52 Films By Women Challenge Year-End Recap

Earlier this year, I set up a few film challenges for myself. The major one was watching 52 films by women - one film a week for a year. 

I thought it'd be a pretty seamless challenge - find a movie every week and watch it. But it took quite a few different turns. Streaming services or rentals dropped a lot of titles before I got the chance to watch them, or movies I wanted to check out at random were difficult to find. More often than not, my work  schedule took over my days and nights, so squeezing in time was tougher than it was a couple of years ago when I was mainly working from home. Covering the Athena Film Festival gave me a bit of an edge in Spring. But, my original list looks absolutely nothing with what it looks now.

Consciously trying to watch more films by a wide range of directors truly put into perspective just how much more movies (usually by male directors) are out there and easily available. Browse any genre across Hulu, Netflix, HBO Max, etc. and it's dominated by one gender instead of a spectrum. That's not the same with films directed by women. Many don't get a second time to helm another feature, even if they're first is a financial success, making movie goers opportunities to find unique films in multiple genres extremely limited. Want to watch animated movie by a woman? They're out there, definitely, but harder to access.

Besides some of the cons, there were also pros. There is such a great variety of stories to be told. Every time a female director steps behind the camera, the representation on-screen and off becomes more normalized yet remains inspiring. Even if a film didn't land with me, I still appreciated knowing a female director was behind the camera and was putting a piece of her ideas and work or a female-lead out there, and to cover more ground with a focus on women of color, LGBTQ+ community, etc.

I didn't quite keep up with a side-goal to review every movie - as I just really lost my sense of writing this year. Anxiety became so bad that I restarted my letterboxd and deleted my other one. While I wish I could specifically talk about the movies I watched, my heart wasn't just in it beyond brief recaps of when I watched what.

One of the biggest habits that I have is waiting to watch a film when the time is right - whatever that means. But this challenge opened me up to watching movies that sounded interesting and just checking it out without putting any preface and expectations on the experience. I found that it gave me a lot more freedom to watch whatever I felt I was in the mood for, and not worry about whether it was good or bad, if I could write about it or not.

Out of the 52 films that I watched, these stood out to me the most: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, Love and Basketball, Julia Scotti: Funny That Way, Test Pattern, Abominable, The Piano, But I'm A Cheerleader, A Vigilante, Miss You Already, Our Friend, and Shiva Baby. 

A few honorable mentions: All Too Well short film, D.E.B.S, Home for the Holidays, Mamma Gloria, Beyond the Lights, Mudbound, Leave No Trace, Somethings Gotta Give, Eves Bayou.

I'm definitely going to watch films by more directors this year, but I'm not sure I'll continue this specific goal. There are still several late releases I wished to have checked out and pushed me over the finishing line - Passing, The Power of the Dog, The Lost Daughter, Petite Maman. But I just didn't have time with work and holidays taking over in December...I guess I know where to start in 2022.

52 Films By Women - Fall Update

We're less than two months away until the end of 2021. It took me  a few months into the year to get used to the challenge, but I started to hit a solid stride in late summer where I wasn't too far ahead or behind. 

However, I still struggled to find some films to watch from my original list. Two sites that were a big help were Mubi and ReelGood. Mubi lists movies directed by women on a single page, which gave me ideas of what to look out for and makes it easier to remember what I haven't seen. And, ReelGood offers lists of movies directed by women filtered by subscription services. 

The movies I've watched since my summer update include: Clemency, Black Widow, Leave No Trace, The Virgin Suicides, The Feels, W.E., The Last Letter From Your Lover, High Life, The Piano, A Beautiful Planet, Aeon Flux, But I'm A Cheerleader, Mary J Blige's: My Life, Home for the Holidays, Miss You Already, Saving Face, Black As Night, A Vigilante, Our Friend, and Eve's Bayou.

The first half of the year didn't warrant a lot, if any, unenjoyable viewings. But I do feel like this latter half offered more variety, fun ideas, and directors that have left a huge impact. Some of my faves are: Leave No Trace, The Piano, But I'm A Cheerleader, Miss You Already, A Vigilante, and Eve's Bayou.

Right now, I only have 8 more movies to watch before I cross the finishing line. I'm pretty excited because I did not think I'd come this far at all.

One of the biggest takeaway has been the amount of different stories and voices that are not pushed by the mainstream industry and studios. I've come across a lot of films that were negatively lauded that I enjoyed or didn't get as much attention as it could've as an independent film. I don't know if I'll do a specific challenge like this next year, but I'm definitely keeping my options open to be more conscious about what I watch and who is the director moving ahead.

52 Films By Women Challenge - Summer Blog Update

It's been a while since I blogged my 52 Films By Women Challenge. Since the halfway mark of the year has come and go, I thought it's time to post an update.

I'm happy to say I'm still hanging on. My main roadblock is that I'll watch a movie and fall behind in writing something about it here. Then a few weeks have past, and I just keep watching the movies I need to except for a few Letterboxd posts here and there.

The movies I've watched since my last Spring update include Everything Everything, Beyond the Lights, Mudbound, Across the Universe, Bound, By the Sea, What Happened Nina Simone?, The World to Come, Abominable, Clemency, Atlantics, and will be seeing Black Widow to almost tie things up. None of these were particularly flawed, but Beyond the Lights, Mudbound, Across the Universe, What Happened Nina Simone? and Abominable will stick with me the most from the past quarter.

The biggest change is diverging from my 'set' list. I've felt like watching something in the moment more than picking a title from my list,. It's made the challenge fun but also given me a few hurdles. When I try to find movies that I'm in the mood for, women's work is lacking in so many genres. I often want to watch more comedies, action, and superhero movies, and there are only so many to choose from. Not being able to find more mainstream projects has helped me dig around for more indies, but that also presents a problem when they're not available. 

Other than that, the challenge is still going strong. I'm not quite sure when I'll update except for autumn or end of the year retrospective.

Mostly, I'm burnt out. It takes a lot not to delete The Falcon and The Winter Soldier review as I'm not proud of it, and I'm shocked I even finished my list of LGBTQ+ changes I'd like to see in film post. I don't quite know how to say goodbye to this space, but I feel myself moving further away the less time I spend here. But I might be doing that once this challenge and TMP are over at the end of the year.

52 Films By Women Challenge - Spring Update

For the first few months of 2021, I challenged myself to start the 52 Films by Women Challenge - to watch one film by a female director every week for a year. It's been a few posts since I've updated the challenge, and thought I'd share my progress so far.

In March, I started providing coverage for the Athena Film Festival, which celebrated female filmmakers from shorts to feature films and documentaries (my reviews and thoughts can be found here). Since life became more complicated offline and ate away a lot of my free time for the challenge, I couldn't quite manage both at the same time. To keep the challenge on track as much as possible, I started replacing the films from my original challenge with projects I was screening - seven in total.

I'm also considering changing my process of choosing the films to watch. However, similar to the festival, I found a lot of freedom of being able to go out and find films to watch rather than stick to a preset of options. I'm pretty happy with the way the list is right now, but I might want to change out some films as I go along. Sometimes I find something on Netflix I had never heard of before and want to add it into the mix instead.

But as of now, I'm all caught up for the challenge and just need to continue watching one movie a week. I'll probably get back to doing a bi-weekly catch-up of the films I watch at the end of April or beginning of May.

52 Films By Women Challenge - The Love Witch and Love & Basketball

In 2015, the Los Angeles' Women in Film started a challenge to watch one film by a female director every week for a year. I've seen this floating around social media and movie blogs for a while, and always meant to join in. For 2021, I finally decided to try it out this year as one of my resolutions.

Every week I thought it'd be fun to do a quick round-up of the film(s) I've watched for the challenge. The films I chose for the challenge are on letterboxd - if you want to see the slate so far - but I'm not going in an particular order of alphabetical or chronological.

My next two films is The Love Witch (2016) and Love and Basketball (2000). I've been dealing with some health and personal stuff lately, so of course I'm falling behind posting these again. I might make this weekly catch-up into a bi-weekly routine instead to give me time to write and post my thoughts.

52 Films By Women Challenge - Professor Marston and The Wonder Women (2017) and D.E.B.S. (2004)

In 2015, the Los Angeles' Women in Film started a challenge to watch one film by a female director every week for a year. I've seen this floating around social media and movie blogs for a while, and always meant to join in. For 2021, I finally decided to try it out this year as one of my resolutions. 

Every week I thought it'd be fun to do a quick round-up of the film(s) I've watched for the challenge. I'm still playing catch-up to post my thoughts from the past few weeks. My next two films are directed by Angela Robinson - Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017) and D.E.B.S (2004).

52 Films By Women Challenge - A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) and Troop Zero (2019)

In 2015, the Los Angeles' Women in Film started a challenge to watch one film by a female director every week for a year. I've seen this floating around social media and movie blogs for a while, and always meant to join in. For 2021, I finally decided to try it out this year as one of my resolutions. 

Every week I thought it'd be fun to do a quick round-up of the film(s) I've watched for the challenge. The films I chose for the challenge are on letterboxd - if you want to see the slate so far - but I'm not going in an particular order of alphabetical or chronological. 

Since I started writing this series late, I'm playing a little bit of catch-up. My next two films are A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2020) and Troop Zero (2019)

52 Films By Women Challenge - The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

In 2015, the Los Angeles' Women in Film started a challenge to watch one film by a female director every week for a year. I've seen this floating around social media and movie blogs for a while, and always meant to join in. For 2021, I finally decided to try it out this year as one of my resolutions.

Every week I thought it'd be fun to do a quick round-up of the film(s) I've watched for the challenge. 

My first film is The Edge of Seventeen (2016)