AMPAS ADDS WOMEN DIRECTORS: With our commitment to reviewing all new releases written and/or directed by women, FF2 Media now plays an important role in breaking down barriers. AMPAS invited 683 new members this year, 49 of whom are female directors. Who are they? What are their stories? We already know them, and we are here to tell you!
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Lynne Ramsay is a Scottish film director, writer, producer and cinematographer best known for films Ratcatcher, Morvern Callar and We Need to Talk About Kevin. In April 2013 she was selected as a member of the main competition jury at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. In 2015, she was named as a member of the Jury for the Main Competition at the 2015 Venice Film Festival.
Excerpt of FF2 Media review of We Need to Talk About Kevin from January 27, 2012:
Tilda Swinton stars as “Eva,” a mother desperately searching for answers after a tragedy. What did she know & when did she know it? And why, once her worst fears began to come true, didn’t her husband “Franklin” (John C. Reilly) see the danger too?
Director Lynne Ramsay locks us into Eva’s POV; we never know the real “Kevin” Ramsay creates from her 3 astonishing young actors (Rock Duer as “Toddler Kevin,” Jasper Newell as “Kid Kevin,” & Ezra Miller as “Teen Kevin”), but she convinces us that Eva’s heartbreaking epistemological dilemma is both real & totally relevant to our own lives.
Start Here: Our legal system presumes that someone is “innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” but how can you “prove someone guilty” before they’ve done “it”–the thing you fear is about to happen? And how do you explain your concerns when they are based on nightmares rather than facts? And what if you do try to put your “gut feelings” into words, but the person you love most doesn’t want to hear you?
These are the issues around which Kevin’s spiraling plot turns, and Ramsay has written a great screenplay (with co-writer Rory Kinnear) that honors all the complexity of Lionel Shriver’s award-winning novel.
If I ruled the world, We Need to Talk about Kevin would have received multiple Oscar nominations on 1/24/12 including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Score, and Best Supporting Actor X 2 (for both Reilly and Miller)… but when the day for Oscar nominations came, Kevin was completely shut out…
And so it goes …
Read full review: http://www.womenarts.org/film-reviews/weneedtotalkaboutkevin/
Read more about Lynne Ramsay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynne_Ramsay
Photo Credit: Cannes
