For Your Consideration 2025

Awards and nominations can be one of the deciding factors that influence a filmmaker’s career, and yet too many creative voices have been left out of the awards conversation for too long. 

Championing underrepresented filmmakers highlights their achievements, broadens representation, and asserts that our talent is essential to film. It also underscores the demand for inclusivity, pressuring institutions to reflect diverse voices and stories. By celebrating our contributions despite structural biases, we help shift industry standards and empower future generations to envision a more equitable cinematic landscape.

Please join us in amplifying underrepresented voices by shining a light on eligible films directed by Film Fatales members including:

A Town Called Victoria directed by Li Lu
IDA DOC Awards winner for Best Limited Series
When the local mosque is burned to the ground in an apparent hate crime, the town of Victoria, TX, must overcome its age-old political, racial, and economic divides to find a collective way forward.

Albany Road directed by Christine Swanson
On her way to the most important meeting of her career, severe weather forces a New York executive to share a rental car with her ex-fiancé’s mother, only to discover that the mother is hiding a major secret.

And So It Begins directed by Ramona Diaz
Official Academy Awards submission from The Philippines
Amid Filipino elections, a grassroots movement emerges to protect truth and democracy from growing threats. People unite in joyful acts of resistance, kindling hope while autocracy expands.

Arze directed by Mira Shaib
Official Academy Award submission from Lebanon
Arzé, a single mother, takes her teenage son on a journey across sectarian Beirut in search of their stolen scooter, their only source of livelihood.

Daughters directed by Natalie Rae and Angela Patton
Doc Feature Oscars Shortlist
Critics Choice Awards Winner for Best New Documentary Filmmaker
Four girls prepare to reunite with their fathers through a special dance at a DC jail in this moving documentary about the healing power of love.

Frida directed by Carla Gutierrez
Doc Feature Oscars Shortlist
Spirit Award nominee for Truer Than Fiction Award
IDA Doc Awards winner for Best Original Score
A raw and magical journey into the life of iconic artist Frida Kahlo, told through her own words from diaries, letters, essays, and interviews. Vividly brought to life with lyrical animation inspired by her unforgettable artwork.

Girls Will Be Girls directed by Shuchi Talati
Gotham Award nominee for Breakthrough Director
Spirit Award nominee for John Cassavettes Award Best Supporting Performance
In a strict boarding school nestled in the Himalayas, 16-year-old Mira discovers desire and romance. But her sexual, rebellious awakening is disrupted by her mother who never got to come-of-age herself.

Good Daughter directed by Rachel Annette Helson
A small-time con artist rips off elderly dementia patients by pretending to be their daughter – until the con catches up with her.

Helen and the Bear directed by Alix Blair
IDA Doc Awards Best Cinematography and Best Editing nominee
A rebellious young woman marries a prominent Republican politician twenty-six years older than her. Four decades later, as they anticipate his death, she wrestles with their marriage, her sexuality, and what’s been lost and won through a life by his side.

Hummingbirds directed by Silvia Del Carmen Castaños and Estefania Contreras
Spirit Awards nominee for Best Documentary
Bordertown besties make magic of one last summer together as they face uncertain futures.

I Am Ready, Warden directed by Smriti Mundhra
Doc Short Oscars Shortlist
In the days leading up to his execution, Texas death row prisoner John Henry Ramirez seeks redemption from his victim’s son; an elegy about the death penalty where a prisoner seeks forgiveness.

I Saw The TV Glow directed by Jane Schoenbrun
Spirit Award nominee for Best Feature, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Lead Performance, Best Supporting Performance
Teenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show — a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.

Jazzy directed by Morrisa Maltz
Spirit Award nominee for John Cassavettes Award and Best Editing
Jazzy navigates the space between childhood and young adulthood. When her best friend moves away, Jazzy experiences both a sense of loss and her first inkling of independence.

Los Mosquitos directed by Nicole Chi
Gotham Award Short Film Showcase winner
Aby, a 15-year-old Honduran immigrant, navigates life in the US alongside her newly-arrived cousin. On Thanksgiving Day, Aby’s rebellious spirit clashes with her caregiver’s expectations, intensifying her desire to escape the home life.

Maestra directed by Maggie Contreras
IDA Doc Awards Best Music Documentary nominee
Maestra follows five international women as they prepare for and perform in ‘La Maestra’, the only competition in the world for female orchestra conductors.

Meeting You, Meeting Me directed by Lina Suh
Two women from different walks of life both need a friend in this moment, when they cross paths by chance and form an unlikely friendship.

Nightbitch directed by Marielle Heller
Spirit Award nominee for Best Lead Performance and Best Editing
An artist who pauses her career to be a stay-at-home mum seeks a new chapter in her life and encounters just that, when her nightly routine takes a surreal turn and her maternal instincts begin to manifest in canine form.

No One Asked You directed by Ruth Leitman
This film follows Lizz Winstead (The Daily Show co-creator) and her reproductive rights organization Abortion Access Front across the battleground states of America.  They will stop at nothing to protect bodily autonomy, fighting misogyny with comedy to kick the government out of your pants.

No Right Way directed by Chelsea Bo
An award-winning heart-felt dramedy following a brazen tween thrust into the guardianship of her older half-sister whose attempts to parent only lead to exposing their paralleled childhood wounds.

Picture Day directed by Kelly Pike
When a tomboy growing up on military bases struggles to fit in at a new school, one small act of rebellion sparks a family crisis and forces her to face harsh realities about gender, power, and what it really means to find your place in the world.

Social Studies created by Lauren Greenfield 
Spirit Award nominee for Best New Non-Scripted Series
Social Studies is an American documentary series created, directed, and produced by Lauren Greenfield. It follows teenagers over the course of a school year in Los Angeles, exploring how the generation has grown up online.

Songs From the Hole directed by Contessa Gayles
IDA Doc Awards Best Music Documentary nominee
At 15, he took a life. Three days later, his brother’s life was taken. A moving chronicle of forgiveness, family, and the transformative power of art, Songs From The Hole weaves music and storytelling into an innovative documentary visual album.

STAX: Soulsville USA directed by Jamila Wignot
IDA Doc Awards Best Limited Series nominee
This four-part HBO Original documentary series tells the story of an underdog record label who ushered in a groundbreaking era of soul music.

The Cowboy and the Queen directed by Andrea Nevins
When an old-time California rodeo cowboy discovers a way to train horses non-violently, he’s rejected by traditionalists, nearly losing his livelihood, until he meets an unlikely fairy godmother, Queen Elizabeth, and their 30-year friendship galvanizes a pacifist movement not only for horses, but for humans, world-wide.

The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed directed by Joanna Arnow
Spirit Award nominee for Best First Screenplay
Filmmaker Joanna Arnow’s hilarious comedy, which world-premiered in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight and is executive produced by Sean Baker, follows a 30-something New York woman (Arnow) as time passes in her long-term casual BDSM relationship, low level corporate job, and quarrelsome Jewish family.

The Other, Gold directed by Sharaé Nikai & David Lassiter
Grief, ”pandemmy” isolation and random Little Tokyo pigeons inspire a TV writer to rekindle her former BFF-ship. 

The People’s Joker directed by Vera Drew
Gotham Award Breakthrough Director winner
A law-breaking comedian who is grappling with her gender identity forms a new anti-comedy troupe with a friend and finds herself battling a fascistic caped crusader.

Union directed by Brett Story & Stephen Maing
Doc Feature Oscars Shortlist
Up against one of the most powerful companies on the planet, a group of Amazon workers embark on an unprecedented campaign to unionize their warehouse in Staten Island, New York.

Young. Wild. Free. directed by Thembi Banks
Being a teenager is rough, and Brandon is no different. Between struggling in school, caring for his two younger siblings, and having just been let go from his job, Brandon often uses his art as an escape from the confines of his subdued day-to-day life. Enter Cassidy, a bedazzled bad girl dripping in confidence, freedom, and danger. Lured in by her whimsy, Brandon teams up with Cassidy, seamlessly slipping into the role of Clyde to her Bonnie as they make their way down an increasingly perilous path.