise of independent film in the 1990s democratized moviemaking, as newer, smaller studios allocated more risk-averse budgets and high-definition consumer video cameras to previously unheard of artists. Tricia Tuttle, the artistic director of the BFI London Film Festival, says it’s still too soon to know whether we’re in a golden age or not, but with four out of the five female nominees for the Best Director Academy Award being nominated after 1990, change is here.
I am an award-winning journalist, memoirist, and personal essayist in Denver, Colorado. I hold a Master of Arts in Professional Creative Writing with a concentration in Nonfiction from the University of Denver, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Media Communication from Colorado State University Fort Collins, with a concentration in Publications Writing, Editing, and Production, and an interdisciplinary minor in Film Studies. I am passionate about inspiring positive change and meaningful action through the power of the literary arts.
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