Alexandra Hidalgo

In September 2018, I screened Agnès Varda and JR’s Faces Places for the Michigan State University Film Collective. We had a lively discussion that went past the scheduled ending time. As I was getting ready to leave, a student from my documentary history and theory course approached me. She’d never spoken in class, perhaps because, being an international student from China, she was still training her tongue to create the intricate English sounds that came so naturally to her classmates. Faces...

On October 5, “Gilmore Girls” fans celebrated the 20th anniversary of the show’s premiere. For two decades, women around the world have seen themselves reflected in single mother Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) and her daughter, Rory (Alexis Bledel). Having gotten pregnant at 16, Lorelai fled the stifling upper-class home where she grew up with two-year-old Rory and moves to Stars Hollow, a quirky town populated by idiosyncratic characters who embrace them with the mighty force of their gener...

‘If I hadn’t had to read this story for class, I wouldn’t have finished it,’ she said as she pointed at the short story I’d laboured over for weeks. ‘I hated the characters. Who wants to read about upper-middle-class Venezuelan women? Stories about Latino characters should be about poverty.’
My cheeks were burning, which I knew meant that my face was flushed, betraying my embarrassment as she kept enumerating the multitudinous writerly crimes I’d committed. I kept hoping that one of my fellow...

Written by Mimi Anagli, Claire Bahorski, Kara Headley, Alexandra Hidalgo, and
Developmentally Edited by Alexandra Hidalgo
Copy Edited and Posted by Iliana Cosme-Brooks
Mother’s Day can be judged as a Hallmark holiday concocted to fill the commercial gap between Valentine’s Day and the Fourth of July. For us at agnès films though, it is an opportunity to celebrate our mothers and the radiant, prickly, and indispensable bond we share with the maternal figures in our lives—whether they’re still ...

Written by Mimi Anagli, Kara Headley, Alexandra Hidalgo, and Allison Simpson
Developmentally Edited by Alexandra Hidalgo
Copy Edited and Posted by Iliana Cosme-Brooks
In order to commemorate Women’s History Month, we asked our readers what fiction films, TV shows, and documentaries best exemplify the power of real and metaphorical sisterhood for them. Join us in celebrating these joyous, knotty, messy, and ever-evolving relationships between women as you watch these sisters change themselves,...

Written by Mimi Anagli, Mitch Carr, Kara Headley, Alexandra Hidalgo, and
Developmentally Edited by Alexandra Hidalgo
Copy Edited and Posted by Jennifer Bell and Iliana Cosme-Brooks
It seems difficult to imagine that anything could compete with the pain caused by COVID-19, but starting with the murder of George Floyd by a police officer back in May 2020, the systemic mistreatment of Black citizens in the US has constantly held our attention as more Black victims of police brutality emerge and ...

Written by Mimi Anagli, Jennifer Bell, Mitch Carr, Kara Headley, Alexandra Hidalgo, and Allison Simpson
Developmentally Edited by Alexandra Hidalgo
Copy Edited and Posted by Jennifer Bell
As 2020 slowly trickles to a close, we are all trying to process this year’s many global wounds. Whether we’re at home trying to make sure our children show up for their Zoom algebra class or missing that weekly coffeeshop gossip session with our best friend, we can all use some of the wondrous escapism that...

Next Tuesday’s US presidential election is a topic of contention in every American household and a topic of concern in many households around the world. As November 3rd approaches, the importance of this election becomes clearer and clearer to everyone whether or not they live in the US. Much of our global politics has taken a turn towards the right, and as COVID-19 has shown, right-wing, conservative governments are not as well-equipped to deal with national emergencies as governments that t...

Copy Edited and Posted by Jennifer Bell
Every September, Directed by Women throws a Worldwide Film Viewing Party to celebrate and share films #DirectedbyWomen. Despite the pandemic keeping most of us out of movie theatres, we invite you to join the initiative by screening films, shows, and documentaries from the comfort of your own home. We conducted a Twitter poll to see what films, TV shows, and documentaries directed and created by women our readers believe deserve more love.
We hope you w...

As we watch the U.S. law enforcement and legal systems display disgraceful racism through the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, and countless others, we at agnès films want to honor those who’ve been murdered and abused and stand up for Black people around the country with a list of Black women filmmakers whose work provides rich and multifaceted stories about the Black experience. We believe that if we understand the humanity of someone, it is much hard...

Review by Alexandra Hidalgo
Developmentally Edited by Nathaniel Bowler
Copy Edited and Posted by Megan Elias
Film About a Father Who (2020). 74 minutes. Directed by Lynne Sachs. Featuring Ira Sachs, Lynne Sachs, Ira Sachs Jr., Dana Sachs, and Rose Sachs.
When Lynne Sachs’s intimate and mesmerizing personal documentary Film About a Father Who opens, we see a closeup of fingers trying to untangle a knot in someone’s white hair. The camera reveals that the hair belongs to an older man whose eyes...

May 20, 2020
Alexandra Hidalgo is assistant professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric and American Cultures. She is the co-director of The Documentary Film Lab.
A few days after MSU moved to online classes and my sons' school closed, I found myself wondering how I was going to keep up with my classes and scholarship while teaching my five-year-old how to read and helping my eight-year-old get over his resistance to writing the daily essay prompts his teacher had assigned. With my usual...

Happy Pride month! While most Pride events have been cancelled this year due to COVID-19, we can safely watch groundbreaking work by and about the LGBTQ+ community while quarantining at home. We asked our audiences on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to share their favorite films, TV shows, and documentaries that tell compelling and complex LGBTQ+ stories. This Pride month, we invite you to watch and enjoy these films and shows and experience a myriad of magnificent ways of loving and living ...

Filmmakers Alexandra Hidalgo, Sofia Bohdanowicz and Caroline Leone and actress Indra De Bruyn discuss their shared love of the works of Agnès Varda—including La Pointe Courte, Le Bonheur, Cléo de 5 à 7, Vagabond, The Gleaners and I and The Beaches of Agnès—and the lessons they have learned from her craft.
Alexandra: The first Agnès Varda film I ever saw was her 2000 documentary The Gleaners and I. I was teaching an introduction to film course at Purdue University during my PhD, and the syllab...