Today's filmmaker for our Female Filmmakers series is a fun-loving, lady-loving filmmaker who began her career by telling queer stories in a comedic way at a time when that wasn't widely seen. Let's talk about the revolutionary and talented Maria Maggenti.
Maria is best known for writing the feature film Before I Fall - which had a serious lack of nudity in it - but her earlier films that she wrote AND directed did have a good amount of nudity. Before all of that, she studied philosophy at Smith College. She moved to New York City and found work in TV commercials and documentaries as she became increasingly more active in gay rights campaigns.
Working on a set like this inspired her to go to film school. She went to NYU for grad school where she really honed her craft. In school, she made a series of short films in the early 1990s before she made her first feature film after she graduated from school.
In 1995 she made an amazing debut with the lesbian coming-of-age story The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love. This Sundance film charmed audiences and made people very interested in this unapologetic new filmmaker. She is openly bisexual and has never wanted to hide that and her feature film made no attempt to hide Maria Maggenti's true self. That's probably why it was so striking! She had such a fresh perspective that hadn't really been seen before.
Laurel Holloman and Nicole Ari Parker star as teens in a small town who fall for each other. One of them is a proud queer girl who lives in a house of other lesbians with her lesbian aunt...so being gay is no big deal for her. The other is a straight-A student with a boyfriend who is worried about disappointing her mom.
This is a sweet love story with hot sex scenes between these two beautiful babes.
After that, she waited ten years to make her next film: Puccini for Beginners. This film has a cast of serious hotties like Gretchen Mol, Julianne Nicholson, and Elizabeth Reaser in a love triangle. This New York-based comedy features a proud lesbian who suddenly slips on a dick and starts wondering if she's actually bisexual. She and this new man start getting involved...but then she falls for the guy's girlfriend. Uh oh!
This is a great comedy of errors with a modern, queer twist which is precisely what Maria brings to the table. Puccini for Beginners should be renamed Pussy-ni for Beginners!
Between those two films, she wrote several episodes of Without a Trace where she started to hone her dramatic styles more than her queer comedy style that she first introduced to the world. This proved that Maria is, in fact, a multi-talented writer who is able to work in several genres.
She also wrote the script for the 1999 film The Love Letter which was directed by Peter Chan. Kate Capshaw plays a horny hottie named Helen who is an avid runner in order to stave off her relentless horniness. She finds a random anonymous love letter and she decides to track down whoever wrote it...which leads her on a wild goose chase after everyone in town. This film is adorable with some of the same quirky energy that Maria's first film had. Plus a nipple!
She has since written for a lot of TV shows like Finding Carter, UnReal, Supergirl, and Motherland: Fort Salem. She keeps herself VERY busy. Her debut film was recently reshown at Sundance this year, so Maria is getting the praise and acclaim that she deserves.
I hope that she goes back to directing some quirky comedies again because I personally think that's her sweet spot. The way that she made gay female relationships so prominently funny was revolutionary - and still is in a lot of ways.
It helps that she puts beautiful young women in her films, too! Let's hope she makes many more films just like these.
