BFI Flare: Hot Milk (2025)
★☆☆☆☆
Sofia and Rose have relocated to Spain to try and cure Rose’s mysterious health condition. While supporting her mother, Sofia falls for the enigmatic Ingrid in Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s directorial debut Hot Milk.
Female Filmmakers
BFI Flare: Summer’s Camera (2024)
★★★★☆
A year after losing her father, teenager Summer falls for a football star, coming to learn about both herself and her late father in the process, in writer/director Divine Sung’s sensitive coming-of -age drama Summer’s Camera.
On Falling (2024)
★★★★☆
On Falling, a first feature directed by Laura Carreira, is a worthy addition to the Ken Loach trilogy on Sixteen Films: the lives of people struggling on low-wage or zero-hours contracts.
Berlinale: Paternal Leave (2025)
★★★★☆
Paternal Leave is charming and heartbreaking at the same time. It’s the debut feature written and directed by Alissa Jung.
Oscars FYC: From Ground Zero (2024)
★★★☆☆
Oscars 2025: From Ground Zero compiled by Rashid Masharawi is a compilation of short films showing everyday life in a destroyed Gaza.
The Taste of Mango (2023)
★★★★☆
The Taste of Mango is an impressionistic collage of female abuse through three generations bound by enduring love.
All We Imagine As Light (2024)
★★★★★
All We Imagine As Light is a beautiful film about the contrasting lives of three women in India, the second film directed by award-winning Payal Kapadia.
Memories of a Burning Body (2024) (Memorias de un Cuerpo que Arde)
★★★★☆
Memories of a Burning Body is an incredibly moving, candid docufiction about older women’s sexuality, directed by award-winning Antonella Sudasassi Furniss.
BFI LFF 2024: All We Imagine As Light (2024)
★★★★☆
All We Imagine As Light is a beautiful film about the contrasting lives of three women in India, the second film directed by award-winning Payal Kapadia.
BFI LFF 2024: Mother Vera (2024)
★★★☆☆
Mother Vera is an award-winning documentary by Cécile Embleton and Alys Tomlinson that enthrallingly reveals the life of a nun in Belarusia both pre- and post-convent.
BFI LFF 2024: Who Do I Belong To (2024) (Mé el Aïn)
★★★☆☆
Who Do I Belong To, an unsettlingly topical first feature by Meryam Joobeur, looks at identity in a post-ISIS world and sets out to challenge perceptions and prejudices.
BFI London Film Festival 2024: My Eternal Summer (2023) (Min Evige Sommer)
★★★☆☆
My Eternal Summer Sylvia Le Fanu is the heartfelt, bittersweet story of a teenager and her family’s emotions during a last summer together.
Girls Will Be Girls (2024)
★★★★☆
Girls Will Be Girls, writer/director Shuchi Talati’s first feature, is a well-observed dramatisation of the misogyny that affects the lives of girls and women.
The Queen of my Dreams (2023)
★★★☆☆
The Queen of my Dreams, Fawzia Mirza’s first feature, links two time lines and two continents with a mother and daughter’s shared love for Bollywood.