All synopses are courtesy of press materials, unless otherwise noted.
FILMS ABOUT WOMEN AND GENDER NON-CONFORMING PERSONS OPENING AND COMING TO STREAMING/VOD
She Said — Directed Maria Schrader; Written Rebecca Lenkiewicz
I found it interesting that this very American story about Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the amazingly dogged reporters at the New York Times who helped take down Hollywood’s most famous predator, was directed by a German woman, Maria Schrader, and written by a British woman, Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Maybe it was just too close and scary for American women filmmakers to feel comfortable with? This is such a loaded story, and choosing Schrader and Lenkiewicz turned out to be an incredibly smart decision. This is a movie grounded in the story of the women who told the story, and the women who lived the story and survived one of the biggest monsters in an industry that is famous for having so many monsters and predators.
“She Said” is a love letter to journalism and is a reminder of the power of journalism to create change. We’ve seen movies about journalism before. Most of us have seen “All the President’s Men” many times, and “Spotlight” won the Oscar. But this movie feels different. Since the investigative story depicted in “She Said” was published, we have seen many more women and people of color moved to the center of storytelling – which is long overdue. We have seen the trauma of women all over our theaters in stories written and directed by women. Women have hidden their trauma for so long, too long because the industry was not interested in hearing their stories. They were too busy silencing them, oftentimes with evil NDAs. No more hiding. I can only hope that this is just the beginning. (Melissa Silverstein)
“She Said” is now in theaters.