Looking in the mirror: How these 5 female-led films dissect global issues women face today

"For years, more than half of us have been excluded, unfavored, and bound by the fate of of our genders," a voice echoes in the opening seconds of In Bloom, a new film anthology released in celebration of Women's History Month. Various vignettes then appear on the screen, of women around the world. A girl holds up a sanitary pad. Another woman places figurines on a cake. A supposedly defiant teenage girl locks herself in the bathroom, refusing to come out. The introduction to In Bloom is uplifti