In a cinematic climate where size really does matter, Lifetime has some nerve. For the second consecutive year, the niche cable channel offers "Lifetime Women's Film Festival," a collection of small, quaint, independent films written and directed by up-and-coming female filmmakers.
Two hours, four films, four directors you've probably never heard of but certainly will again if they can keep this sort of honesty and integrity weaving throughout their respective works.To say "if" doesn't diminish their abilities, either. It's not easy to stay the creative course in an industry where the box office rules and where small, heartfelt productions are merely tolerated.
With each film running 30 minutes max, there's not a "Godzilla" in the bunch, and for that, we should be grateful.
Instead, the four films, starting tonight at 7, are touching and funny, insightful and quirky, sharp and even a little odd. All carry the independent's stamp of risk, individuality and freshness that comes from filmmakers with nothing to lose and everything to gain, like a trip to Sundance or, heck, Cannes.
In "Icebergs," for instance, Nicola Hart directs a Madeleine Hall script chronicling a weekend reunion between a mother and her two grown daughters.
To explain how the refrigerator's temperamental condition mimics the conflict among the women in the film is fruitless. It's better digested by sight and sound.
In the marvelous "Seed," a tough cop with a ticking biological clock decides to have a baby through artificial insemination only to learn that the donor may be a suspect in one of her cases.
Shot to display a moody, almost dreamlike atmosphere, "Seed" is shot by TV commercial and music video producer Paula Walker. It pulls off the tricky feat of ending in predictable sentimentality without zapping the character of her dignity.
"Rituals" plays around with the frailty of lifelong love, as a woman suspecting her husband of creeping out on her turns to a love potion of sorts to help her get his mind off the other lady and back on her. The results are surprising.
"World Upon Her Shoulder" is the bittersweet tale of a young girl's unconditional love for her mentally ill mother, who begins the film pushing a shopping cart down a grocery store aisle and stuffing it with pancake syrup and boxes of detergent.
Top-notch performances come from all those involved, particularly Kashmir Jones, who plays the young girl who narrates but doesn't speak until the end, and Karen Young, playing her bewildered mother.
This is rare in such low-budget films.
So is getting any kind of familiar face. Joely Fisher ("Ellen") is one of the sisters in "Icebergs," while Regina King ("Jerry McGuire"), Jenifer Lewis ("The Preacher's Wife") and Isaiah Washington ("Soul Food") team up for "Rituals."
We even get to learn a thing or two about the filmmakers. They appear with host Penny Marshall to answer her sometimes silly, sometimes serious questions about their craft.
Dana Minnick, a recent graduate of the American Film Institute Directing Program and director of the well-crafted "World Upon Her Shoulder," talked of beginning her career as an actress but learning that "creating is what I really wanted to do."
She has produced several films, including "Lily," based on a Jane Smiley short story.
Carol Mayes, who directed "Rituals," also graduated from the American Film Institute. She's a former associate producer for "Sesame Street."
Hart is based in London. According to her bio, her projects range from studio features to documentaries for the BBC.
She shares the story of becoming a filmmaker after tiring of being an agent and baby sitter for writers and directors.
Similarly, Walker, who oversees "Seed," was making a comfortable living producing videos for Tina Turner, Babyface and Vanessa L. Williams before taking a shot at filmmaking.
Stuffed between the films and Marshall's quickie interviews are brief insights from more-established filmmakers like Amy Heckerling "(Clueless)" and Jocelyn Moorhouse "(How to Make an American Quilt)" who says, "Being tough does not mean mouthing off to your crew . . . it means putting up with things when other people laugh at you when they don't understand what you're trying to do."
Kasi Lemmons, who wrote and directed the fine "Eve's Bayou," tells aspiring filmmakers to take stock in the positives of the work, to not look at difficulties of getting a film made but the miracles of getting the film made.
She knows. Just last year, Lemmons' film was considered one of the up-and-comers as part of "Lifetime's Women's Film Festival."
"Look at her now," beams Marshall.