Women behind the camera: the filmmakers worth knowing
From Jane Campion and Sofia Coppola to Bulgaria’s own trailblazers, a quick introduction to some remarkable directors.
I finally caught up with The Fall Guy recently, starring Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling.
Beyond the excellent Phil Collins songs and the romance between its leads, the film looks at the challenges, sacrifices and risks stunt performers take on every day on set. Another thing I loved was the setup: Emily Blunt’s character is the director, while the man she falls for is a stuntman. It got me thinking about how often we see women behind the camera, and sent me down a rabbit hole of remarkable filmmakers, in Bulgaria and beyond. Here are a few names worth knowing.
Alice Guy-Blaché
Recognised as the world’s first woman film director, Guy-Blaché made La Fée aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy) in 1896, widely considered one of cinema’s earliest narrative films.
Kathryn Bigelow
Bigelow made Academy Awards history when she became
the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Director
in 2010, for the war drama The Hurt Locker.
Jane Campion
Campion was the first woman to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes, for her masterpiece The Piano (1993). In 2022, she also won the Oscar for Best Director for The Power of the Dog.
Lina Wertmüller
In 1977, Wertmüller became the first woman nominated for the Best Director Oscar, for her Italian film Seven Beauties (Pasqualino Settebellezze).
Chloé Zhao
With Nomadland (2020), Zhao won Venice’s Golden Lion and a Golden Globe, and became the second woman to win the Oscar for Best Director.
Sofia Coppola
Coppola’s story, and the way she stepped out of her father’s considerable shadow, deserves a closer look. Her film career began when she was a baby, playing the little boy being baptised near the end of The Godfather. She later played the grown-up Mary Corleone in The Godfather Part III. Today, she is recognised around the world as a distinctive, influential director in her own right, with quite the list of achievements. Start with her Best Director Oscar nomination in 2004: with her second feature, Lost in Translation,
she became the first American woman nominated for the Best Director Oscar
and only the third woman ever nominated in the category. At the same ceremony, she won Best Original Screenplay for Lost in Translation. In 2010, Somewhere earned her the Golden Lion at Venice, making her the first American woman to win it. Then came Cannes: in 2017, she won Best Director for the thriller The Beguiled, becoming only the second woman to take the prize, after Yuliya Solntseva in 1961.
Bulgaria has its own remarkable women behind the camera. Among them:
Binka Zhelyazkova
Zhelyazkova was the first woman to direct a Bulgarian feature. Life Flows Quietly By was shot in 1957, then banned by the censors and released only later. Her film We Were Young was honoured at
the Golden Rose festival in 1961.
The new century has brought more names to celebrate, with Bulgarian women filmmakers making a serious impression internationally. Zornitsa Sophia’s debut Mila from Mars (2004) won the Golden Rose, while Ralitza Petrova took the prestigious Golden Leopard at Locarno in 2016 with Godless. Other leading figures in contemporary Bulgarian cinema include:
Kristina Grozeva
Alongside her filmmaking partner Petar Valchanov, Grozeva is behind some of contemporary Bulgarian cinema’s biggest international successes. Their films The Lesson (2014) and Glory (2016) picked up dozens of awards around the world, while The Father (2019) won the Crystal Globe Grand Prix at Karlovy Vary. Their next film, Triumph, won the top prize at the 2024 Golden Rose festival.
Yana Titova
Titova made a successful move from acting to directing. Her debut, A Dose of Happiness (2019), was one of the year’s most-watched Bulgarian films in cinemas. Her second feature, Diada (2023), made a major impact, winning Best Director at the 2023 Golden Rose festival as well as
the top prize for Best Film, shared with Blaga's Lessons.
With a record like that, all we can say is: keep making films, ladies.
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