Women & Hollywood

I know I beat the drum consistently for Kathryn Bigelow but I want everyone to remember that if, and when she wins, the best director award at the Oscars on Sunday it will be only the beginning.   Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking things are equal just because a single woman wins the award.

There is still so much work to do to improve the situation for other female directors.

Martha Lauzen, the guru of stats from San Diego State U.  for one, won’t let that happen:

Just because you can name four or five women directors doesn’t mean no problem exists. If you don’t think there’s any problem then you’re not going to be looking for a solution. And that perpetuates the status quo.

If Kathryn Bigelow wins, media stories could talk about how everything has changed now and that women are equal. And that would be unfortunate.

We must all be vigilant.

Women Directors Face Celluloid Ceiling (AFP via Yahoo)

The women at the Fusion Film Festival at NYU invited me to their screening last week of The Runaways.  I’ll talk more about the movie when it opens but I really enjoyed being exposed to a slice of women’s history that I never knew about.  My relationship to Joan Jett began in the 80s when she came out with I Love Rock and Roll.  Never even knew she was in a breakthrough girl band in the 70s.

Joan attended the screening and talked a little bit about what it was like to have created the first all girl rock band.

Here are some of the bits that Joan shared:

She is very proud of the Runaways and believes they did something important.

The Runaways were more successful in Japan and Europe and she believes that they were popular in Japan because of how women were treated there at that time.

When they got off the plane in Scandinavia they were greeted by thousands of blonde girls sucking on pacifiers but she never knew why.

People were really dismissive of the band in America because they were threatening.  She got such hate for trying to make art.

She doesn’t believe much has changed in the last 30 years.

It’s got to be the same in the film business- getting taken seriously.  It’s any area you get into.  I don’t think it’s just in the music business, it’s pervasive.  For some reason people are afraid of powerful women.  I don’t really get it.

Note: I get lots of email from people who have scripts and films they want me to look at.  While I can’t watch or read all requests, I believe it is vital that we get as many women’s voices heard so they can get the exposure needed to continue of their filmmaking journey.  Women & Hollywood will try and feature these new voices on a regular basis.

All of the buzz around Kathryn Bigelow as best director is amazing—sure, she’s a woman, but more importantly, she made an incredible film, and had the guts to stick it out in a business that eats people alive and shatters dreams…

Yes, it’s been quite the long and arduous journey getting my first feature made.

It all began over six years ago, with a script called Raspberry Magic, a coming-of-age story about a young girl who believes that she can mend her broken family by proving to her dad that she can win the science fair.

Her project explores whether it’s nature or nurture that can make raspberries grow, something she measures through touch therapy.  I was inspired to write this story to explore a young girls’ relationship to nature and how it helps her realize that she can’t solve every problem through quantifiable means.

I went through many, many drafts of this script and even work-shopped it at a couple of writer’s conferences.  While I had written several screenplays before, Raspberry Magic was one I just kept working and working on over a period of many years.  I got a lot of positive feedback on it, and tried for years to meet that perfect person who would want to help me bring it to the screen…

But ultimately, no one wanted to make a movie about a young Indian girl, science, raspberries or the likes…Until 2006, when I met Megha Kadakia, an aspiring producer who had raised some financing for a couple of other indie films and was looking to do an low budget indie film.

Continue reading ‘Guest Post: The Hustle to Make the First Film by Leena Pendharkar’

Here’s the beginning:

In less than one week, March 7 to be exact, the Hollywood awards season will be over, and chances are very good that for the first time a woman—Kathryn Bigelow—will have won the best director Oscar for The Hurt Locker.  Three other women (Lina Wertmuller, Jane Campion and Sophia Coppola) have been nominated in the 82 years that the Academy has held its awards, but with due respect to them and their films, none of them had a shot.

This year is different.  Based on earlier awards by critics and more recently by the Directors Guild (a first for a woman director) and the British academy (BAFTA)—as well as conversations with several Oscar watchers—the consensus is that Bigelow is at the front of the pack to win the award.  Last week, Time magazine got into the act titling its story “The Front Runner.” Forgive me for not sounding the trumpets in advance but we all have seen female front runners fade. While there are many reasons to believe that Bigelow will win, there is something in the back of my head that screams caution remembering the Gloria Steinem piece from the 2008 election season “Women are Never Front-Runners.”

Read full piece here

Don’t forget that Women & Hollywood is launching our bi-weekly radio show tomorrow at 12pm EST.

Our guest will be Sasha Stone, Managing Editor of Awards Daily and we will be talking about the upcoming Oscar Awards.  To listen to it live click here.

I hope to take some calls from the audience, but you will also be able to listen to the show at your convenience or can download it to your ipod using itunes.

Hope you enjoy.

It’s not often that a guy stands up for the women in such a loud and important way.  But playwright and screenwriter David Hare has done just that.  He talked about how women are writing some of the best plays today, but because of the “macho” attitude of people in leadership they are missing a huge opportunity.

“There’s no doubt that the structure of the theatre is plainly male,” he said.

“The rough and tumble of the theatre is like politics to a degree – it’s a macho business.”

“There are very few women artistic directors,” he added, saying it was “ridiculous” that it had taken so long for a woman – Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) – to win a Bafta for directing.

He does make a point saying that only recently have women been writing plays covering larger topics, I guess, like politics.  I don’t know how much I agree with that.  Maybe it’s just that nobody noticed the women before.

Women are finally writing for the theatre as if it were a completely open format in a way that the novel [already] is,” he said.

“There’s undoubtedly the beginnings of a change in what it is expected that women playwrights do.

We need more men to stand up this way.  Just because you acknowledge women’s success and competence doesn’t mean that you are against men.  This is not a competition to the top of the hill.

Theatres ‘risk ignoring talented female playwrights’ says Sir David Hare (The Telegraph)

She totally rocked

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Last year I wrote a post about Toe to Toe a film written and directed by Emily Abt that premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. At that time Emily didn’t have a distributor and wanted one.  The good news is that she got a distributor and the film is released today in NYC and next week in LA.

Toe to Toe tells the story of two high school seniors, one African American, one white.  One poor, one rich.  One who has it together, one who is out of control.  They might seem like cliches but the performances are so truthful that all doubts are quickly erased.

Tosha (Sonequa Martin) is a poor African American girl in a private prep school who is pushed by her grandmother (Leslie Uggams) to believe in herself and her ability to get into Princeton.  She also encourages her to play lacrosse because no African American girls do.  It is on that field that she meets Jesse (Louisa Krause) a troubled, sexually provocative white girl who has been kicked out of many schools.  Jesse and Tosha are drawn to each other and become friends even while the outside world is conspiring against them.  But like most teenage girls they also compete.  Their friendship is messy, and at times disappointing and destructive.  But they try, which is more than can be said for Jesse’s busy single working mom (Ally Walker) who is so oblivious to her daughter’s needs and desperation that you want to throttle her.

What I liked best about the film is that Abt is unafraid to be challenging and deal with issues that most films skirt like promiscuity, abortion, sexually transmitted diseases and most especially race and class. I would love for this movie to be seen by teenagers everywhere with a group discussion afterwards.

Here’s an interview I did with director, Emily Abt. Continue reading ‘Toe to Toe Written and Directed by Emily Abt Opens Today in NYC’

Kimberly Reed’s documentary, Prodigal Sons, has been a long time in the making. Growing up life seemed so perfect.  She was born as Paul McKerrow, the high school quarterback, one of the most popular guys in school. But inside, Paul felt conflicted about his gender identity. So after high school, he moved to San Francisco and experimented with living as a woman, before making the full transition to life as a woman. This change served as a major aggravation to her brother Marc, who struggled for years as the adopted son. Marc’s resulting mental instability from a brain injury at 21 only exasperated his idealization of the past and Paul’s life from twenty-five years ago.

Living as a successful editor and filmmaker in S.F. and New York, she returned to her hometown of Helena, MT for her high school reunion, and a re-connection with Marc. The film is intense, raw, and gives the audience an open intimacy into the lives of Marc and Kimberly, and finding that they have more in common than they originally thought. Prodigal Sons opens Friday, February 26 in NYC.

How did you come to recording your journey and making a narrative comparing yours and your brother’s lives?

I had recently transitioned, this is probably about sixteen or seventeen years ago, I’m walking down the street in San Francisco, and I see somebody who I used to work with. And I went up and had that sort of shocking thing of like, “Hey, it’s me,” not wanting to be nosy. And it was a dear friend, his name was Bob Hawk, we worked at Film Arts Foundation in San Francisco, supporting independent film and artists. And we’ve been in touch ever since then; he’s an executive producer on the film. But a couple of weeks after that, he kept saying, “you have to make a film about this.” And at the time, I was like “No, no, I’m not going to talk about this, this is not going to happen.”  But both of us knew there was going to be a time when it was going to happen. So fast-forward to 2005, when I finally get up the nerve to go to my high school reunion, he was the first person I called. So in a lot of ways, the journey to make this film goes back there. In other ways, the journey to make this film starts with that decision to go to the high school reunion, which I think triggered a lot of other things.

How did people in your family adapt to being filmed? Did they request that somethings not be filmed?

Well, first of all, my dad was always shooting, so I think everyone was already used to the camera. I took on that mantle, and I was always shooting family gatherings, which I think was my way of assessing a lot of that stuff.  I was more comfortable behind the camera.  But also I think it was just how I processed the world, when I would get upset or melancholy, I would go out and shoot films, that’s what I would always do.  The family was always used to me running around with a camera so at the reunion when we were going to shoot it, it was like, “OK.”  I never had to convince anyone. I’m really lucky that I have a family that’s very trusting. The D.P., John Keitel was good at sinking into the scene and disappearing, he’s a vérité shooter, and that really helped a lot.

Continue reading ‘Guest Post: Interview with Kimberly Reed, Director of Prodigal Sons by Melissa Silvestri’

With all the hoopla over Kathryn Bigelow (as well the nomination for An Education as best picture) I missed another women directed film — The Milk of Sorrow directed by Claudia Llosa — which is up for the foreign film Oscar.

Not only is this film directed by a woman, it is about sexual violence against women in Peru.  Here is the description from IMDB:

Fausta is suffering from a rare disease called the Milk of Sorrow, which is transmitted through the breast milk of pregnant women who were abused or raped during or soon after pregnancy. While living in constant fear and confusion due to this disease, she must face the sudden death of her mother. She chooses to take drastic measures to not follow in her mother’s footsteps.

So here’s an example of a movie raising important issues — about women’s lives — that clearly works and is resonating.

It can be done.  I’ve got it saved in my netflix queue.

Peru film on sexual violence nominated for Oscar (AP via Yahoo)

I started to get real nervous as I paged through the top 25 since I didn’t run into a woman’s name until SHOCKER, at number 4 is Kathryn Bigelow.  What a difference a year (a great movie, and some awards) make.  Think she would have been on the list last year?

Here’s the list of the top 50

50- Nancy Meyers

45- Mira Nair

30- Sophia Coppola

4- Kathryn Bigelow

Who do you think is missing from this list?

25 Greatest Working Directors (EW)

“The ‘cumulative’ factor of a series of pre-Oscar wins can be a powerful aphrodisiac for Academy voters.” So says Pete Hammond of the LA Times, quoting “one producer and former studio head who told me he very much understands the psychology of Oscar voting.”

Yes, women, the handicappers will all tell you that your vote no longer matters. They’ve posted their predictions, the dye is already cast, and they dare you to say otherwise. But remember those great headlines from 1948: “Dewey Defeats Truman!” We all know “it ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings,” and this particular fat lady is still in mid-aria.

On what basis are the handicappers handicapping? Do the prognosticators really know what you are thinking?

The “cumulative factor” is based on all the votes of all the people who have already voted, and people have been voting since early December. I know this for a fact because I voted in early December (as a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association).

But drill down, and you will quickly learn that the New York Film Critics Circle lists 33 members, 8 of whom are women (24%), while the LA Film Critics Association lists 52 members, 10 of whom are women (19%). And here in Chicago, I am one of 8 women on a membership list of 57 (14%).

(To keep my sanity, I just assume that all the names I can’t identify, like LAFCA’s “F.X. Feeny,” belong to women. In fact, “F.X. Feeny” is a man. I just checked and found him on Google. But I can’t check every name, so I’d rather overestimate than underestimate.)

What about the Guilds? If you’re a DGA member, then you know better than I do who your fellow DGA members are, and ditto if you’re a WGA member. But suffice it to say that in both cases, the pattern holds. Well over 50% of both groups are male.

Right now, I’m not concerned with the whys and wherefores of this statistical distribution. I just want to confirm what most of you already know: women are significantly underrepresented in most of the groups whose votes are combined to create the “cumulative factor.” In other words, this “cumulative factor” primarily represents male opinion.

Facts like these used to be very difficult to find. A few years back, I contacted the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and asked for a membership list. No luck. But after recent critiques by journalists like Sharon Waxman, the HFPA is now happy to post a membership list on its website. And surprise, surprise, the current list is almost equally balanced between male and female members. And this is how change happens: women must dig deep, question assumptions, and make our voices heard.

This year, there’s been a big rule change (from 5 Best Picture candidates to 10), so there’s a great deal of interest in “the rules.” Handicappers can’t handicap if they don’t know the rules, so all kinds of information is suddenly a few clicks away. For example, I recently learned from the Wall Street Journal that approximately 6,000 Academy members will vote this year, and approximately 1/3 of you are women. Numbers like that make me smile.

Final ballots are due next Tuesday, March 2, at 5 PM (PT).  So before you vote, I’d like to make one final appeal: forget everything you’ve heard, resist the “aphrodisiac” effect of the “cumulative factor,” and just vote with your heart for the films, performances, and technical accomplishments that you really believe are the best. If you do, then March 7, 2010 might well be filled with surprises!

______________________

Film critic Jan Lisa Huttner blogs at The Hot Pink Pen.  Her article on the 2004 Oscars for Women’s eNews (which showed how a record number of women directors and screenwriters had impacted the most high profile nominations) received the “Best News Writing for the Web” award from the National Federation of Press Women in 2005.

Here’s Kathryn Bigelow talking about the film and what it might mean to other women if she wins the Oscar. The anticipation for the Oscars is killing me. I am so excited.

When asked what she thinks of being a role model she said it is “thrilling” especially because “you can factor into someone’s aspirations.”

Seeing is believing:

Check out this great trailer from my friends at the Women’s Media Center.

It’s a great pick me up.

Just forget all the bullshit you and I are constantly fed (and I sometimes write) about how great things are for women in Hollywood.  We did have a better year at the box office with a couple of female led films making it to the top 10, and we did get a woman nominated for best director, BUT and this is a big BUT, when you look even a little bit below the surface you will realize really quickly that things are just terrible for women EVERYWHERE in Hollywood.

Don’t believe me.  The stats speak for themselves.

Dr. Martha Lauzen of San Diego State (the guru of stats about women in Hollywood) has released her annual Celluloid Ceiling survey looking at the women working behind the scenes on the top 250 grossing movies of the year and not surprising, women make up only 16% of directors, executive producers, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors.  That number is down 3 points from 2001 and is the same as 2008.

Women directors are now at 7% down from 9% in 2008 and is the same percentage as it was in 1987 (the year that Dirty Dancing and Baby Boom were released and Cher won her Oscar for Moonstruck.) So while we’ve all been talking about the prominent women who were recognized this past year, the opportunities for women to direct declined.

Women writers make up only 8%.  That means that 92% of the films are written from a male perspective.

More stats:

Women make up:

17% of all executive producers

23% of all producers

18% of all editors

2% of all cinematographers

People, this is a crisis of epic proportions.  Things are clearly not improving, they are declining and we are in another severe backlash against women.  This is frightening.

I was away for a couple of days and tried to come back with a new, positive attitude.  You know how hard that is for a New Yorker in February?

But my mood was so ruined this morning by several different descriptions of some new films that literally made me scream out loud.  Me thinks that films for women are going further and further downhill.

Number 1

Bad Teacher- starring Cameron Diaz – written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky.  Will be directed by Jake Kasdan.

Description: Story centers on a foulmouthed, gold-digging middle-school teacher who, after getting dumped by her boyfriend, competes with a colleague for the affections of the school’s model teacher.

Please tell me how going after another teacher makes you a gold-digger which is by the way such a sexist term?

Number 2

The Undomestic Goddess to be directed by Tom Bezucha (The Family Stone)

Based on the Sophie Kinsella novel

Description: The book centers on a workaholic female attorney who, believing she wrecked her chances of being named partner at her London firm, has a meltdown and ends up in the English countryside. After stopping at a large house to ask directions, she is mistaken as a candidate for a maid position and takes a housekeeping job.

I’ve never read the books but my question is, is she mistaken for a maid because she is a woman?  Because she is driving a certain car?  And what by the way does a housekeeper exactly look like?

Number 3

Bachelorette Party written by Karen Lutz (based on her novel)

Description: unlucky-in-love high school teacher facing the prospect of throwing a bachelorette party for her uptight cousin, who is marrying the teacher’s best male friend. But during the alcohol-fuelled event, the cousin cheats on her fiancé, leading our heroine to decide who she supports. Bet she secretly fancies her male buddy as well.

Film will star Anna Faris and Jennifer Garner.

I can usually take one of these in a day, but three?  Do you hear me screaming out where you live?

Here are some newly launched programs from Women in Film in LA.  In order to apply you need to be a member of Women in Film.  Get more info here.

ABC Television Network Director Shadowing Program.

Details: Submit on DVD of a narrative work directed within the past three calendar years.

Selection: The WIF/TV&Media Committee, together with the Disney/ABC Television Group Talent Development & Diversity committee, will select one member to shadow the director of “Hollywood Salutes Matt Damon: An American Cinematheque Tribute” (Don’t get me started on issues I have over the fact that Matt Damon is being honored. He’s a good guy, but please) from pre-production through live broadcast.  They will select another qualified member to shadow the Executive Producer, Producer and Director of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” for one week (Be prepared, they will I’m sure all be guys since we know that late night has very few women.). The deadline for submission is Friday, March 5, 2010.

MTV Outreach Program

Marking the first time MTV has reached out specifically to female artists and members of the creative community to develop concepts for their core audience, the MTV Development Team in Los Angeles is accepting submissions from writers, producers and directors, by written sample or DVD.

Selection:  Submissions will be evaluated by MTV and the WIF/TV&Media committee.  Ten applicants will have the opportunity to present their ideas, in person, directly to senior members of MTV’s development team on a pitch day in April. The prize for the winning pitch is a development deal with MTV Productions.  The deadline for submissions is Friday, March 12, 2010. Winners will be notified by email and telephone in early April.

TNT/TBS Directorial Shadowing Opportunity,

Two winning applicants will shadow the directors of upcoming programs to be named shortly.

Selection: Emerging directors are invited to submit a DVD of a narrative work they have directed in the past three calendar years. Deadline for submissions is Friday, March 5, 2010.

Get busy!  Don’t forget you need to be a member of WIF to apply for any of the programs.

Women in Film

If you didn’t know any better after reading this AP article on the Academy’s technical awards you’d think that only men worked in Hollywood. This piece is one of the strangest takes on the industry that I have seen in a while.

Here’s the first line:

Forty-five men you’ve probably never heard of were honored with an Academy Awards ceremony of their own that recognized scientific and technical achievements in moviemaking.

The event awarded the “nerds” of Hollywood, the techies, who are clearly smart, but please don’t tell me that only guys work in this area.

Wouldn’t a better story have been, here we are giving out the technical academy awards and you’d think in 2010 there would be a woman on the winner list. Huh? What’s wrong with this picture?

But no, nobody thinks to ask these questions. So I will. What is wrong with this picture?  How can this be a celebration of anything when only men are recognized?

Motion picture academy honors nerds of filmmaking (AP via Yahoo)

NYU’s  7th annual student run Fusion Film Festival is happening this week in NYC.  They have some great screenings and panels.   If you are in the NYC area you should attend.

From their materials:

The Fusion Film Festival was founded seven years ago at New York University with the mission of encouraging, inspiring, and providing opportunity for women filmmakers in the NYU community. Since its first year, Fusion has taken a stance on promoting female leadership in filmmaking, and continues its efforts in attracting support within and outside the walls of NYU.

They kick it off Thursday evening at 6:30pm with a screening of The Runaways followed by a q&a with director Floria Sigismondi.

Here are some of the panels on Saturday that look great are:

Women Writing Women

Room 006, 721 Broadway

3:00 pm – 4:30 pm

Join us for a discussion with working screenwriters to discuss the special challenges women face in creating rich and complex roles for women.

Double Threats

Room 006, 721 Broadway

5:00 pm – 6:30 pm

Writer-Director. Actor-Director. Actor-Producer. Some do it all. Join us for a conversation on how the dual on-set role has evolved to its present state.

And they support future filmmakers.  One of the big pieces of the festival is the film and documentary pitch competition, where “NYU students have the opportunity to explore their creativity and gain recognition for their work.”

More details here

The awards season keeps rolling on for Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker. Not only was the film named best picture last evening at the BAFTA’s (the British version of the Academy Awards), but Bigelow became the first woman EVER to be named best director.  The film won six awards kicking some Avatar ass on its way to the podium.

Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank was named outstanding British Film and for the first time in a long time Carey Mulligan took best actress honors.

So that means two films directed by women won best picture.  And both women also won awards from the London Film Critics Circle earlier in the week.  How great is that?

Here’s what Bigelow had to say about winning:

“I think the secret to directing is collaboration, and I was so lucky to have an incredible cast and crew. This is deeply moving — we all felt an incredible responsibility to honor the courage of the men and women in the field.”

She also said she hoped she was “first of many” women to win the prize.

Her grace in winning continues to make me even more and more excited for her.  She’s not getting a big head or acting like the “queen of the world.”  She is a great example for all directors  — men and women — to follow.

Bigelow is first woman to win BAFTA director prize (Screen Daily)

THE HURT LOCKER: BAFTA’s Big Winner (Alt Film Guide)

Bigelow Takes Directing Prize From London Film Critics Circle (The Wrap)