This time last year, we were still in the thick of a long-running “year of the woman” narrative, as female filmmakers enjoyed critical, festival and box-office success, plus an unprecedentedly high profile in the awards season –culminating in that history-making Best Director win for Kathryn Bigelow (as well as a Best Picture nod for Lone Scherfig’s “An Education”).
Once the dust had settled on Bigelow’s Oscar, however, the narrative tailed off a bit; with that particular blip on their conscience eased, the industry at large could go back to business as usual. Right?
Well, perhaps not. Although there’s been no major name like Bigelow for the media to make into a wider cause or mascot, when put under the microscope, 2010 has proved a quietly successful year for female filmmakers after all. Although none have managed the box-office presence that Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers had in 2009, women in the indie sector have taken the baton from Bigelow and kept running.
Film festivals have a curious way of either dulling one’s critical faculties or provoking them to an impolite degree. I almost never walk out of a screening under normal circumstances; at a festival, while compressing five-odd films into one day, it’s almost life-affirming to do so.