#aobh

So what is it that keeps you here? One thing that keeps me here are the lists and tracking features like films watched and the watchlist. I have also started exploring the world map feature for Pro and Patron accounts more. And recently I found the JustWatch partnership to be very helpful when my library got a temporary subscription to Hoopla. I was able to filter what was available for my watchlist and prioritize the titles that weren’t available on other services I have access to.

But the main reason I keep using my account is that it has made it a whole lot easier to share my Netflix DVD queue picks for our shared account with my boyfriend Rwg01, whom I talked into making a Letterboxd account. He’s become a self-professed “junior film snob” recently, which has been fascinating to see. Before, I was doing the queue by an email chain and I would forget what I had sent him already, so having a list that I could update regularly without throwing in duplicates, so he could see what I had prioritized, was really helpful for us both!

I’ve definitely expanded what I’ve watched since I’ve been on Letterboxd. I was not a stranger to non-English movies before, but I’ve watched more in the last year and a half, and I’m not sure if I purposely watched a Criterion before then.

‘Phantom Lady’ (1944), directed by Robert Siodmak.

Tell us why you have your current profile four? (We also like the idea of keeping track of your old choices!) I definitely like variety, and since I sprung for a Patron account I didn’t want to look at the same pictures over and over, but of my current four it’s a combination of some old and new favorites. North & South is a short miniseries—it’s only 4 hours—but I actually prefer it to the 1995 Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle Pride and Prejudice, which might be sacrilegious. Phantom Lady is a new favorite that I discovered through the Old Hollywood Movie Club, which I probably wouldn’t have known about otherwise. The Thing with Two Heads is a cult movie that I need to revisit since I haven’t watched it in a long time, but I leave it on my profile because I think it is worthy to have at least one fan. And Lost in Paris is a fun Belgian/French comedy that is a modern homage to Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin.

Take us way back: what was the film that sparked your passion for cinema? This is a really hard question, but the first film I went out and bought memorabilia for was The Mummy in 1999. It was a Mummy action figure that included canopic jars. The movie made me want to visit Egypt, and it definitely sparked an appreciation for Rachel Weisz on my part, although the entire cast was fantastic. And one of the first films I bought on DVD was Amélie.

Your epic female filmmaker lists are incredible. How is it humanly possible to curate these lists into the thousands?! Explain your process. Thank you! My first two lists—Written by Women and Directed by Women—actually started from me trying to track what was on my watchlist that I could eventually use for a personal ‘52 Films by Women’ list, and then I just decided one day to start adding everything, even the Hallmark and Lifetime movies, since people tend to turn their noses up at them. You can see the origins from the Directed by Women list, where it is still in a ‘when added’ order. The other lists came from seeing names and wanting to record them in a list to keep track of them. I used to work in a library, so I guess I just feel a compulsion to catalog things sometimes.

To be honest, my current curation method is mainly ‘seven degrees of Kevin Bacon’ and stumbling onto women who are working behind the scenes, plus adding the ones I already knew. I’ve also noticed some women from the credits in things that I’ve watched, and have also looked at some festival lineups and indie film release lists for new titles.

I haven’t had a chance to survey all the award nominee lists and women-oriented film websites yet and I have less free time now, so the lists are definitely still a work in progress. The Cinematography and Composer lists are still very new. I’ve also had help from other Letterboxd members, and one that I’d like to especially highlight is Warped. She’s added a lot of early women-created films to TMDb and has given me a lot of early names for my Written by Women list.

Please take us on a tour of a few of your favorite craftswomen from each list. I will start off by saying that I’m certainly not an expert in women-created media. My best personal tally is only six percent watched for composers, and the rest vary between one and four percent. As I mentioned earlier, the lists I created mainly started with my watchlist, so I’m still exploring them myself!

Directors: I’m currently doing a 5×5 challenge that mostly features women directors, so I imagine my answer will change in the future as I watch more films, but my current favorite woman-directed film is Om Shanti Om, directed and written by Farah Khan. It’s very much a Bollywood-savvy film, and I’m still a relative newbie to Indian cinema, but I thought Khan did a wonderful job capturing the musical numbers and showing the sheer spectacle that sometimes comes with filmmaking. And she had to wrangle all those Bollywood stars, which I imagine was not an easy task. I look forward to revisiting it when I’m “more in the know” about Bollywood.

‘Om Shanti Om’ (2017), written and directed by Farah Khan.

As far as other women directors go, I look forward to exploring more of Agnès Varda’s filmography, I love Nora Ephron and Penny Marshall, I’m impressed by the sheer amount of women that Mati Diop and Dee Rees were apparently able to get to work with them behind the scenes on Atlantics and Mudbound, respectively, and I think award winners and nominees like Jane Campion, Kathryn Bigelow, Lina Wertmüller and Greta Gerwig are important to note, along with high box-office earners like Patty Jenkins.

There are lots of interesting up-and-coming directors like Lulu Wang, Rungano Nyoni, and Letterboxd members like Margot Gordon, and there are many wonderful directors on the Official Top 100 Narrative Feature Films by Women Directors, past and present. I am also really enjoying the short-film anthologies by women, like Vai. There are also many highly rated women directors that need some more views! Three of those underseen ladies whose films I recently enjoyed were Antoinette Jadaone’s Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay, Tang Shu Shuen’s The Arch, and Rebecca Taichman’s Indecent. However, none of these ladies would be at the level they are today without the trail-blazing of Alice Guy-Blaché, who was one of the first people to create a narrative fiction film, and is criminally little-known.

‘Bringing Up Baby’ (1938), directed by Howard Hawks, co-written by Hagar Wilde.

Writers: I am a big comedy fan, so, a lot of my favorites have also directed, like Nora Ephron, but my current favorites are the aforementioned North & South (source material by Elizabeth Gaskell, with a big hat-tip to Jane Austen, another favorite, and screenplay co-written by Sandy Welch), 1917 (co-written by Krysty Wilson-Cairns), Carol (source material by Patricia Highsmith and written by Phyllis Nagy), The Favourite (co-written by Deborah Davis), The Heat (written by Katie Dippold), Bringing Up Baby (source material and co-written by Hagar Wilde), Singin’ in the Rain (co-written by Betty Comden), Tokyo Godfathers (co-written by Keiko Nobumoto) and Christmas in Connecticut (co-written by Adele Comandini and Aileen Hamilton).

Since many of these were co-written, it’s hard to say which portions come from the ladies, but in general, I find women often write female characters with more depth, they include more emotion and well-rounded romance, and also women are very funny.

‘Atlantics’ (2019), written and directed by Mati Diop, cinematography by Claire Mathon.

Cinematographers: One that was very striking to me recently was Claire Mathon’s work in Atlantics [Mathon is also the award-winning cinematographer of Portrait of a Lady on Fire]. She did a great job balancing shots between the characters and the adjacent landscape, I thought, and it was my favorite part of the film. I look forward to seeing more of her work, along with more women cinematographers.

I also had no idea that Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind was filmed by a woman—Ellen Kuras—until recently. Since I haven’t seen it in a very long time I cannot talk about the cinematography right now, but it’s one of my favorite films.

‘The Musicians’ (1960), directed by Kazimierz Karabasz, edited by Lidia Zonn.

Editors: It’s hard to have a conversation about women editors without Thelma Schoonmaker and Sally Menke being mentioned since they have worked with Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino long-term, respectively. RIP Sally Menke, gone too soon.

A recent editing favorite of mine was Lidia Zonn’s work on Kazimierz Karabasz’s The Musicians, which was a Criterion find. As a lapsed musician, I really appreciated how she touched upon many of the instruments in her editing when they were featured in the music, and juxtaposed it with the conductor at key moments. It gave a great feel for the movement of the musical piece and the practice overall, although I think the whole crew for that title were beasts. I was unsurprised when I saw that Zonn had at least one sound credit in her filmography because you could tell that she understood the subject matter. One thing that I’ve found doing these lists is that many women wear multiple hats behind the scenes.

I’d also like to mention Midge Costin’s Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound. I considered having a list for sound editors and mixers after watching that documentary, but I decided that it would be too hard to find data. I may change my mind in the future. Costin features interviews with several women in the field, in addition to giving a really good overview to sound engineering. I highly recommend it if you are interested in film production.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Sarah Gadon in ‘Belle’ (2013), directed by Amma Assante, written by Misan Sagay, edited by Pia Di Ciaula and Victoria Boydell, music composed by Rachel Portman.

Composers and songwriters: I am still discovering women movie composers—if you know of some, give me a holler! But I have assigned myself works from Tamar-kali and Hildur Guðnadóttir. However, I have seen several movies that feature music by Rachel Portman and Anne Dudley, who have been the most prolific composers I’ve found so far.

Out of the composers nominated for the 2020 Oscars, I had only seen 1917 and Star Wars, so I can’t really comment on the competition as a whole, but it’s always nice to see women get recognized in very male-heavy fields. As of right now, it seems like there are fewer women composers—at least to me—than the other major behind-the-scenes movie roles, so that makes Guðnadóttir's Oscar win for Joker even more notable, especially since she won as a solo composer.

‘Paris is Burning’ (1990), directed by Jennie Livingston.

Documentaries from women directors: My current favorites directed by women either bring light to women’s issues or highlight a woman I either hadn’t heard of or didn’t know much about their life. Some favorites are Rayka Zehtabchi’s Period. End of Sentence., Heather Lenz’s Kusama: Infinity, Alexandra Dean’s Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, and Julie Cohen and Betsy West’s RBG. Some other women-directed documentaries I have an eye on are Kedi (my heart may explode, so I’ve been putting it off), The Babushkas of Chernobyl, The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young, The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, The Decline of Western Civilization, Nuts!, Cameraperson and of course, Paris is Burning. I also want to check out Agnès Varda’s documentaries, since they look really interesting.

Other than those you’ve mentioned above, who are some trailblazers in film history in any of the above crafts that you’d like to bring to light? In addition to early directors like Guy-Blaché and Lois Weber, Frances Marion is also notable for being the first writer of any gender to win two Academy Awards for screenwriting, for The Big House and The Champ. The Criterion Channel is currently screening fifteen of her films plus a documentary about her, so I plan to pig out when I have a chance. When women were largely shut out of filmmaking in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s in Hollywood, editors like Anne Bauchen, the first woman Oscar nominee and winner for Film Editing—Adrienne Fazan for Gigi—and the first woman editor in Hollywood, Viola Lawrence, were still working behind the scenes, along with many women screenwriters, and the few directors like Dorothy Arzner and Ida Lupino. There are many other women out there to be discovered and I’m still learning about them myself.

Behind the camera: the first known female filmmaker, Alice Guy-Blaché.

Please share some of your other favorite female filmmaker lists. I often refer to Thaizy’s Directed by Women list. Vanessa’s curated and Dana Danger’s Directed by Women lists have some additional titles. Some other lists that I’ve favorited for later use are:

Study of Women in Cinematography

Modern Films Directed by a Black Woman

Willy’s East/Southeast Asian Female Directors

Female Cinematographers’ Debut Features

Sight & Sound’s The Female Gaze: 100 Overlooked Films Directed by Women

Women Make Film

Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers on Netflix

If you like (male-directed movie) watch (female-directed movie)

The Celluloid Void: Rare Films Written and/or Directed by Women

Black Women Film and Video Artists

Woman World Film Directors

Stuff by Women About Women

Vanessa’s Rec List

How do you feel about the recency bias in these lists, such as how nearly half of the films in Letterboxd’s Official Top Films Directed by Women Directors are from the past ten years? What does that indicate to you? I honestly think a lot of recency bias has to do with easy availability and how people consume media, and also current publicity cycles. Media conglomerates tend to focus on what’s new and hot or popular, and older titles often get dropped in favor of the new—they mainly are concerned with volume, subscribers, and clicks. If people never see something offered to begin with, they may never come across it. Also, some titles get the label of “not commercially viable” on them, so they never get a wide distribution from the get-go. Typically, we all tend to go for what’s convenient, and unfortunately some interesting and worthy things will drop through the cracks.

For example, the reason I am a weirdo and have a shared Netflix DVD plan is that frankly, what I want to watch is often not available to stream. I also like special features, and those are hardly ever included for streaming.

Céline Sciamma’s ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ (2019) is the highest-rated woman-directed film on Letterboxd.

You haven’t logged Portrait of a Lady on Fire yet! We hope you plan to see it soon. How do you feel about its legacy and impact on Letterboxd? I need Highlander to become reality, because I really have too many things slated to watch and I am definitely behind on 2019 releases. I was happy when Portrait made it to Hulu and it’s definitely on my mental list, even more so after I saw Atlantics. Technically, it’s on my Film School Dropouts list. I promise I will see it eventually!

I’m pleased that it is so highly rated on Letterboxd, although there are some things that have women behind the scenes that are rated even higher! I think a lot of people think of media by and about women as being slight, less important, or just plain bad. I think it’s wrong to paint everything with women creators or about women with that brush, because it is clearly not true, no matter how much some people would like it to be that way.

You’ve participated in many challenges. How do you find the ones you want to participate in? I’ve sorta stopped focusing on challenges as much recently due to limited time and have been spending a little more time on Letterboxd film clubs—Film Club and the aforementioned Old Hollywood Movie Club—but usually what I look for is a challenge that will expand my viewing in some way, or will help me tackle my watchlist. Or they just seem like fun.

Some people who have created and continued some great challenges other than the aforementioned Buzzybhn are: Jason Tucker’s Comedy Challenge; various challenges by kynky; the Scavenger Hunt, hosted by different people each month, maintained by Wood; Joakim’s Age of Cage and Apwill Dafoeth challenges; Lise’s March Around the World; Steve Geiler’s Film School Dropouts; Benjamin Milot’s Letterboxd Season Challenge; El Cinemonster’s Hooptober; DBC’s Animation challenge; Lia’s Zodiac/Cast Chart; Kyle Armstrong’s Documentary challenge.

There are tons of other challenges out there, so if you have an interest in something, chances are someone has come up with a challenge. I listed many more here, and I’ve found challenges before by using the list sub-search.

What were some of the best film discoveries you’ve made thanks to a Letterboxd challenge? Just recently, I got around to watching Love, Antosha, and I would’ve never thought a Nicolas Cage Challenge would’ve exposed me to such a sucker-punch of a film. [Editor’s note: read our interview with Love, Antosha director Garret Price.]

And which have been the most difficult or impossible challenges so far? I rarely finish challenges, so they are all approaching impossible, ha ha. I mainly use them to spice up what I watch. But I think it will take me some time to finish my World Project and the Fam(ily) Challenge I made up since they have 100+ movies. And I will diligently chip away on my Watchlist Project, but that will probably never end. Also, theoretically, the Showdown Challenge won’t be ending, either, I assume. No pressure!

Which movie that you fell asleep to have you vowed to give a second chance? I will eventually revisit all the ones I haven’t finished, even Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, but the one I was genuinely interested in while watching it was Superman: Red Son. I was just really tired that day.

You can keep one cinematic cat. Who do you take home? Ah! You are evil! I guess I will pick Catbus from My Neighbor Totoro, if I can only pick one, but I have to give special props to the cats in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Diamantino and The Scarlet Flower for being so chill in the face of adversity.

Orangey the cat and Audrey Hepburn in a scene from ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ (1961), directed by Blake Edwards.

What’s the most underrated film according to Letterboxd average rating? (And tell us why we’re wrong.) I actually think London Fields isn’t as bad as people have rated it, but I think I saw the better edit. Try the DVD version on for size! The ending is still somewhat questionable, in my opinion.

Which film ranks the highest on your list of shame? Oh, I haven’t seen a lot of popular and highly rated movies, but according to my boyfriend, I should feel most shameful about not seeing Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The thing is, I think I have seen it, but I can’t remember for sure.

You’ve collaborated with our team to add many backdrops that we were missing. Why do you feel it’s important that each film has its own artwork? Sometimes the poster can give a good sense of the film, but sometimes it does not. If you are looking for something interesting to watch, a backdrop might sway you. Also, if you are a Patron member, having backdrops for your profile, lists, and reviews is nice. I also have to give a shoutout to Kevin Almroth and Drew for their lists and guidance about backdrops, and of course the Letterboxd team for handling the requests!

What’s a feature you wish Letterboxd had? I was actually talking to Kyle Armstrong about sorting for two genres at once last year for a genre challenge, but I don’t know how easy that would be to implement. I’d also love to be able to sort lists by popularity while editing, rather than having to sort them after publication. But I was happy when I got an email recently that stated the ‘uploading your own avatar image to the site’ feature request that I had voted on was now live.