Women in Entertainment

With Between Mountains, director, writer, producer Vineesha Arora Sarin has created a lyrical visual journey depicting the internal struggle that is so relevant in the time of Covid: the effort not to succumb to our emotional pain as we struggle to overcome grief in a society that discourages expressions of psychological hurt. Starring Bollywood sensation and the director’s husband, Amit Sarin, the film follows a man dealing with the loss of his family and the stages of grieving, from guilt, overwhelming sadness, to the ethereal ability of nature to heal.

Granaz Moussavi made a guerrilla film in Afghanistan called When Pomegranates Howl. Not a job for the faint-hearted, it was a challenge from the start: from sourcing funding in Australia, getting to Afghanistan, putting a crew together, to the actual shooting of the movie.

Francesca Brill is the creator behind the psychological thriller The Drowning, which has a strong female lead who deals with the grief of losing her son. The mini-series starts out with a chance sighting of a young teenager, which convinces the mother that her four-year-old son she lost in a tragic accident is not dead after all.

When Afghan film director Sonia Nassery Cole was a young girl in Kabul, she and her father would go to the cinema together every week. As the eldest of three children, her father pampered his daughter with this special time together, little suspecting that Sonia would go on to become a fierce and challenging teller of stories to the world about her homeland.

Wanuri Kahiu is keen on bringing joy to the world. Especially joy coming out of her home country Kenya, where she started a movement called “Afrobubblegum” with the intention of highlighting joyful art coming out of Africa.

The Iranian filmmaker Narges Abyar, who made such films as When the Moon was Full (2019), Breath (2016), and Track 143 (2014) has no doubt that the world needs more talented female filmmakers. Actually, there is a ‘dire need’ for them, she finds.

Smother was intended to be a show about stepmothers, but then the series, aired by Irish broadcaster RTE, took a completely new turn, explains Irish writer Kate O’Riordan who is behind the show. The novelist, who started in television by adapting “Involved”, her first book, into an ITV series, had several TV credits before Smother, the most well-known and successful internationally probably being Mr Selfridge with Jeremy Piven in the lead.

Nicole Amarteifio wants to change the narrative about Africa. The Ghanaian filmmaker started out doing that with An African City, a series inspired by Sex and the City but set in Ghana.

Animator Ng’endo Mukii found her authentic African voice outside her home country of Kenya. She left Africa to study at Rhode Island School of Design in the US, and also holds a Master of Arts in Animation from the Royal College of Art in London.

Nigerian filmmaker Ozioma Ogbaji is the screenwriter behind the romantic comedy success Kambili: The Whole 30 Yards, currently seen on Netflix. But the 31-year-old writer is much more than that.