Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema — Season 1, Episode 10: Melodrama, Sci-Fi, Horror & Hell

Episode synopsis

"Melodrama". A genre as popular as comedy, but what are some of the great scenes in melodrama? Sharmila Tagore narrates a story that takes us from the silent American film Shoes to Kira Muratova's brilliant Chekhov's Motifs to Binka Zhelyazkova's visually remarkable We Were Young. "Sci-Fi". Our look at sci-fi takes us to unusual places, other realms: Kathryn Bigelow, the Wachowski siblings, Patty Jenkins's Wonder Woman, Lori Petty's Tank Girl, and the TV version of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. "Horror & Hell". Literal, figurative, political -- in Deepa Mehta's Earth, Samira Makhmalbaf's Blackboards, Jennifer Kent's horror masterpiece The Babadook, Joanna Hogg's squirm-inducing Archipelago, the Tunisian film The Silences of the Palace, and more.

About Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema

As told through clips from 183 female directors, this epic history of the cinema focuses on women's integral role in the development of film art. Using almost a thousand film extracts from thirteen decades and five continents, Mark Cousins asks how films are made, shot and edited; how stories are shaped and how movies depict life, love, politics, humour and death, all through the compelling lens of some of the world's greatest filmmakers -- all of them women.

More episodes from Season 1

• E1Openings, Tone
• E2Believability, Introducing Character, Meet Cute
• E3Conversation, Framing, Tracking
• E4Staging, Journey, Discovery
• E5Adult/Child, Economy, Editing
• E6POV, Close-up, Dream
• E7Bodies, Sex
• E8Home, Religion, Work
• E9Politics, Gear Change, Comedy
• E11Tension, Stasis, Leave Out
• E12Reveal, Memory, Time
• E13Life Inside, The Meaning of Life, Love