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"I still think it’s difficult for female directors to break through on certain genres, perhaps because they’ve been so male-dominated in the past. Women do love action and crime movies. These are things I love. It’s a question of proving oneself on set. Someone who can communicate clearly, that’s certainly the strength I bring to my job as director."

Director Karyn Kusama - Her new film "Destroyer", starring Nicole Kidman, opened on Christmas Day. The Alliance of Women Journalists has nominated Kidman for the Bravest Performance of 2018 and Kusama as the Best Woman Director of 2018.

The Cannes Film Festival opened yesterday and of the 21 films screening in competition, four are directed by women. The director of "Atlantics", Mati Diop, is the first black female to have a film competing at Cannes. Diop said, “From a symbolic point of view, this is major, and I can’t pretend it isn’t. I am well aware of the rarity of women competing in Cannes, especially non-white women. It’s sad and still hard to believe that a black woman has never been to the competition so far, in 2019, but here we are. This is both a bitter observation because it’s time that it should stop being an exception, and at the same time, it tells us that the lines are moving.”

You can check out a clip along with a synopsis of the film here. Atlantics Clip - Mati Diop

"The Farewell", starring Awkwafina, opens today. Here is a quote from the film's writer-director Lulu Wang.

"I don’t know how to make an Asian American film. You know what I mean? So as I’m approaching the writing and the directing, all I can say is I have to hang onto the textures of this family, of this life, of the locations that I know so well, but I’m not going into it thinking how do I make it more Asian, more Asian American, more American. I had to lose all of those labels and make it, as any filmmaker who’s making a film about family would, just about family, about humans, about a relationship between a granddaughter and her grandmother."