CERTAIN WOMEN

Kelly Reichardt’s new film, based on Maile Meloy’s short stories, tells three connected stories of independent Montana women trying to understand and shape the world around them.

Laura is a an overworked, no-nonsense lawyer struggling with personal turmoil who finds herself contending with both office sexism and unhappy client who tends towards unpredictable outbursts of rage, and takes a (security guard) hostage at gunpoint.

In the second, Gina is attempting at turning the local sandstone into a small holiday home. However, what was intended to potentially save her marriage, results in further conflict.

In the third story, Jamie, a young Native Indian rancher working a horse farm, finds herself by chance in a night class at a local school, where a young attorney, Beth, is teaching a course in school law. Jamie is almost inscrutably drawn to Beth, returning to the class again and again. The harried lawyer enters an intense, if reticent, relationship with her student.

Reichardt uses the landscape and its stillness as a spectacular backdrop to these melancholic, transcendent tales.

KELLY REICHARDT

Kelly Reichardt (born 1964) is a screenwriter and film director working within American indie cinema. She holds a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. Reichardt's first feature, River of Grass (1994), was nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards, as well as the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

In 2006, she completed Old Joy, which won awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and from the Sarasota and Rotterdam film festivals. Her next film, Wendy and Lucy (2008), was nominated for Best Film and Best Female Lead (Michelle Williams) at the Independent Spirit Awards. She then directed Meek's Cutoff, which competed for the Golden Lion at the 2010 Venice International Film Festival. Her drama film Night Moves was shown in the main competition section of the 2013 Venice International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and Deauville American Film Festival, where it won Grand Prix of the festival.

Reichardt's latest film, Certain Women, premiered in 2016 at the Sundance Film Festival. Reichardt won the top award at the 2016 London Film Festival for this film.