Projects in genres: Woman Director

Synopsis

She Should Have Gone To The Moon tells the astonishing story of the pilot and pioneer, Jerri Truhill, who was trained in 1961, as part of NASA's top secret Mercury 13 programme, to become one of the First Lady Astronauts.

The documentary is about Jerri Truhill's ambition to conquer the unknown and the filmmaker's fascination with a woman who dared to break down all barriers in aviation. Set against a momentous era in American history, the film constructs both an intimate portrait of Truhill and explores a unique chapter in American culture and society.

In the film, the sharp-witted Jerri Truhill looks back on her compelling life via a phone call with the filmmaker. This conversation becomes the catalyst for the director's imagining of key events in Truhill's potent narrative and inspires a journey to meet the heroine in Texas.
Along the way, the filmmaker places herself in Truhill's story, first wandering across the surreal landscape of White Sands and then suspended in zero gravity inside a water tank.

Included are stylized and dreamlike scenes, which are counter pointed by shots from both Truhill's and NASA's film archive.

The various strands produce the film's heady timeline, as they circle through real and imagined spaces and merge into a bittersweet interview with Truhill at her home.

Synopsis

This Inuit folktale tells of an unfortunate woman, who was thrown off a cliff into the icy ocean by her father. The motive for this deed remains untold.

As many years go by, she becomes a skeleton, haunting that part of the sea. A young brave fisherman ventures into the area despite the local superstition and fear, and unwittingly hooks the skeleton. Linked by the entangled fishing-line, the fisherman races back to shore in panic. The skeleton follows him home, and the young fisherman's compassion overcomes fear. He provides warmth and shelter, and as he sleeps she plays on a magical drum (his heart) and sings back her human shape.
They fall in love and live happily ever after.

Synopsis

An absurd tragedy, to accompany a melancholy song by the Tiger Lillies.
 

Synopsis

When a young woman, Beth, has problems trying to sleep, she visits psychoanalyst Dr Miller who suggests that she films herself sleeping in order for him to assess her sleeping patterns. When a technical fault interrupts his viewing of the tape, Dr Miller calls Beth to ask her to repeat the process, but in doing so misses a vital piece of footage that could hold the key to saving her from her nightmares.

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A hi-tec fox army stalk their lunch cross country.

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A love story of obsession and sharp teeth between a woman left behind in a fairy tale gone wrong and a merman trapped in a reality that drowns him. She, the hunter; She, the trembling little fish.

Synopsis

As a hard-pressed family struggles to get home after a days shopping, a young girl discovers that mum doesn't always know best.

Sweetie follows seven year-old Tash and her family - mum Lynn, dad Kevin and little brother Ewan - as they attempt to catch a bus home after a day out at the local shopping centre.

Life is sweet, until they discover that they don't have the correct change for the bus and are subsequently 'thrown off'. Watched by a voyeuristic crowd both on the bus and at the bus stop, small actions and reactions cause more problems and humiliation for the family.

Synopsis

In this urban ghost story set in a supermarket, we find our heroine Isabel resigning her self to a life of shelf stacking and shop displays at Cheapi Cheapi Cutz, where Stanley the manager bosses her around and memory of her mother undermining her, grinds her down.

She is forced into action, however, when she is visited by a very unusual ghost and given an ultimatum she cannot refuse!

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In rural Costa Rica, two girls are left behind when others go to college.

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A darkly comic tale about a young girl who takes revenge on her elderly next door neighbour when he kills one of her pet flies. As events start to escalate out of control the question is just who will win?

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A young girl witnesses her parents' slaughter by an outlaw who thinks she's an angel.

Years later he is a Bible-bashing Sheriff about to hang Sarah, a whore. But Jude, a lone cowboy, saves her. Through their journey, Sarah's feelings for Jude grow.

But Jude is the 'angel' in disguise and has to kill the Sheriff before she is ready to love the whore.

Synopsis

A young businessman, John Maxted, checks into a hotel for a weekend conference. Upon entering his room, he discovers a button on his wall.

Due to Maxted's lonely and introverted personality and with the increasing pressures from the oddball characters surrounding him, the button begins to play on his mind and he slowly sinks into a deep state of paranoia. Maxted's fascination with the button becomes an obsession, but his profound mental insecurities deter him from pressing it.