Tell Me

Subscribe to Film Comment today. 

All too often, women’s opinions are considered valuable only in certain situations: when there’s a problem affecting women, when there’s an opportunity to market to women, when there’s a president that is a deeply reactionary sexual predator. Nellie Killian’s series “Tell Me: Women Filmmakers, Women’s Stories” attempts to show the multitude of experiences and issues that come to light when a director takes the simple but radical step of having a woman tell her story to the camera. Spanning several decades as well as a variety of lengths, the 34 films in the series open up a free space for discussion of how issues of class, race, immigration, violence, crime, sex, or “just” being a housewife affect women. Interspersing clips from the films, FC Digital Producer Violet Lucca speaks with Killian, who is also a contributing editor to FC; Farihah Zaman, filmmaker (Remote Area Medical), critic, and Field of Vision Production Manager; and Sierra Pettengill, filmmaker (The Reagan Show) and occasional contributor to Frieze magazine. Films discussed: Soft Fiction, Janie’s Janie, The Women’s Film, Mimi, Suzanne Suzanne, Audience