2024 marks the 38th edition of Leeds International Film Festival. Taking place across 17 days and dozens of venues, the city will play host to some of the best new films of 2024 from established filmmakers and exciting new talent across the globe.

This year’s festival features over 30 female directors across multiple categories, including the festival’s main programme selection, Constellation, its Fanomenon programme, featuring everything from fantasy, sci-fi and horror to dark comedy and cult films, a retrospective The Weird of Oz, and an extended screening schedule for the festival’s very own LIFF SHORTS competition.

With hundreds of screenings taking place across the 17 days, Bad Gal Film Club has rounded up a selection of must-sees by female directors, including an ethereal social drama, Amy Adams as a feral new mother, a pop reimagining of 18th century female musicians and a moving coming of (old) age story.

All We Imagine as Light / Dir. Payal Kapadia

Winner of the 2024 Cannes Grand Prix, Payal Kapadia’s sophomore feature is a luminous portrait of the lives, loves, and longings of three women in Mumbai. Centering on two roommates who also work together in a city hospital—head nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and recent hire Anu (Divya Prabha), and their coworker, cook Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), All We Imagine as Light is a delicate but powerful portrayal of love and sisterhood in contemporary working-class Mumbai.

Nightbitch / Dir. Marielle Heller

Marielle Heller had created a gloriously fierce, carnal and explosive portrayal of womanhood in Nightbitch. The film stars Amy Adams as a stay-at-home mum who becomes convinced she's turning into a dog. A former artist in the big city, ‘Mother’ has moved to the suburbs with her son while her husband travels the world with work, but soon years for liberation from the shackles of her suburban cage. This surreal comedy horror is an ode to the complexities and darker sides of motherhood.

Toxic / Dir. Saulė Bliuvaitė

Lithuanian director Saulė Bliuvaitė’s Locarno winner is a sobering reminder of the punishing standards put on teenage girls. In a crumbling industrial town, a teen is mercillesly bullied for her limp. With no social options but to connect with her bullies, she eventually finds an ally in spiky Kristina. When a modelling agency offers the chance of a contract to aspiring locals, the girls find themsleves violating their bodies in increasingly extreme ways to escape the confines of their town.

Bird / Dir. Andrea Arnold

Acclaimed social realist director Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank, American Honey) is back with an ethereal portrayal of adventure among the fields and nature of a nearby housing estate. Bailey (Nykiya Adams), 12 years old, lives with her single father Bug (Barry Keoughan) and her brother Hunter in a squat in northern Kent. A chance encounter with Bird (Franz Rogowski) opens Bailey up to a world of adventures and freedom.

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl / Dir. Rungano Nyoni

Zambian-Welsh director Rungano Nyoni’s follow up to her BAFTA-winning debut, I Am Not a Witch is an otherwordly comedy drama about family traditions, sexual abuse and strength in a Zambian family. Driving home one night, Shula seems unfazed by the sight of her uncle’s dead body on the road. Later, while helping in funeral proceedings, her cool exterior melts as she questions her family’s complicity towards the abuse she and her cousins suffered.

Trans Memoria / Dir. Victoria Verseau

In Victoria Verseau’s powerful exploration of self discovery, the conceptial artist revisits the memories of her long-awaited gender-affirming surgery in Thailand in 2012. Through challenging conversations, Victoria and her friends, Athena and Aaamina, navigate womanhood through loss and introspection, weaving past regrets and future aspirations in a poetic documentation of embracing true selves.

The Ties that Bind Us / Dir. Carine Tardieu

This year’s opening film is from French writer and director Carine Tardieu. This compassionate, emotionally engaging film follows a single father, a feminist librarian, and a child seeking a place to belong. Exploring what brings people together in times of adversity and the new kinds of family that can bloom unexpectedly, Tardieu’s film is a universally relatable ode to connection and family.

Witches / Dir. Elizabeth Sankey

Following her acclaimed documentary, Romantic Comedy (2019), Elizabeth Sankey’s new films tackles society head on, and specifically, the film industry’s fascination with witches. From the witch trials of the 1600s to the themes of Rosemary’s Baby, Sankey draws parallels between historical prejudice against women, motherhood and mental health, and contemporary representations of witches, while also reflecting on her own experiences with postpartum depression and psychosis. Witches is both a visual ode to cinema and a deeply personal essay.

Gloria! / Dir. Margherita Vicario

The Italian singer, composer and actor can now add ‘director’ to her repoirtois with her first feature film described as a “a musical triumph”. In 18th century Venice, in a convent school for girls, Teresa, a student with prohetic gifts, joins forces with some amazing music-makers to invent modern day pop music. Gloria! Is an uplifiting feminist musical celebration of the lives of women ignored by musical history.

To buy tickets for Leeds International Film Festival or to view the full programme, visit www.leedsfilm.com.

The best films directed by women to look out for at LIFF 2024