ALL POSTS
Todd Haynes to Direct Reese Witherspoon as Peggy Lee
The Peggy Lee biopic that Reese Witherspoon has championed since 2010 has finally found a new director in Todd Haynes. After securing the rights to Lee’s story in 2010, Witherspoon had approached...
Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette Are Best Friends in Catherine Hardwicke’s ‘Miss You Already’
Drew Barrymore replaces Rachel Weisz as Toni Collette’s best friend in Catherine Hardwicke’s upcoming dramedy Miss You Already. Morwenna Banks’ script finds two lifelong friends being pulled...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Yassmina Karajah — ‘Light’
Yassmina Karajah was born in Amman, Jordan, and is a graduate of the Bristol Law School. She studies film production at the University of British Columbia. In Light (2014), her directorial debut, a...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Marie-Ève Juste — ‘The Sands’
Based in Montreal, Marie-Ève Juste worked at the Cinémathèque Québécoise between 2003 and 2007, where she first got familiar with cinema history and practice. In 2011, she co-directed her first...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Elizabeth Lazebnik — ‘Liompa’
Elizabeth Lazebnik is quickly becoming a recognized name in the Canadian film industry. Her shorts have previously played at TIFF, the Montreal World Film Festival and received awards from WWSFF,...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Grazia Tricarico — ‘Persefone’
Grazia Tricarico attended the University of Milan and the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. She has directed the short films Brightbox (2009), L’arte marziale (2010), Michele nella...
Seattle Fest Announces Women in Cinema Lineup: Lynn Shelton, Hannah Espia, Jessica Yu, More
The Seattle International Film Festival has released the lineup for its Women in Cinema showcase. The showcase will be a four-day event at SIFF 2015, and will include 12 features and documentaries,...
Mary-Louise Parker to Play Writer Mary Karr in New Showtimes Series
Unlike its distant rival HBO, Showtime has struggled for years to capture prestige for its original programming. The other premium cable network recently accomplished just that with the...
TIFF Women DIrectors: Meet Shonali Bose — ‘Margarita, With a Straw’
Shonali Bose was raised in Calcutta, Mumbai, and Delhi. She received her BA from Delhi University and her MA from Columbia before earning her MFA at UCLA film school. She made her feature debut as...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Tamara Erde — ‘This is My Land’
Tamara Erde was born in Tel Aviv. She studied at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem and Le Fresnoy in France. In her first feature film, This is My Land, Erde visits six independently run Israeli and...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Lindsay MacKay — ‘Wet Bum’
Lindsay MacKay is the writer-director of WetBum, her debut feature film, which was named a Top 10 Finalist in theprestigious Zoetrope Screenwriting Competition. She is a graduate of theDirecting...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Linnea Saasen — ‘Meet Me in Montenegro’
Linnea Saasen was born and raised north of the Arctic Circle in Harstad,Norway. She moved to Oslo to study art before settling in Berlin, where sheworked as a contemporary dancer and performance...
TIFF 14 First Thoughts — The Appetizer Before the Meal
I’ve been on the ground here in Toronto for three days. This is my fourth year, and it’s the first time that the first couple of days didn’t feel like I was going out of my mind. There are a...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Suha Arraf — ‘Villa Touma’
Suha Arraf was born in the Palestinian village of Melyia, near Lebanon. She began her filmmaking career as a documentary producer. Her latest work, Women of Hamas (2010), received 13 awards at...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Marte Vold — ‘Out of Nature’
Marte Vold (b. 1978 in Tromsø, Norway) studied film at Nordland Art andFilm School, attended the National Art Academy in Oslo, and then graduated fromthe Norwegian Film School in 2005. Between 2002...
Weekly Update for September 5: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening Rocks in My Pockets — Written and Directed by Signe Baumane (Opened September 3) Rocks in My Pockets is Signe Baumane’s autobiographical “funny film about...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Lone Scherfig — ‘The Riot Club’
Lone Scherfig was born inCopenhagen and graduated fromthe National Film School of Denmark.Her features Italian for Beginners(2000), Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself (2002),Just Like Home (2007), and An...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Isidora Marras- ‘I Am Not Lorena’
Isidora Marras was born in Santiago, Chile, and studied audiovisual direction at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Her short films include “Mirada a Vapor” (2008) and “En la Azotea”...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Laura Nix — ‘The Yes Men Are Revolting’
Laura Nix is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles.She has over seventy productioncredits and has directed the featurefilm The Politics of Fur (2002) and twofeature documentaries, The Light inHer Eyes...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Tala Hadid — ‘The Narrow Frame of Midnight’
Tala Hadid was born in London, graduated from Columbia University in NewYork City, and participated in the Sundance Institute Directors Lab. Her filmsinclude the documentary feature Sacred Poet, the...
Joan Rivers: An Appreciation of a Feminist Comedy Revolutionary
Like the rest of the world, I’m really sad about Joan Rivers’ death. I didn’t know her, though I met her once at the press day for the riveting and brilliant documentary about her life, Joan...
Patricia Clarkson and Ruba Nadda to Reteam for HBO Drama
After winning two Emmys for her guest turn as Sarah O’Connor on HBO’s Six Feet Under, Patricia Clarkson is eyeing a return to the premium channel, this time in a starring role. Clarkson is in...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Martine Époque — ‘Coda: The Finale for The Rite of Spring’
Choreographer Martine Époque is the founder of Montreal’s renowned contemporary dance company Groupe Nouvelle Aire and was its Artistic Director from 1968 to 1981. She was also the driving force...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Afia Nathaniel — ‘Dukhtar’
Afia Nathaniel was born in Quetta, Pakistan, grew up in Lahore, and is now based in Brooklyn, NY. She graduated from Columbia University’s Film Directing program. She directed the short films...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Kristina Grozeva (‘The Lesson’)
Kristina Grozeva was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, in1976. She graduated from the National Academy for Theater and Film Art with a degree in Film Directing. She and her co-director Petar Valchanov make...
Watch: Melissa Silverstein Talks About Hollywood’s Woman Problem
The best-performing movie of 2013 was The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, starring Jennifer Lawrence as the ass-kicking, fast-thinking Katniss Everdeen. And yet we’re still in the position of having...
The Unspoken Biases in Film School
Film school hasbecome an inextricable step in becoming a successful filmmaker. I went to NYU’sTisch School of the Arts and have not regretted it. I know I would not be whereI am today without my...
Fall’s Fab Female Showrunners
“What a wonderful time for women on television!” said Julianna Margulies during her Emmy acceptance speech for The Good Wife last week. The remark, while not untrue, was somewhat undermined by...
‘Kelly & Cal’ Director Jen McGowan on Finding the Perfect Riot Grrrl and the Biggest Challenge for Indie Filmmakers
Delighted at being told sex is back inthe cards during her post-natal check-up, new mom Kelly (Juliette Lewis) hurries home to husbandJosh (Josh Hopkins) — but Josh doesn’t seem so keen on...
Trailer Watch: Hilary Swank and Emmy Rossum in ALS Drama ‘You’re Not You’
Oscar season tends to be so dominated by male faces and voices that it’s refreshing to see a film about female-friendship in the mix. In the ALS drama You’re Not You, Hilary Swank and Emmy...
Author Eleanor Catton Establishes Grant So Writers Have “Time to Read”
Eleanor Catton, the youngest ever winner of the Booker Prize for her period saga The Luminaries, has established a grant to provide the next generation of writers with “time to read.” Catton has...
London Film Festival to Feature New Works from Susanne Bier, Céline Sciamma, Debra Granik
With nearly 250 film slated to play, the 58th London Film Festival (October 8–18) will offer audiences an abundance of opportunities to see new work from female filmmakers. Among them are the...
Signe Baumane Boldly Animates Family Depression in ‘Rocks in My Pockets’
Rocksin My Pockets is Signe Baumane’s autobiographical “funny film about depression,” made with papier-mache, stop-motion and hand-drawn animation. The rich, deep, and very original film...
Jessica Chastain Wants More Female Protagonists: “Where is the Scarlett Johansson Superhero Movie?”
After Zero Dark Thirty and The Help, we don’t need any more reasons to love Jessica Chastain, but she’s giving us another one anyway. On a press tour for The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby,...
UK Government Hires First Woman Head of BBC
As Geena Davis once noted, “It’s ridiculous that we would have the first woman anything in the 21st century.” And yet here we are with the rather welcome news that Rona Fairhead has been...
Ellen Burstyn to Direct Her First Film, Lake Bell Her Second
Ellen Burstyn will join Jodie Foster, Angelina Jolie, and Lake Bell among the (unfortunately not-so-large) ranks of actresses-turned-directors. According to Deadline, the 81-year-old Burstyn will...
September 2014 Film Preview
Froman exclusive Manhattan girls’ prep school where the teachers may or may not bedrinking the blood of their students, to a woman abandoning city life to trek1,700 miles across the Australian...
Some Links To Check Out From Vacation
Happy September. Hope you got some time off. We’re getting ready to share lots of interviews with women directors at the Toronto Film Festival. I’ll be reporting from there. For up to the...