Quinn Katherman, director – PRETTYBIRD, USA
'Outrageous Fortune' (1987), 'Death Becomes Her' (1992), and 'A League Of Their Own' (1992)
At a young age, I watched three films on repeat: 'Outrageous Fortune', 'Death Becomes Her', and 'A League Of Their Own'. These female ensembles were among the very few I had access to via my local video store that offered mostly instructional farming videos.
But within them, I found strong, brave, funny, weird women with debatable likability. They weren’t just hot. They weren’t just mums. They were flawed, fully formed people with problems and drama and jokes and red hair! These performances and the storytelling imprinted on my still-developing amygdala and made me an insufferable, middle-aged child.
I treated playdates like casting calls where I'd direct kids to act out scenes from these absolute canons of cinema. While this didn’t make me very popular, it did lead me to ask the most important question you can ask when watching or making something: “Who are you in this?” Bette? Meryl? Geena? There are no wrong answers in these films.
Fortunately, I now have lots of friends (two or three at least) and a job where I get to make stuff that makes people feel stuff, which makes my friendless childhood hardly a thing I constantly think about.
