This is a list of lesbian filmmakers. The names listed include directors, producers, and screenwriters of feature films, television movies, documentaries and short films; and have received coverage or been recognized in reliable, authoritative media and academic sources. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
"New queer cinema" is a term first coined by the academic B. Ruby Rich in Sight & Sound magazine in 1992 to define and describe a movement in queer-themed independent filmmaking in the early 1990s.
Monika Treut is a German filmmaker. She made her feature film debut with Seduction: The Cruel Woman, a film that explores sadomasochistic sex practices. She has made over 20 films, including the short documentaries Annie and My Father is Coming. Treut’s involvement extends across writing, directing, editing and acting.
Jenni Olson is a writer, archivist, historian, consultant, and non-fiction filmmaker based in Berkeley, California. She co-founded the pioneering LGBT website PlanetOut.com. Her two feature-length essay films — The Joy of Life (2005) and The Royal Road (2015) — premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Her work as an experimental filmmaker and her expansive personal collection of LGBTQ film prints and memorabilia were acquired in April 2020 by the Harvard Film Archive, and her reflection on the last 30 years of LGBT film history was published as a chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Queer Cinema from Oxford University Press in 2021. In 2020, she was named to the Out Magazine Out 100 list. In 2021, she was recognized with the prestigious Special TEDDY Award at the Berlin Film Festival. She also campaigned to have a barrier erected on the Golden Gate Bridge to prevent suicides.
The Lesbian Sex Mafia (LSM) is an information and support group for bisexual women and lesbians interested in sexual activities involving BDSM, fetishes, costumes, etc. Founded in 1981 by Jo Arnone and Dorothy Allison, it is located in New York City.
Cheryl Dunye is a Liberian-American film director, producer, screenwriter, editor and actress. Dunye's work often concerns themes of race, sexuality, and gender, particularly issues relating to black lesbians. She is known as the first out black lesbian to ever direct a feature film with her 1996 film The Watermelon Woman. She runs the production company Jingletown Films based in Oakland, California.
The Frameline Film Festival began as a storefront event in 1976. The first film festival, named the Gay Film Festival of Super-8 Films, was held in 1977. The festival is organized by Frameline, a nonprofit media arts organization whose mission statement is "to change the world through the power of queer cinema". It is the oldest LGBTQ+ film festival in the world.
The Queer Palm is an independently sponsored prize for selected LGBT-relevant films entered into the Cannes Film Festival. The award was founded in 2010 by journalist Franck Finance-Madureira. It is sponsored by Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau, filmmakers of Jeanne and the Perfect Guy, The Adventures of Felix, Crustacés et Coquillages, and L'Arbre et la forêt.
Aerlyn Weissman is a two-time Genie Award-winning Canadian documentary filmmaker and political activist on behalf of the lesbian community.
Wu Tsang is a filmmaker, artist and performer based in New York and Berlin, whose work is concerned with hidden histories, marginalized narratives, and the act of performing itself. In 2018, Tsang received a MacArthur "genius" grant.
Janis Cole is a Canadian filmmaker, producer, writer, editor and professor. She has directed several films over the span of her career. Most of these films were done in cooperation with her friend and professional partner, Holly Dale. Her most notable films include Cream Soda (1976) and Prison For Women (1981).
The 70th Cannes Film Festival took place from 17 to 28 May 2017, in Cannes, France. Spanish film director and screenwriter Pedro Almodóvar was the president of the jury for the festival and Italian actress Monica Bellucci hosted the opening and closing ceremonies. Ismael's Ghosts, directed by French director Arnaud Desplechin, was the opening film for the festival.
The Melbourne Queer Film Festival (MQFF) is an annual LGBT film festival held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia in November. Founded in 1991, it is the largest queer film event in the Southern Hemisphere, in 2015 attracting around 23,000 attendees at key locations around Melbourne.
Desiree Lim is a Malaysian-born Canadian independent film director, producer, and screenwriter. She is known for her films Sugar Sweet (2001), Floored by Love (2005), and The House (2011). Lim tends to work within the realm of family drama and comedy, and highlights themes of lesbianism, multiculturalism, and body positivity. She now works in Canada and Japan.
Poshida: Hidden LGBT Pakistan is a 2015 Pakistani and British documentary about the LGBT community in Pakistan. Created by Faizan Fiaz and others, the 25-minute documentary explores the lives of a group of LGBT Pakistanis. It was described by the Daily Pakistan as the first ever movie on the topic. The film screened at film festivals in Spain and the United States.
The 4th Moscow Jewish Film Festival is an annual international film festival, which aims to gather in the program features, documentaries, shorts and animated films on the subject of Jewish culture, history and national identity and contemporary problems. The festival was held in Moscow from 22 to 30 May 2018, at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, Documentary Film Center, cinema GUM, KARO 11 cinema Oktyabr, Moskino Zvezda and Garage Screen Summer Cinema.
Dykes, Camera, Action! is a 2018 American documentary film about the history of lesbian and queer cinema from the women who made it happen. The documentary is the first feature-length film of New York City based director and editor, Caroline Berler.
The Lesbian Bar Project is a campaign created by Erica Rose and Elina Street to "celebrate, support, and preserve the remaining lesbian bars in the US." The project launched on October 28, 2020 with a PSA video narrated by Lea DeLaria that announced a 30-day fundraising campaign to support what were thought to be the last 15 lesbian bars left in the country, many of which were financially threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic. A second phase followed in June 2021 in connection with Pride Month, including the release of a short documentary, and a three-part docuseries was released on National Coming Out Day 2022.
Shitou is a Chinese activist, actress, filmmaker, multimedia artist, and gay icon. She has been active in the Chinese gay scene since the 1990s and was the first lesbian to come out on Chinese television.
Norma Bahia Pontes was a Brazilian filmmaker. Originally working as a film theorist, critic, and essayist, she directed two short films while in France, where she had previously been educated at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques. Amidst the escalation of the military dictatorship in Brazil, she and her partner Rita Moreira fled to New York City to continue filmmaking, studying at The New School for Social Research. A 1974 Guggenheim Fellow, she and Moreira co-directed several videotaped films, many of which are considered lost – Lesbian Mothers (1972), Living in New York City, and Looking for the Amazons (1977) – and founded the Women for Women arts festival and the distribution company Amazon Media Project.
