Most Exciting Queer Female Directors
This is a list of amazing Queer women leading the charge in creating eye-catching films at the forefront of LGBT cinema.
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- Director
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Lisa Cholodenko earned an MFA at Columbia University Film School where she made an award-winning short film Dinner Party (1997) Her feature High Art (1998) won the National Society of Film Critics award for Ally Sheedy's performance and The Waldo Salt Screenwriting award at Sundance. Both "High Art" and Laurel Canyon (2002) premiered at Cannes Director's Fortnight.Cholodenko's major success to date, The Kids Are All Right, starred Julianne Moore and Annette Benning in a heartwarming story that garnered major box office success. Her 1998 indie romance, High Art, is a worthwhile view and very much ahead of its time.- Actress
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Jodie Foster started her career at the age of two. For four years she made commercials and finally gave her debut as an actress in the TV series Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). In 1975 Jodie was offered the role of prostitute Iris Steensma in the movie Taxi Driver (1976). This role, for which she received an Academy Award nomination in the "Best Supporting Actress" category, marked a breakthrough in her career. In 1980 she graduated as the best of her class from the College Lycée Français and began to study English Literature at Yale University, from where she graduated magna cum laude in 1985. One tragic moment in her life was March 30th, 1981 when John Warnock Hinkley Jr. attempted to assassinate the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Hinkley was obsessed with Jodie and the movie Taxi Driver (1976), in which Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro, tried to shoot presidential candidate Palantine. Despite the fact that Jodie never took acting lessons, she received two Oscars before she was thirty years of age. She received her first award for her part as Sarah Tobias in The Accused (1988) and the second one for her performance as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).Though she started as an actor, Foster has had some incredible accomplishments as a film director, including her acclaimed directorial debut Little Man Tate, as well as the 1995 hit Home for the Holidays with Robert Downey Jr. as queer character Tommy Larson.- Director
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Kimberly Peirce was born on 8 September 1967 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA. She is a director and producer, known for Boys Don't Cry (1999), Stop-Loss (2008) and Carrie (2013).Pierce directed Hilary Swank in the heartbreaking and brilliant film Boys Don't Cry, about a trans man dealing with discrimination and violence because of his gender identity.- Director
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Writer/Director Dee Rees is an alumna of New York University's graduate film program and a Sundance Screenwriting & Directing Lab Fellow.
In 2018, Dee became the first Black woman nominated for an Oscar in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for her highly-acclaimed film Mudbound (2017). The film, starring Jason Mitchell, Carey Mulligan and Mary J. Blige, tells the story of two men returning home from World War II, struggling to deal with racism and post-war life and was nominated for four Oscars, two Golden Globes, and received over 100 nominations between 2017 and 2018.
Her 1980's political thriller The Last Thing He Wanted is an adaptation of the novel by Joan Didion and will star Anne Hathaway as hardened journalist Elena McMahon.
Dee's Emmy-Award winning HBO film Bessie (2015) starred Queen Latifah as the legendary American Blues singer and was nominated for a total of twelve Emmy Awards, including Dee's individual nominations for Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Directing For A Limited Series, Movie or Dramatic Special. Bessie was also nominated for four Critics' Choice Awards and Dee was the recipient of the 2016 Director's Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television and Miniseries as well as the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Directing in a Television Movie.
Dee's debut feature film Pariah starring Adepero Oduye and Kim Wayans premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival where it was honored with the festival's U.S. Dramatic Competition "Excellence in Cinematography" Award and was later released by Focus Features. Pariah went on to win numerous awards including the John Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards (2011), the Gotham Award for Best Breakthrough Director (2011), Outstanding Film- Limited Release at the GLAAD Media Awards (2012) and it received seven NAACP Image Award nominations including Outstanding Motion Picture, Outstanding Directing and Outstanding Writing and won the award for Outstanding Independent Motion Picture. Pariah also earned Dee a spot on New York Times' 10 Directors to Watch list in 2013.
Previously, Dee was selected as a 2008 Tribeca Institute/Renew Media Arts Fellow and appeared on Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film that same year. She is a 2011 United States Artists Fellow and her notable residencies include Yaddo and The MacDowell Colony.
Dee Rees was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee and resides in New York.Dee Rees directed the poignant and beautiful 2011 film Pariah, a coming-of-age story about a 17-year-old girl discovering her lesbian identity. She is also well-known known for the 2015 HBO special Bessie, starring Queen Latifah as the incomparable Bessie Smith.- Producer
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Kate Johnston is an award winning filmmaker known for Tru Love, Stormcloud and Click and Slow Burn. She grew up in her father's projection room, dazzled by the magic of the dancing light. Her dedication to telling the stories of the LGBTQ community with passion and integrity has garnered her 15 international awards for Tru Love in India, Ireland, Wales, New Zealand, the US and Canada. Both Tru Love and Stormcloud are distributed worldwide. Kate is working on four major film and TV projects in Canada, the US and the U.K.Johnston directed the critically-acclaimed film Tru Love, a heartwarming love story about a December-May romance between a younger lesbian with commitment issues and an older widow. The film won 11 awards, including Best Feature Film at the Dublin Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, Best Narrative Feature at the KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, and the Emerging Canadian Artist Award at the
Toronto Inside Out Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival.- Producer
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Maryam Keshavarz was born in 1975 in New York City, New York, USA. Maryam is a producer and director, known for The Persian Version (2023) and Circumstance (2011).Keshavarz is best known for her 2003 documentary The Color of Love, as well as the 2011 narrative feature Circumstance, in which a young woman experimenting with sex and drugs, starts a relationship with another woman. It was banned in Iran.- Director
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Ingrid Jungermann is a television and film writer-director known for Women Who Kill, F to 7th, In The Dark, Queer as Folk, The Serpent Queen, and Orphan Black: Echoes. They have been nominated for a WGA Award, an Independent Spirit Award, and earned their MFA in Directing at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.Jungermann directed the 2016 film Women Who Kill, which made a splash at the Tribeca film festival that same year. She also directed 2 webseries: The Slope and F to 7th.- Director
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Nisha Ganatra is a Golden Globe winner and an Emmy nominee for her work as the Director/Producer of "Transparent." Recently she directed THE HIGH NOTE for Working Title and Focus Features, starring Tracee Ellis Ross, Ice Cube, June Diane Raphael, Dakota Johnson, and Kelvin Harrison Jr.
Ganatra's previous film LATE NIGHT, starring Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling, premiered at Sundance. It sold to Amazon in a record-breaking deal and garnered the highest streaming numbers of the year.
Her acclaimed debut feature CHUTNEY POPCORN, with Jill Hennessy and Sakina Jaffrey, won audience awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, Newport Film Festival, Outfest Los Angeles, and many more. Her sophomore feature COSMOPOLITAN, starring Carol Kane and Roshan Seth, premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival.
In television, Ganatra directed Liz Sarnoff's pilot, "Highland," and sold a drama project to ABC and a comedy pilot to NBC, with Amy Poehler producing. She was the Co-Executive Producer/Director for "Better Things" with Pamela Adlon and the Co-Executive Producer/Director on "You Me Her." She also created CODE ACADEMY for the ITVS/PBS series "FutureStates." Ganatra has directed episodes of "Girls," "Dear White People," "Future Man," "Mr. Robot," "Shameless," "Married," "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," "Last Man on Earth," "Love," and "Black Monday."Ganatra directed Chutney Popcorn in 1999. She starred in it herself as an Indian-American woman struggling with lesbian identity. TV credits include Transparent and Shameless.- Director
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Jamie Babbit was born on 16 November 1970 in Shaker Heights, Ohio, USA. She is a director and producer, known for But I'm a Cheerleader (1999), Only Murders in the Building (2021) and My Lady Jane (2024). She was previously married to Karey Dornetto.Babbit is best known for But I’m a Cheerleader, the 1999 cult classic about a conversion therapy camp. Directing credits in TV include The L-Word, Gilmore Girls, Looking, and Girls.)- Director
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Aurora was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and is a queer, Indigenous-identified Chicana. Guerrero wrote and directed "Mosquita Y Mari"; her debut narrative feature film premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. In 2017, Guerrero directed her first episode of television on Ava Duvernay's critically acclaimed drama, "Queen Sugar." Since then, she has directed "Greenleaf","The Red Line," "Little America," "13 Reasons Why" , and Duvernay's latest, "Cherish The Day."Mosquita y Mari is a 2012 film about a coming-of-age story between 2 teenage girls, unlikely friendship that develops into something more.