The summer, as we know, is not necessarily the time for exciting theatrical runs (though, one might ask, when is?). But over these past few months, I saw a few films that I’m not only recommending as “good,” but as ones that generate important questions about embodied experience, often centering on the tension between interiority and exteriority.

In the few films I list, this tension manifests as passion—what are you driven to express? What can’t you help but do or be? Important questions for any feminism. These films empathize with subjects who struggle to emerge from feelings of otherness, inferiority, or inability, and instead of tritely celebrating their perserverance, pay close attention to the complexity, difficulty, and wonder of their lives—and of both their theoretical ...