F-Rated
Our programme of films featuring the work of female directors has coincided with the development of the F-rating, a new system designed to flag up the significant involvement of women in film, on either side of the camera.
The F-Rating Manifesto
The stories we see on screen influence our lives. We want to hear stories from everyone, not just from one section of society.
We want diversity in filmmaking, both on and off screen.
The F-rating was founded by Holly Tarquini at Bath Film Festival 2014 where we wanted to highlight films which feature prominent women both behind the camera and in front of it.
Every film which ticks yes to the one of the following questions receives the F-rating of approval:
- Does it have a female director?
- Is it written by a woman?
- Is/are there complex female characters on screen who exist in their own right (not simply there to support to the male lead)?
The F stands for feminist.
Feminism is: "The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities." We believe that feminism benefits everyone.
Featuring
A perfect candidate to start our new season too? We thought so. We last saw director Haifaa Al-Mansour in 2014 with the first Saudi film ever directed by a woman – 'Wadjda' – where she brought us a small girl determined to own a bike (not allowed in Saudi). Six years later, she is back in Saudi with Maryam, a female doctor trying her hardest to be accepted as a doctor (her first patient refuses to let a woman touch him).
Her clinic has the only emergency room for miles and is down a dirt road which becomes a quagmire when it rains. Failing to get the local councillor to do anything about it, she decides to stand for office herself. "Maryam doesn’t see herself as any kind of feminist pioneer. Her motivations are practical, not symbolic. But the people around her are bull-headed. To them, nothing exists beyond her gender. When she makes an appearance on local TV, the presenter assumes her policies deal only in women’s issues 'like gardens, for instance'" – Clarisse Loughrey, Independent.
In a country where males are totally dominant, Maryam gets little support from either men or women, but she soldiers on. "Al-Mansour cleverly shows that Maryam's family connections in the world of being a wedding singer have given her some crucial experience in public performance and addressing large assemblies of people, including men, in that rare context that permits the public acceptability of women" Peter Bradshaw, Guardian. This gives her campaign an air of credibility to us, though the reactions to her might well make us pretty angry too!
Will she win or lose? You will have to come along to find out.
Molly Windsor plays Ruth here, fresh from her role as the eldest child in 'The Runaways', the opener at our last Festival. Stand by for a very different role for her here...
Finally considered old enough to be away from home by her parents, 18 year old Ruth has come to this deserted caravan site in Cornwall's winter to get a job and be with her long term boyfriend Tom. So we enter this dark, middle world of youth turning adult; she is between two chapters of her life, as the caravan site is between seasons. Being unsure of herself, she finds a friend in Jade, a fellow worker, who offers her help and a makeover, painting her bitten nails red...but is there more going on here than we see at first?
This is writer-director Claire Oakley's first feature film, for which she has got all-round good reviews: "She has taken the template of arthouse Brit realism and audaciously spiked it with some genre thrills, as if Ken Loach collaborated with Brian De Palma or Nicolas Roeg" – Peter Bradshaw, Guardian. "Claire Oakley's assured debut is all about liminal spaces, both physical and mental, the places and feelings that hang eerily between the concrete and the comforting....Oakley keeps things taut as time seems to slip sideways for Ruth, things half remembered or imagined bright, like those nails, in her memory. There's nothing liminal about Oakley's talents, she has firmly arrived" – Amber Wilkinson, Eye for Film. [In case you, like me, don’t know what 'liminal' means, the Google definition is – "occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold"!]
"With cinematographer Nick Cooke, Oakley finds the bracingly different aspects of the Cornish landscape: ominous in the darkness, wild in the sunshine and menacing in the cold, as distant sea spray mixes with the cloud cover. It’s a clever and expertly made movie; Oakley luxuriates in its winter chill" – Peter Bradshaw again.
A coming-of-age movie, then, but one wrapped up in a spooky seaside thriller which results in a stylish psychological drama. Given Molly Windsor had gone down well at the Festival, we couldn't resist having 'Make Up' here.
If all that isn't enough, this is another Triple F-rated movie (female director, writer and star). What more can we ask for?
Where 'The Perfect Candidate' gave us a fairly lightweight view of the problems of life for a woman in Saudi Arabia, 'Papicha' takes a much hard-hitting look at Algeria in the 1990s, when the Islamic revolution forced women in hijabs. Basing the film on her own experiences, Mounia Madour places Nedjma, nicknamed Papicha – Algerian slang for 'cool girl' – at the centre of the whirlpool: she wants to be a fashion designer and, refusing to accept the changes that are happening, she decides to put on a fashion show in the university.
"What Papicha so brilliantly captures is the instability of women's experiences. Rather than being relentlessly brutal, the film's structure better captures the ups and downs of the characters' lives. There are periods of fun that intercut the more challenging moments...It's the greatest asset of 'Papicha' that it condemns without being dogmatic, showing its central conflict to be more complicated than Western audiences might otherwise believe" - Lillian Crawford, Little White Lies.
"Meddour makes great cinematic choices, particularly the use of clothing design to specify the profound effect that the struggle between liberal and fundamentalist forces within Islam has on women. Women were killed during the civil war for not covering up, and it is quite possible that they could be again" – Amy Taubin, Film Comment.
One to make you think as well as enjoy.
"What a wonderful, heart-breaking, life-affirming gem of a movie this is. Having proved a crowd-pleasing hit at the London film festival in October 2019 (how long ago that now seems!), this vibrant, insightful and deeply empathetic drama about teenage girls forging their identities in a potentially hostile world is grittily realistic, yet also fiercely optimistic. Boasting a terrific ensemble cast that showcases a host of talented newcomers, it’s exactly the film we need right now, pointing the way to a more positive future while looking the perils of the present day squarely in the eye" – Mark Kermode, Guardian.
Rocks comes home from school to find her mother has gone leaving her with her young brother to look after and no money. How she copes and how she is helped by her friends is the story of 'Rocks': "Although principally a social-realist drama set in and around East London, Rocks is fortunately bereft of the miserabilism associated with the genre" – Rogan Graham, Little White Lies.
Written and directed by three women, using workshops of school children and youths, which "has given this team effort an impressively authentic edge. Everything about these teenagers' lives rings true, from their battles for survival to the exuberance of a classroom food fight, or scenes in which the girls bust dance moves (an eclectic music playlist speaks volumes about their characters) on a rooftop, or in a train carriage" – Mark Kermode again.
One of the biggest hits around the UK at the moment, it just looked too good for us to miss.
Most seasons we have a film which comes over as poetry in motion, which would be beautiful to look at even if there were no story; 'Song without a Name' is this season's poem.
Based on real events in the 1980s in Peru, Georgina - an indigenous Quechuan living near Lima – scrapes a living selling potatoes. When her baby is due, she hears an advert for a free clinic where she goes to give birth, but the baby disappears and she is left fruitlessly begging the police to help before turning to the media. Although the film makes it clear that it is the norm for the poor people of this area to get no support, "just when you think that León is going to steer the film into the terrain of a conventional investigative thriller, she remains fixated on exploring loss and pain on an intimate and personal scale" – Steven Scaife, Slant Magazine.
Filmed in glorious monochrome "the film remains grandly composed, with spectacular tableaus that make the Peruvian hillsides look like scenes from a John Ford western. Georgina becomes a silhouette slipping down barren mountains; when she enters the newspaper offices, the walls appear to entrap her" – Teo Bugbee, New York Times.
Melina León is a Peruvian director, based in Lima and New York. This is her first feature film: originally shown at Cannes, the film has gone on to be a big hit at 90 film festivals around the world, winning 32 awards along the way.
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