Fighting for the place on a director’s chair in a first, ambitious, opportunity. Let’s discover 10 dazzling debut films directed by some female directors who have distinguished themselves for their talent.
Stimulating interest in new filmmakers and giving the opportunity to new female voices to emerge in a sector that has always been held in the hands of male hands (and gazes), the film debuts of female directors are the watershed between a before, made up of ambitions and dreams, and an after, made up of well-deserved awards and long careers ( thereafter) celebrate. The first feature film behind the camera is the sublimation of a personal aesthetic taste: the presentation of one’s own, unique, point of view on the world, often inspired by lived experiences or by stories whose expressive urgency had been simmering for some time in the minds of those who then finally told them. We have therefore compiled a list of top 10 debut films by female directors, trying to include old and new generations as much as possible and exploring the most diverse genres such as horror and coming-of-age stories; thus drawing up, in chronological order, a list of some of the most appreciated signatures of female cinema to offer the reader, and therefore also the viewer, some essential titles to recover.
From Agnès Varda’s nouvelle vague to Greta Gerwig’s coming-of-age: the best (and most important) debut films directed by female directors.
1. La Pointe Courte (Agnès Varda, 1954)
Released seven years before his second phenomenal feature film Cleo from 5 to 7 (1961), the debut of one of the most influential directors in the history of cinema Agnès Varda is considered by experts as the forerunner of the French cinematographic movement New Wave. Set in a small fishing village in the south of France, the film follows some local characters, especially the married couple Silvia Monfort and Philippe Noiret who are about to end their relationship. Perfectly in line with other films of the same French style, ne La Pointe Courte the shots become large and with few editing cuts, most of them interesting to observe the protagonists in silence between long walks and monotonous gestures, such as philosophical reverberation of themes dear to the director such as the existential crisis, love, the meaning of life and the inevitability.
2. Sweetie (Jane Campion, 1989) is among the best debut films by female directors
Presented in competition at the Cannes Film Festival where it aroused some controversy regarding its pretty explicit content, Sweeties is the portrait of a dysfunctional family filtered through the gaze of its adolescent protagonist, spoiled by her father to the point of not recognizing her evident mental instability, and confronted with Kay, her sister, obsessed with superstitions and pathological anxieties that lead her to retreat intoaversion to intimacy. With a sober and emotionally icy aesthetic, the New Zealander’s debut is one of the most notable examples of independent auteur cinema, initiating that anti-romantic female narrative that would later anticipate some formidable early works by Campion, such as An angel at my table (1990) and Piano lessons (1993).
3. Ratcatchers (Lynne Ramsay, 1999)
In a 1970s Glasgow where the garbage men are on strike and the accumulated rubbish multiplies dirt and mice, twelve-year-old James often goes out with his friends to play by the canal. One day, however, one of them dies after a prank gone wrong, for which the teenager, the son of a loving mother and an alcoholic father, will carry a long great sense of guilt. Starting from the tradition of English social cinema and adding a strong component of lyricism and emotion, in Ratcatchers the director of We need to talk about Kevin takes his measurements melancholic and realistically unsettling cinemashowing a trust and an a-moral approach out of the norm.
4. The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola, 1999) is among the best debut films by female directors
After a tentative attempt at acting and the two short films, Bed, Bath and Beyond (1996) and Lick the Star (1998), the nepo baby daughter of Francis inaugurates her debut behind the camera with a coming-of-age story starring five sisters kept under close surveillance by their hyper-Catholic parents, who isolate them in a Detroit suburb, imprisoning their adolescence between cultural barriers and religious beliefs. Told through the experiences of three boys fascinated by the five Lisbones, the film which adapts the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides investigates their efforts to rebel and survive oppression sets, following the classic narration led by women through the help or gaze of men, as it will be in the rest of the director’s cinema.
5. La Cienega (Lucrecia Martel, 2001)
The Argentine filmmaker has always been interested in portraits of women, classes and conflicting human dynamicswith his dazzling first film La Cienega uses an unbearable heat wave as a pretext to investigate the interpersonal dynamics of a self-pitying middle-class Argentine family. Narcissistic and self-centered, the characters analyzed by Martel give life to a eloquent picture of parental indifference, family drifts and the concept of servitude. Passive-aggressive tension, friction and discomfort that emerge on the surface from a fundamentally voyeuristic gaze, which programmatically chooses to pause the action to deeply understand the social and moral decadences of our time.
6. Thirteen (Catherine Hardwicke, 2009) is among the best debut films by female directors
Long before Skins and of Euphoriathe contemporary, explicit and unapologetically, focuses on origins in teen-drama Thriteen, directed by independent filmmaker, screenwriter and producer Catherine Hardwicke. The 2003 drama is the story of clueless teenager Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood), targeted by his peers for his banal appearance, who suddenly decides to abandon his nerd circle to be accepted by the more popular group. Gradually, egged on and persuaded by her rebellious and sexually provocative new friend Evie (Nikki Rerd), Tracy will accomplish ever more extreme acts of rebellion which will create an incurable friction with the mother Melanie (Holly Hunter). The film earned Holly Hunter an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and gave the director the opportunity to direct Twilight in 2008.
7. Heavenly Body (Alice Rohrwacher, 2011)
First collaboration with acclaimed cinematographer Hélène Louvart, Celestial body introduces as if it were a documentary some of the central themes of Alice Rohrwacher’s later cinema: identity, faith and morality. Philosophical questions that the director from Fiesole exposes through the preparations of a confirmation, that of the protagonist Marta, returning to a small town of Reggio Calabria after a long trip to Switzerland with her family. Bewildered by this new environment that she does not recognize as her own, the thirteen-year-old will be exposed to the rituals of the local church, going through a spiritual itinerary in close contact with the parish priest Don Mario. The film won two Ciak d’Oro, a Nastro d’Argento for best debut and a David di Donatello for best new director.
8. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014) is among the best debut films by female directors
Courageous debut by Iranian-American director Ana Lily Amirpour, this “Iranian vampire westerns” tells the story of a lone chador-clad vampire who seeks revenge in a ghost town in Iran. Through its schematic two-dimensionality in black and white tones and thanks to its eclectic soundtrack, the film shot in California and entirely in Persian language, refers in the staging to theGerman Expressionism and graphic novels, spaghetti westerns and the style of Jim Jarmusch, for an original and disturbing result horror atmospheres.
9. Raw (Julia Ducournau, 2016)
Featured in the International Critics’ Week section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Award, French director Julia Ducournau’s gory and audacious directorial debut is a body horror that deftly explores the themes offemale emancipationofbody image he was born in sexual awakening. Justine, a vegetarian since birth like her whole family, is admitted to her older sister’s veterinary school and after being forced to taste meat for the first time, she begins to develop a dangerous obsession (and withdrawal) with human flesh. Starring the actress Garance Marillier, the same who will also return to the 2021 Palme d’Or Titans.
10. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017)
Based on the experiences of first-time director Greta Gerwig, who grew up in Sacramento in the early 2000s, Lady Bird tells aboutlast year of high school of a Catholic school student between insecurities and ambitions, disappointing sentimental approaches and some inevitable maternal conflicts. Nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Director, this fresh and modern next-generation coming-of-age with Saoirse Ronan, Thimothée Chalamet and Laurie Metcalf mix autobiography and fiction with a strong empathic and recognizable look, deservedly scoring in its year of release a huge commercial and critical success.