Women in Film: BBC Introducing Arts (2021)

Brick Lane

The grind of daily life as a Brick Lane Bangladessi as seen through the eyes of Nazneen (Chatterjee), who at 17 enters an arranged marriage with Chanu (Kaushik). Years later, living in east London with her family, she meets a young man Karim (Simpson).

Casi divas

Four ambitious and beautiful young women. From four very different corners of Mexico. Just like hundreds of others, they are caught up in the frenzy that sweeps the nation when Alejandro Mateos, one of the country's most powerful producers, dreams up a nationwide talent search to cast the lead in his next big movie. But all this is news to Alejandro's on-again, off-again lover, Eva Gallardo, a diva of epic proportions, who expected to get the part. While Eva schemes to nail down the role, our four leads begin their own journey on the road to fame.

Iceberg

A married woman falls in love with a 19-year-old girl, and she has to make a choice between her family and the one who might be the love of her life.

Ava

Ava, 13, is spending the summer on the Atlantic coast when she learns that she will lose her sight sooner than expected. Her mother decides to act as if everything were normal so as to spend their best summer ever. Ava confronts the problem in her own way. She steals a big black dog that belongs to a young man on the run...

Untitled 77-A

The film contains the despair of an artist’s desire for creation on ruthless censorship, rebel, and anxiety in the mid-70s when it was politically and socially depressed.

Echo

A reframing of the classic tale of Narcissus, the director draws on snippets of conversation with a trusted friend to muse on gender and identity. Just as shimmers are difficult to grasp as knowable entities, so does the concept of a gendered self feel unknowable except through reflection. Is it Narcissus that Echo truly longs for, or simply the Knowing he possesses when gazing upon himself?

The Aggressives

Soyo, a quiet high school student, discovers inline skating. Mesmerized by the elaborate skating skills of Mogi, a member of the group, Soyo joins their team. Soyo's life is gradually consumed by the world of inline skating.

Carlotta

How many working class Balmain boys grow up to be showgirls? Not just any showgirl but a household name, a legend of Kings Cross, a daytime TV star, and a symbol of generational change.

Shower Boys

“Are you a man or a mouse?” asks the bandy trainer? Viggo answers with doubt but the team chant “MEN!”. After training, Viggo and Noel go home to Noel’s house and have a sauna. The friends start to compete on who is most manly, a tough competition where no-one really wants to be tough.

My Life Without Me

A fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before she dies without telling her family of her illness.

Girltrash: All Night Long

The story of five girls and one epic night. The girls will find love, lust, girl-fights, rock and roll, and a whole lot of stoned sorority girls.

Thou Wast Mild and Lovely

The arrival of a handsome new farmhand threatens the balance between a farmer and his daughter.

The Secret Life of Words

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.

To Walk Invisible

To Walk Invisible takes a new look at the extraordinary Brontë family, telling the story of these remarkable women who, despite the obstacles they faced, came from obscurity to produce some of the greatest novels in the English language.

Open Hearts

Cecilie and Joachim are about to get married when a freak car accident leaves Joachim disabled, throwing their lives into a spin. The driver of the other car, Marie, and her family don’t get off lightly, either. Her husband Niels works in the hospital where he meets Cecilie and falls madly in love with her.

Italian for Beginners

Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner's course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives. The film, which unspools the connections and family drama shared between the students, complies with several aesthetic principles of Dogme 95 movement.

Beaches

Follows the serendipitous meeting of two young girls on the Venice Boardwalk, who, though worlds apart in lifestyle, embark on unexpected and lifelong friendship. CC is an aspiring singer trying to make it in Los Angeles. Hillary is the daughter of a prominent civil rights lawyer who struggles to find her own destiny. Their friendship—even with its ups and downs—sustains them for decades.

Voice of Silence

Two guys who are working for cartels as cleaners get a request to monitor an 11-year-old kidnapped girl, but the situation gets worse when their supervisor gets killed.

Boys on Film 22: Love to Love You

The latest in Peccadillo’s critically acclaimed series – now established as a leading showcase for new and emerging queefilm-makingng talent from around the world – features a fresh and exciting selection of the very best contemporary gay short films. Each self-contained drama in this diverse and thoughtfully curated collection offers fascinating and insightful new perspectives on the gay experience – sensual, affecting, sometimes provocative and always entertaining. The 8 short films are: Have We Met Before? (2019); The Act (2020); First Position. (2019); Winter [Invierno] (2021); The Suit Weareth the Man (2020); Infinite While It Lasts [Infinito Enquanto Dure] (2019); Melon Grab (2017); Thrive (2019).

Two Distant Strangers

A man trying to get home to his dog becomes stuck in a time loop that forces him to relive a deadly run-in with a cop.

The First Saturday of May

An Irish Traveler father struggles to raise his son, who has darker secrets than most.

Starting Over Again

Ten years ago, Ginny, an Architecture student, and Marco, a History professor, began a one-of-a-kind and unpredictable love story. In the five years that they were together, they brought out the best in each other, which included Marco’s unrealized dream of becoming a chef. Together, they worked towards their dream of opening up a restaurant, but when Ginny realized her own pursuits were different from his, she rejected his wedding proposal and left the country for a Masters degree in Architecture. At present, Ginny co-owns a one-stop Architecture and Interior Design firm specializing in Restoration. She receives an email from Marco, which was written and sent after their break-up, meant to be read four years later. It makes her feel even more regretful of leaving the love of her life.

The Third Side of the River

Tensions rise when a doctor (Daniel Veronese) pressures his teenage son to follow in his footsteps.

And Then There Was You

Natalie and Joshua appear to be the picture-perfect couple, but looks can be deceiving. When Natalie discovers her husband has led a secret life, she is forced to deal with losing everything she loves. Newly divorced and soured on relationships, Natalie is picking up the pieces of her shattered world. In the process of healing, she meets a new man who challenges the boundaries of her trust and her ability to fall in love again.

The Woman in the Room

A man must face his inner demons when he is confronted with the decision to euthanize his mother, who suffers from an incurable disease.

Fat Girl

Anaïs is twelve and bears the weight of the world on her shoulders. She watches her older sister, Elena, whom she both loves and hates. Elena is fifteen and devilishly beautiful. Neither more futile, nor more stupid than her younger sister, she cannot understand that she is merely an object of desire. And, as such, she can only be taken. Or had. Indeed, this is the subject: a girl's loss of virginity. And, that summer, it opens a door to tragedy.

Strange Days

Former policeman Lenny Nero has moved into a more lucrative trade: the illegal sale of virtual reality-like recordings that allow users to experience the emotions and past experiences of others. While they typically contain tawdry incidents, Nero is shocked when he receives one showing a murder.

Desert Hearts

While waiting for her divorce papers, a repressed literature professor finds herself unexpectedly attracted by a carefree, spirited young woman named Cay.

Sleepless in Seattle

After the death of his mother, a young boy calls a radio station in an attempt to set his father up on a date. Talking about his father’s loneliness soon leads to a meeting with a young female journalist, who has flown to Seattle to write a story about the boy and his father.

Emmanuelle

Will Sharpe, Noémie Merlant, and Naomi Watts star in this sultry tale of lost pleasure. While traveling, Emmanuelle meets Kei, a man who constantly eludes her. Though she indulges in the many alluring distractions, she can’t shake their chance encounter. Will she submit to her basest desires to forge a deeper relationship? Emmanuelle traces the intimate quest of a woman whose name evokes one of film’s most provocative characters.

Limbus

As Alex struggles with disturbing hallucinations, his wife Vera tries to help, until they both experience their own profound revelations.

You Can Choose Your Friends

Comedy drama about a family reunion written by and starring Richard Herring. It's Ken and Margaret Snell's 45th wedding anniversary and their children and grandchildren along gather to celebrate. For Ken and Margaret's children, it's a day to revisit childhood arguments and to paper over present-day fractures in their relationships.

Plein soleil

Under the leaden sky of a summer day, Eric goes to work to defend a great issue. But, blinded by stress, Eric is forgetting the most important thing...

The Piano

When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited daughter to the wilderness of nineteenth-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.

Together

Elisabeth leaves her abusive and drunken husband Rolf, and goes to live with her brother, Göran. The year is 1975 and Göran lives in a commune called Together. Living in this leftist commune Elisabeth learns that the world can be viewed from different perspectives.

Little Miss Sunshine

A family loaded with quirky, colorful characters piles into an old van and road trips to California for little Olive to compete in a beauty pageant.

The Two of Them

Looking for a safe place to live after being harassed by her husband, a depressive and violent man, Juli stays at a women's shelter run by Mária.

Opening Night

A teenage boy navigates the final minutes before his first theater stage performance, which includes experiencing his first kiss. Despite his rising anxiety, he shares a romantic moment with a classmate.

Annaluise & Anton

Luise, called Pünktchen, and Anton are closest of friends. Being the daughter of a wealthy surgeon, young Pünktchen lives in a great house. Her mother, who always travels through the world more for public relation reasons than for the social tasks she pretends to fulfill, is never available to her as a mother. Anton, son of a single and sick mother in financial trouble, does his best to help her out of it by working late. Pünktchen decides to help her only friend (as nobody else would anyway) and starts singing in public places. Trouble arises when Anton can't resist stealing a golden lighter and Pünktchen's secret life is discovered by her parents. Two troubled families finally can see the need for actions to be taken.

Forever a Woman

Fumiko, mother of two children and wife of an unfaithful man, shares her family life with her budding vocation as a poet. The beginning of her successful literary career coincides with her divorce and her breast cancer diagnosis. In the last stage of her life, she meets a young journalist from Tokyo who wants to write a story on her life.

The Moon Has Risen

Mokichi is the widowed father of three daughters, with whom he lives on the premises of a temple since the war. All three daughters become involved in some sort of complicated relationships.

The Wandering Princess

Pu Zhe, the younger brother of the Emperor of Manchukuo, marries Ryuko the daughter of an aristocratic family. To the surprise of all, a deep love between Pu Zhe and Ryuko develops and is put to the test when Japan loses the war.

The Girls

The Girls is about the growing up of two schoolgirl sisters and the disappointments to which they are condemned by their impoverished backgrounds.

Artemide’s Knee

Mourning the death of his partner and collaborator Danièle Huillet, Straub finds tender mercy in music and nature. Out of the abyss, Kathleen Ferrier sings “The Farewell” from Gustav Mahler’s “The Song of the Earth”, (which the composer wrote in 1909 after the death of his daughter) and Heinrich Schütz’s Lament on the Death of His Wife. The landscape also provides solace: the mountain grove where Endymion pines for his beloved Artemis, “a wild thing, untouchable, mortal,” appears to embody the Japanese concept of ‘mono no aware’ — a wistful acceptance of the fleeting beauty of things.

Firefly

Emotionally withdrawn strip club dancer Ayako has never recovered from her mother's suicide when she was young. She begins a relationship with patient potter Daiji, but leaves him behind when she quits her job and returns to her home town after a 10 year absence.

My Father and I

After Xiao Yu's mother died in an accident, she moved back to live with her birth father who she knows little about. Gradually, they grew to know each other and to accept each other for who they are.

Dawn

As dawn creeps across London, two lost outcasts meet in the darkness, more afraid of themselves than each other. As the sun begins to rise, and the veil of the night is lifted, the pair look into the cold light of day for hope and it takes more than just the eyes to see inside a soul.

Light in Darkness: The Return of Red Light Bandit

Jorge, bastard child of the infamous Red Light Bandit, decides himself to pursuit a life of crime after meeting with his father, who has been incarcerated for the last 30 years.

Nanayo

Saiko travels to Thailand but she jumps out of the cab after knowing the driver's intentions. However, her life changes after she meets Greg.

Passion

Sylvia and Cora Miao play two widowed mothers, best friends and confidants who spend their days reminiscing about times past. Over the course of a lazy weekend afternoon, the two women conjure memories of Cora's husband, his life, his death, and his passionate affair with Sylvia. A series of wistful flashbacks reveal the sometimes touching, sometimes painful circumstances around the women's deep friendship with one another, and their love for the same man.

Splendid Float

Roy is a Taoist priest but also a drag queen performer. He meets and falls for Sunny but when Sunny disappears without saying goodbye, Roy begins to suspect that something terrible has happened.

For Fun

Required to retire from his job as a utility man at a Peking Opera theater, Old Han is at loose ends, wandering the backstreets of Beijing looking for something to correct.

Absent

Unable to afford proper menstrual products, Chloe is constantly faced with anxiety and humiliation; this is not the first time this has happened and it won’t be the last. 'Absent' is based on multiple true stories and made in association with Freedom4girls. It aims to raise awareness around period poverty in the UK.

Frisky

Two twenty-somethings move to San Francisco to chase their career, but end up chasing tail instead.

I Am Truly a Drop of Sun on Earth

April is released from prison after having been busted as an illegal sex worker. In the basement of a luxury hotel in Tbilisi where she works, she meets Dije, a young man who has left his native country Nigeria behind. Believing he is on his way to Georgia in the United States, he finds himself in a country that offers him no future. April herself is hiding and coming to terms with a lost love that is better not spoken of in Georgian society. Between longing and survival, in the searing heat of the capital, an extraordinary relationship develops between these two people who live on the margins of society.

Heat

An idealistic high school graduate goes to work on a state farm on the Kazakh steppe, only to clash with its authoritarian leader.

Fires Within

A Cuban emigre, living in Miami and involved in an affair with the American seaman who rescued her and her daughter years earlier, must face her husband after he is unexpectedly released from a Cuban prison.