THE LIONESS by Nina Menkes: Viennale_60th Anniversary Trailer

Nina Menkes was invited to create an Official Trailer for the 60th Anniversary of the Viennale International Film Festival, where she had been honored with a retrospective and also shown her individual features numerous times over the years. Menkes edited the trailer from footage she had shot in India while traveling alone for three months with a 16mm camera. Other filmmakers who have created Official Trailers for the Viennale include Claire Denis, Agnes Varda, Jean Luc Godard and Alice Rohrwacher. c2022 by Nina Menkes

ACCLAIM for NINA MENKES:

"No less than David Lynch, Ms. Menkes is an artist of the unconscious for whom
the creative and the spiritual quest are one and the same:
A Cinematic Sorceress!”
—The New York Times

“One of my favorite filmmakers.”
—Gus Van Sant

“Brilliant! One of the most provocative artists in film today.”
—The Los Angeles Times

“Menkes has more to say on the subject of violence than any American director since Peckinpah and Cassavetes.”
—LA Weekly

“One of our most important American film directors”
—Dennis Lim, Director, New York Film Festival

About Nina Menkes
Called “Brilliant” by the Los Angeles Times and a “Cinematic Sorceress” by The New York Times, Menkes’ films synthesize inner dream worlds with brutal, outer realities. With echoes of Chantal Akerman and David Lynch, Menkes’ visually stunning and unflinching films have made their mark on modernist filmmakers of the last two decades. Her debut feature MAGDALENA VIRAGA endures as a brilliant portrayal of the inner life of an alienated sex worker as she battles the walls which surround her—both material and psychic. The film was awarded “Best Independent Film of the Year” by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and was featured in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Biennial. Her subsequent features cemented her reputation as a singular voice in American filmmaking, whose work always feels ahead of its time.

In honor of 2023 Women's History month, Menkes was honored with a full retrospective on MUBI, where she was described as “a pioneer of feminist cinema, a visionary artist, and one of the great cinematic radicals of our time."

With her latest acclaimed documentary BRAINWASHED: SEX-CAMERA-POWER (2022), Menkes explicitly addresses themes of female subjectivity and misogynist violence which she has been exploring in her narrative work for decades. Described as “accessible, engrossing and urgent” (The Playlist), BRAINWASHED takes viewers on an eye-opening journey through the gendered politics of shot design, drawing a through-line from the male gaze to the #MeToo movement, to gender discrimination in the film industry and the workplace at large. The film uses more than 175 film clips from canonical Hollywood favorites and cult classics as well as interviews with filmmakers and scholars including Joey Soloway, Julie Dash, Eliza Hittman, Laura Mulvey and many more.

Acclaim for "BRAINWASHED: SEX-CAMERA-POWER"

Official Selection: Sundance, Berlinale, BFI-London, CPH:DOX, Viennale, IDFA and more!

One of the Year's TOP TEN FILMS!
The Guardian, NPR, Film Comment, Sight & Sound, IMDB, RogerEbert.com,
Screen Slate, Senses of Cinema, DesistFilm, Pinnland Empire.

Seal of Female Empowerment, Critics Choice Awards

Outstanding Achievement, Alliance of Women Film Journalists

"Brilliant! A cinematic tour de force"- LE MONDE

“Destined to forever change how you look at films.”
— Kate Erbland, Indiewire

“Menkes is a real no-bullshit breath of fresh air. With a torch. And with any luck, she’s heading your way to set fire to something, soon."
—Finn Halligan, Screen Daily

BRAINWASHED: SEX-CAMERA-POWER (2022) is Menkes' seventh feature film. Her previous work includes: THE GREAT SADNESS OF ZOHARA, MAGDALENA VIRAGA , QUEEN OF DIAMONDS, THE BLOODY CHILD, PHANTOM LOVE, and DISSOLUTION. Menkes also shot and co-directed the feature documentary MASSAKER which won a FIPRESCI prize at the Berlinale. All her narrative titles are included in the new Arbelos’ Blu-Ray box set: arbelosfilms.com/

Menkes has taught widely including at California Institute of the Arts, the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Tufts University, Tulane University, Otis College of Art and Design, the DFFB in Berlin and the American Film Institute (AFI). In 2023 she presented BRAINWASHED in special programs at UC Santa Cruz, the UCLA Film School and gave the Vice Chancellor's Talk at Norwich University of The Arts in the UK in conjunction with the theatrical release of BRAINWASHED and a full career retrospective of her films presented by the BFI in London.

Menkes' work has shown widely in major international film festivals, including Sundance (four feature premieres), the Berlinale, Locarno, Cannes, Toronto, and The New York Film Festival. She has had numerous international retrospectives and her early work has been selected for restoration by the Academy Film Archive and Scorsese’s Film Foundation. A Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellow, she is also a directing member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. In 2023, Menkes' radical feature QUEEN OF DIAMONDS was selected for the Library of Congress National Film Registry.

For more information:
ninamenkes.com
brainwashedmovie.com