Among the more significant still unreleased films from the recent festival circuit are new works by Nina Davenport and Cecilia Miniucchi, two highly original up-and-coming directors whose previous films have all screened at the HFA. Both graduates of Harvard, Davenport and Miniucchi share an interest in unusual and frequently off-beat subjects and a deft humor that balances their sharp insight.

Nina Davenport has directed a series of inventive and sparklingly intelligent documentaries that use an intimate, first-person voice to guide her nuanced explorations of complexly multilayered subjects that include the interpersonal and cultural anxieties surrounding marriage (Always a Bridesmaid) and the national malaise that followed 9/11 (Parallel Lives). From her acclaimed thesis film at Harvard, Hello Photo (1994) – a brilliant and deeply engaging encounter with cinephilia and spectacle in India – to Operation Filmmaker (2007), Davenport has distinguished herself as a gifted and uncompromising filmmaker.

Cecilia Miniucchi worked as an assistant to Federico Fellini, the Taviani brothers and, for many years, Lina Wertmuller before taking up the camera as a documentary filmmaker. Miniucchi has directed a great number of documentaries focused on artists and the creative process – an impressive roster of subjects that includes Charles Bukowski, Paul Verhoven, performance artist Herman Nitsch and Mexican singer Selena. A student of literature at Harvard, Miniucchi is also an accomplished still photographer, poet and screenwriter.