Amreeka

There are a plethora of films which recount the arrival of distinct ethnic groups to America, ranging from the Eddie Murphy’s pathetic Coming to America to the Charlie Chaplin’s classic The Immigrant to the Patricia Riggen’s subtle _[Under The Same Moon](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00180IPM6?ie=UTF8&tag=feminrevie-20&lin

Garbage Dreams: Raised in the Trash Trade

At seventy-nine minutes long, Garbage Dreams is New York-based producer, director, and cinematographer Mai Iskander’s directorial debut. Before viewing the film I had never heard of the Zaballeen nor did I know that Cairo, one of the world’s most historic cities, once at the very pinnacle of human history, has no municipal waste disposal system to handle the trash of its eighteen million residents.

Every F---ing Day of My Life

Stark, appalling, and heartbreaking are all words that came to mind when I viewed Every F---ing Day of My Life. Every F---king Day of My Life depicts a woman’s last four days of freedom before being sentenced to ten years in prison for murdering her brutally abusive husband.

Mutluluk

In his first few shots, all very wide angles and washed-out greens, Abdullah Oguz shows his cards as an ambitious, technically brilliant filmmaker. In the Anatolian countryside, a flock of sheep turns a slow circle as the camera, peering down on a girl’s body, does the same. A melody—composed by Zülfü Livaneli, who also wrote the book on which this film was based—hums through the valley.

Roulette

Perhaps it was an omen, but the first thing Roulette did was cause my computer to crash. My computer is used to gonzo, after all. Undaunted, I rebooted and continued on, quite curious to see how I liked this film. I will preface all by saying that queer porn is not my typical viewing choice, nor is porn with people who fall into the category of 'alt' or 'natural', so for me, Roulette was a new experience.

It Was Great, But I Was Ready To Come Home

The mythical tropical vacation: surfing, tequila, half-naked beauties, sunsets, dancing, delicious food, and life-changing vistas. It Was Great, But I Was Ready To Come Home strips the glorified ideal of self-discovery down to its reality: bugs, dodgy tacos, heat, dodgy people, heat, dodgy beds, and heat. I watched this film with a half dozen expatriate women living in Mexico City. All of us are travelers; we've backpacked and we have our own stories that could fill up the big screen. So why would this movie be worth watching?

The Jazz Baroness

It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set. - William Somerset Maugham The preceding quote could very well be used to describe the Baroness Pannonica ("Nica") Rothschild de Koenigswarter’s attitude toward her decidedly eccentric lifestyle. The Baroness is the subject of The Jazz Baroness, which premieres tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT on HBO2.

What’s Your Point, Honey?

Initially you might believe that the lives of the women and girls introduced in What’s Your Point, Honey? will intersect in some intimate way. The opening scenes seem to insinuate a touching tale itching to unfold—and it does, but not in the way you might expect. A triad of 10-year-old girls who are brilliant beyond their years are shown asking pedestrians if they’d vote a woman into the oval office and why America hasn’t been able to already.

Trouble the Water

If you missed the exhaustively, deservedly lauded Trouble the Water in theaters last year, now you can catch it on the small screen.

The Heretics

The Heretics: Stories from a Feminist Collective premiered at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) during the first two weeks of October, 2009.

Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy

The opening shots in Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy, a fifty-minute documentary narrated by Edwidge Danticat, reveal an island paradise: turquoise waters, green hills, beautiful, and colorful flowers. But these scenes don’t last long. Almost immediately, we’re introduced to numerous working-class and poor women, nicknamed poto mitan, Creole for the pillar around which everything revolves.

Coco Before Chanel

Spoiler Alert Prior to seeing this movie, I associated Coco Chanel with couture fashion and high society women with size two figures, like Audrey Hepburn and Nancy Reagan. Coco Before Chanel introduces us to the woman Chanel was before revolutionizing women’s fashion and becoming a fashion icon to the rich, famous and not so famous.

New Muslim Cool

You might come to this film with some knowledge of hip-hop, or you might not. You might even have some knowledge of Islam, too. Neither is required, however, because New Muslim Cool is, when you get right down to it, a story of a man trying hard to know and be himself in the world. Jennifer Maytorena Taylor gives us Hamza Pérez (formerly Jason), a Puerto Rican Muslim from the streets of Boston who, along with his Muslim community from Beantown, has transplanted himself to Pittsburgh, PA to start a mosque and put down some roots.

Schmatta: From Rags to Riches to Rags

It has become cliche to tell the story of an American going from rags to riches based on their own impassioned journey using a unique and personal form of ingenuity and hard work, but we may be on the path toward establishing a new and unfortunate conventional wisdom that says it is just as common to go from rags to riches and then back to rags once again. It is this new economic reality that Schmatta: From Rags to Riches to Rags explores in ways that are both haunting and saddening.