Festivals, News, Research, Statistics
This morning, Women in Film and the Sundance Institute released the next stage of research on female filmmakers. Last year they released an unprecedented first phase in the work that began the...
Festivals, News
Two days after its Friday premiere at Sundance, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that director Lynn Shelton’s arrested-development dramedy Laggies had been bought by A24 for approximately...
Features, Women Directors
When the Director Guild of America’s Women’s Steering Committee was officiallyestablished in 1979, women comprised just 0.5% of episodic TV directoremployment. One half of one percent! According...
Festivals, Interviews, News
Producer Mynette Louie has worked on the films Children of Invention, Cold Comes the Night, and California Solo. Louie is also the current president of Gamechanger Films, which funds women-directed...
Festivals, Interviews, News, Women Directors
Raised in the hills of Appalachian Kentucky, Land Ho! co-director Martha Stephens longed to create films celebrating and investigating her native land and people. A graduate of the North Carolina...
Documentary, Interviews, News
Web Junkie co-directors Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia came to work together on a documentary about Internet addiction out of a shared curiosity and anxiety about the effects that our technological...
Film producer, director, and novelist Galt Niederhoffer is a Sundance veteran, with eight Park City selections or award winners to her name. She is a producer on Maya Forbes’ Infinitely Polar...
Maya Forbes was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She moved to Los Angeles in 1990 to write for film and television. She began her career on HBO’s The Larry Sanders Show and has since...
Documentary, Festivals, Interviews, News
To Be Takei documentarian Jennifer M. Kroot previously directed the documentary feature It Came from Kuchar, about the legendary underground filmmaking twins George and Mike Kuchar, which screened...
Festivals, Women Directors
Sadly, not a whole lot of them. Of the 36 films screening at the Berlin International Film Festival’s Panorama event, “an overview of current international fictional-feature production,” only...
Features, Weekly Update
Films About Women Opening Band of Sisters (doc) — Written and Directed by Mary Fishman “I did exactly what the church asked me — and now, the church is looking at me like, where have...
Chelsea McMullan is a Canadian filmmaker and artist whose films have screened on the international festival circuit and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. McMullan is a member of...
Features, Festivals, News
Laggies director Lynn Shelton is best known as the writer-director of the acclaimed comedy Your Sister’s Sister, starring Emily Blunt, which screened at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Her 2009...
Comedy, Interviews, News
Gillian Robespierre has written and directed several short films, including “Chunk” in 2006, which follows an overweight teen forced to attend fat camp, and “Obvious Child” in 2009. Her...
Documentary, Features, Festivals, Women Directors
The 2013Sundance Film Festival was notable for the number of women directors,particularly in the U.S. Dramatic and Documentary Competitions — where halfwere female filmmakers. As Sundance 2014...
Love Child director Valerie Veatch made her directorial debut at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival with the hit Me @ The Zoo (co-directed by Chris Moukarbel). Her highly anticipated follow-up, Love...
Films, News
Director Jessica Habie and journalist Deema Dabis have announced a new film fund in support of Middle Eastern cinema. The Fajr Falestine Film Fund is devoted to the “production of groundbreaking...
News, Trailers, Videos
On TV’s 30 Rock, Elizabeth Banks was a revelation as Avery Jessup, a Megyn Kelly-like conservative news anchor. Now the movies are finally giving Banks a chance to prove her comedic chops after...
“There is no lack of female directors.” That’s one of the main take-aways from Oscar-nominated director Lexi Alexander’s recent post on the institutional sexism plaguing the movie industry....
Awards, News
And so it begins. The 86th Academy Award nominations did the hustle big time for American Hustle, with 10 nominations. From our female perspective, it’s terrific that both Amy Adams, with her...
Awards, Documentary, News
2013 was an even-worse-than-usual year for non-acting women in Hollywood — only 6% of the 250 top-grossing films were directed by female filmmakers and just 10% written by female...
Austrian Feo Aladag, Peruvian Claudia Llosa, Iranian-Austrian Sudabeh Mortezai, and Argentine Celina Murga will compete for the top prize at the 64th Berlin International Film...
News, Theater
Disney animated features don’t have the strongest track record on Broadway. While The Lion King remains a monster hit and the Beauty and the Beast stage production, which folded in 2007, boasts...
Awards, News, Women Writers
In the filmmaking world, fiction is dominated by men and nonfiction shared by both genders. Not so in literature. If the National Book Critics Circle is any indicator, the reverse is true. Women...
News
News, Television
Thanks to Emma Thompson’s biggest fan Meryl Streep, we now know that the Saving Mr. Banks star cares about what she’s contributing to pop culture at large, both as an actress and a writer. In...
Awards, Interviews, News
Nashville creator Callie Khouri first came into prominence as the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Thelma and Louise. She is also the director of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Mad Money....
News, Statistics
Every January for the past 16 years, people who care about women’s progress behind the scenes in the film industry have restlessly anticipated Dr. Martha Lauzen’s Celluloid Ceiling analysis of...
Features, News, Women Directors
The following is cross-posted from Lexi Alexander’s blog with permission from the author. Editor’s Note: The post below is very important. This is a woman director standing up for herself and...
Jehane Noujaim’s The Square, Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell, and Lucy Walker’s The Crash Reel are three among the five nonfiction films to receive a Best Documentary nod from the Directors...
On the heels of Amy Poehler’s Best Actress win for Parks and Rec at the Golden Globes comes more Pawnee news. P&R co-star Rashida Jones, whose last episode on the show will air in February,...
2013 was a good year for black men in Hollywood. 12 Years a Slave, Lee Daniels’ The Butler, Fruitvale Station, and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom gave stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Forest Whitaker,...
News, Women Writers
Great news: two female filmmakers have announced new projects. Buoyed by positive reviews of her upcoming film Belle, British director Amma Asante has signed on to direct the studio thriller...
I really like the Golden Globes. I know the Oscar pundits don’t take it seriously as a predictor of what’s to come for the Golden Derby, but the rest of us who don’t think that way could care...
Awards, News, Television, Women Directors
Television is much kinder to women. The opportunities are greater, the stories richer, riskier, and more varied. TV isn’t a haven for women by any means, but they do get more chances to prove...
Films Directed By and About Women Opening The Truth About Emanuel — Written and Directed by Francesca Gregorini Emanuel (Kaya Scodelario), a troubled girl, becomes preoccupied with her...
Features, News, Television
Lena Dunham’s Girls, which returns to HBO for its third season on Sunday night, can be difficult to see as simply a television show. When it premiered in 2012, the series, which follows the lives...
Last night I got an email from a friend with a link to a Huffington Post piece he thought I would be interested in. I clicked on it and to my immediate alarm, I realized it was a piece that had been...
It looks like we’ll be able to look forward to at least one mid-budget female-driven comedy every summer. 2011 had Bridesmaids; 2012, Pitch Perfect. After last year’s The Heat, we’ll have...
Awards, Documentary, News, Women Producers
Sarah Polley, Lucy Walker, and Barbara Kopple were honored at the seventh annual Cinema Eye Honors, which “recognize and honor exemplary craft and innovation in nonfiction film.” Polley won the...
Yesterday, the DGA voted by “an overwhelming margin” to ratify a new contract between its members and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). DGA President Paris Barclay...
Awards, Features, News
What is almost over but has only just begun? The seeminglyendless race for the Oscars, of course. With the Golden Globes ceremony onSunday and Academy Award nominations being announced next...
Holy hell. Last night at the National Board of Review awards ceremony, Meryl Streep outed herself as Emma Thompson’s biggest fan by celebrating her for being “a rabid, man eating feminist, like...
Festivals, Videos
The 2014 Athena Film Festival has released a trailer for the February event. Watch the video below, read the full Athena lineup here, and see you there!
After an award season apparently blind to non-acting female talent, we finally got some good news today. Among the BAFTA nominees are films by several women directors: Clio Barnard’s The Selfish...
Features
Dear Mr. Scorsese- Your letter to your daughter Francesca came to my attention and I just had a few comments in response. First, I apologize for not seeing The Wolf of Wall Street. There was a time...
News, Women Directors
As we previously reported, 2013 was the year of the box-office heroine, with girl protagonists headlining the #1 (Hunger Games: Catching Fire) and #4 (Frozen) most popular films of the year. For...
News, Television, Women Writers
The Hollywood Reporter has published a running list of all the network pilots in contention for the 2014–2015 season. About 40% of them (11 of 26) feature women creators, showrunners, and/or...
Features, News
Movie-lovers interested in films by women directors won’t have much reason to go to the mutliplex this year. In 2013, only three films from female filmmakers — Frozen, Carrie, and Black...
Comedy, News
Sasheer Zamata became the most famous performer on Saturday Night Live yesterday when the show announced her addition to the cast. Zamata was hired after two of SNL’s black comedians, Kenan...
Festivals, News, Women Directors
The Cannes Film Festival has selected New Zealand director Jane Campion to preside over the 2014 jury. Campion has been one of the most vocal critics within the industry of Hollywood’s...
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