Tag Archive for 'Precious'

At the SAG Awards, critics darling and Oscar front-runner Mo’Nique  flipped the script. She took a special, unexpected moment to give a nod to the dedicated and not-so-visible ‘sistren’ collaborators behind-the-scenes of Precious, the women whose focused energy came together in perfect parts to bring the little film that could to life.

One such fierce woman, Lisa Cortes, the film’s executive producer, is all about the power of harnessing and circling energy in the art world: from film to music; corporate to non-profit; high art to folk. “In my mind producing films and supporting other arts are intertwined because the big picture intention is to increase the well-being of woman and mankind. Art opens the door to possibility …”

For a film that has truly sparked dialogue and opened many unlikely doors within the industry, Mo’Nique knew to ‘recognize’ — as do we. Let’s take a moment then, shall we, to get to know the triple-threat producer behind the six-time Academy Award nominated Precious.

L.A. Collins:  They say an actor who can also sing and dance is a triple threat. But what about a producer who can ‘do’: art, music and film? You’re certainly a triple threat, no?

Lisa Cortes: Why, thank you!

COLLINS:  Can you discuss your roots in the music business and how that naturally transitioned into producing films?

CORTES: In 1987 I was fresh out of Yale and part of the original team at Def Jam records/Rush Artist Management. There were no titles — we just got “whatever was assigned to you” done. Or if you wanted to take a project on, you could. In the A.M. I worked for the management company, and in P.M. for the label. It was an environment where you had to constantly find creative solutions. From the inane (‘How can I get LL Cool J to take his hat off for his passport photo?’) to culture changing (convincing corporate entities like Adidas to endorse the artists). As the “smart girl” it was assumed that I could figure it out; and I came to love my time there because I got to exercise the commercial and creative sides of my brain.

COLLINS: So it paid to have that education under-your-belt, so to speak?

CORTES: Yeah. By the time I ended up running my own label, Loose Cannon, at Polygram I had become an executive who actively found artists, made records, marketed and distributed them. So when I made the transition to producing I felt that process was the same. It’s about the having a broad overview, problem solving, translating and facilitating a vision — and keeping it on track.

COLLINS: We always hear the upside of producing after the pros have had time to exhale, but can you take us back to the most trying day for you on set? And how, as a producer, did you negotiate your way out of it?

CORTES: The development, production and post of Precious presented many challenges. Honoring the work, finding the talent, and creating a believable New York circa 1987 had me constantly relying on my ability to improvise. I remember one day where we showed up at a location and there was dog crap all over the sidewalk. All you can do is start shoveling.

COLLINS: As a female producer did you find your authority/judgment, at times, in question? Do you think your femaleness gave you less or more leverage in situations you encountered?

CORTES: In our daily lives we sometimes encounter forces that don’t appreciate what we bring to the mix as women, but that’s not my problem; I gracefully power through and get the job done. Each day brings different obstacles and I think it’s all about not getting stuck in the problem loop and being able to have strong convictions, while looking to compromise when needed.

Continue reading ‘Guest Post: Interview with Precious Executive Producer Lisa Cortes By L.A. Collins’

This morning I have such a feeling of relief over Kathryn Bigelow’s nomination.  Since the Academy has such a shitty track record of honoring women, I thought in back of my mind that they just might give her (and us) the big finger.

But those thoughts have now been displaced, and the good news is that she got nominated.  The better news is that her film, The Hurt Locker — a film directed by a woman — got the same amount of nominations as Avatar — 9. I’m gonna go out on a limb (not very far out though) and say that no other female directed film has ever garnered that many nomination.

But in my joy and relief, I am still reminded of how far we have to go when I got these headlines in my in box describing the nominations:

From CNN: “Avatar,” “Up in the Air” among leading nominees at this year’s Academy Award nominations.”

From the Hollywood Reporter: “James Cameron, ‘Avatar’ among Oscar nominees”

The Hurt Locker got more noms than Up in the Air and was equal to Avatar.  So why doesn’t it rate a headline?

I know I’m nit picking but come on, when is this going to happen again?  When is a movie that is directed by a woman going to match nomination for nomination to the man who calls himself the king of the world?

So beyond her nod for directing which is momentous, lets look at the bigger picture in that her leadership, and yes it is leadership (which is always one of the reasons why women have a hard time with directing — men can’t see them as leading the troops aka the crew) has been rewarded with NINE nominations.

Continue reading ‘Early Thoughts on the Oscar Nominations’

Getty Images

This is big.

This is Sally Ride, first American woman in space big.  This is Sandra Day O’Connor, first female on the Supreme Court big.  This is Billie Jean King beating Bobby Riggs big.

This is a big, bold blast in the glass ceiling for all women directors.

Last night in the wee hours here on the east coast, Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman EVER to win the DGA top honors for feature filmmaking.

What is interesting about the DGA event is that all the nominees get up to make a speech, all receive a silver plaque and then at the end of the evening one gets the gold.  Reports are that when Bigelow’s name was announced everyone cheered.

I’m getting goose bumps just writing about it.

Her acceptance speech seemed incredibly humble:

“Just to be in the room with all of you is an unimaginable honor,” says Bigelow, who appeared uncomfortable speaking to the audience. “We all felt a deep responsibility to tell this story as honestly as possible, given the courage of our troops overseas. This is the most incredible moment of my life. And with that, I’ll disappear.”

But following the whole event on twitter I couldn’t help but be dismayed at some of the sexist remarks coming out of the mouths of people in the room.

Here’s what Lee Daniels, the director of Precious said of Bigelow: “Your movie is as beautiful as your legs.  You make me question my sexuality.”

I find that incredibly offensive.  Lee just finished making a movie about how a girl was treated because of how she looked and who she was, and this is the bullshit that comes out of his mouth when talking about his fellow nominee?  Unacceptable.

Another comment:

Stage manager (I can’t figure out who that person is) to Carl Reiner after seeing Bigelow: “That’s the most beautiful director I’ve ever seen.

And

Jeremy Renner said the only thing to rival Kathryn Bigelow in a bikini is “Lee Daniels in a one-piece.”

I was tweeting back and forth with another woman who knows much more about the awards that I do and she wrote to me when I said I was appauled:

I think it’s unique to have such a looker in the room up for awards.  Plus, ppl are surprised she is almost 60. But yeah.

I wonder if they said the same things to Robert Redford back in the day.

I was thinking maybe only in the most rare cases, like Brad Pitt or Redford.  I’ve never seen them talk this way about any other.

But some other people did notice the comments and were disturbed by them.  Andre Soares at Alt Film Guide wrote:

Comments abounded on Bigelow’s looks — in other words, on the fact that she’s a woman. Had she been a handsome guy, I wonder how many remarks would have been made about his physical attributes. And how many male directors and presenters would be publicly questioning their sexuality.

And in other good news, Lesli Linka Glatter took top honors for AMC’s Mad Men.

What does this mean for women directors in the future, only time will tell but at least no one will ever have to be the first one in this category again.

One big step forward and a little push back.

Kathryn Bigelow tops directors with ‘Hurt Locker’ (USA Today)

DGA Awards: Focus on Kathryn Bigelow’s Gender Alt Film Guide

Check out my appearance on a year end movie segment on GRITtv hosted by Laura Flanders.

Carey Mulligan

The National Board of Review (NBR)  handed out its awards for 2009 and Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air (which is opening in limited release today) took top honors.  NBR is a mysterious group.  Some film people, some folks not in the business at all.  Here’s how the Hollywood Reporter describes the group: “Voted by the 108-member organization, composed of film enthusiasts and academics,  the NBR Awards are an imprecise indicator of eventual Oscar-worthiness.”

Anna Kendrick

As for the other winners: Carey Mulligan was named best actress for An Education and Anna Kendrick was named best supporting actress for Up in the Air.  (Both are about 23)  Gabourey Sidibe got an “Breakthrough” award for Precious.

The list of the top ten included two women directed films, An Education (Lone Scherfig) and The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow.)

The group also made a list of their top 10 indie films and included on that were: Amreeka (Cherien Dabis) Humpday (Lynn Shelton) and Sugar (co-directed by Anna Boden.)

Up in the Air Wins NBR Best Picture (Hollywood Reporter)

On Friday morning Hollywood woke up to the realization that fangirls can be as rabid as fanboys.  By Saturday morning they realized that two BIG records had been broken, including the highest midnight screening opening and the best opening date in history.  On Sunday morning, they woke up realizing that New Moon had not only shattered all even optimistic expectations, it had coattails helping to fuel a big and unexpectedly good weekend at the box office  Entertainment Weekly wrote that: “this one of the most lopsidedly female-driven weekends in Hollywood history.”

Here are the numbers:

• New Moon made $140 (Updated: 142.8 million) dollars this weekend.

• It made more on Friday than Twilight did it’s first weekend.  That means the franchse is growing in strength.

• New Moon has the THIRD biggest opening weekend numbers.

• Women accounted for 80% of the tickets buyers; and were divided evenly between women under and over 21.

• The film also kicked butt overseas bringing in over $118 $124.1 (Updated) million overseas.

• The film scored a high A- in exit polling done when people left the theatre.

TOTAL WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: $258 $266.9 (updated) million for the weekend.

And while everybody expected New Moon to be big (but not this big) what is more astounding to me is how well Sandra Bullock’s movie did opening opposite the juggernaut.  The film actually performed way better than industry estimates which were at best $20 million and it cements Bullock back as a powerhouse.  The Blind Side topped her great opening this summer with The Proposal bringing in $33.6 million.

The film, more than New Moon, showed the power of women, even the much maligned older woman.  The film’s success was built on 59% female ticket buyers with 75% of them being over 25.   If you really think about it, it is older women who made this weekend a huge success because 50% of the audience for New Moon were over 21, and 75% of The Blind Side’s audience were over 25.

AND let’s not forget Precious.  The film widened to over 600 screens and took in $11 million and is still raking in high per screen averages.  It will roll out wider this holiday weekend.

So what does this mean?

It seems to me that while Hollywood felt comfortable dismissing Sex and the City, Mamma Mia (because the audiences for those were primarily over 25), and even Twilight (as a one time wonder), there is no way that these numbers could be dismissed as a fluke.  THEY ARE JUST TOO BIG.  Women and girls are looking for material that they connect with just as much as guys and boys are, but they thing that blows me away about the success of New Moon and even The Blind Side is that the theatres were just packed with women not caring if the guys came with them.  This was a weekend where the gals went in bunches and left the guys home cause they wanted to see this movie more than they wanted to see whatever their boyfriends or guyfriends wanted to see.

As I’ve harped on FOREVER there is an audience out there hungry to see films that appeal to them.  I’m not trying to say that all women’s films will be as successful as New Moon because that’s silly.  These kinds of movies come along rarely cause Hollywood hardly makes them.  But this weekend’s number indicate that they should make more of them.

I think we need to keep New Moon in perspective.  Like I stated above, these films come along rarely and Hollywood has a tendency to try and replicate successes very quickly.  Lots of times those replications don’t work.  I think the actual film New Moon suffered because it was rushed to the screen.  But that didn’t matter one iota to the fans.  They loved it.

I think this is an opportunity for Hollywood to be smart and creative and to think about how to build on the women’s market because it is clearly out there.

But don’t think that New Moon’s huge success doesn’t give me pause.  The misogyny which I have been told about (and refuse to read) that has made it’s way onto the web calling girls stupid and screaming idiots and worse (so typical) for enjoying the film makes me angry.  Because we have had so few films that has a woman at its center do as well as New Moon it is being held to an absurd standard.  Yes, I wish the film would have been better.  I thought it was cheesy and the last third was just useless (a total waste of Dakota Fanning and Michael Sheen’s talents.)

I love how people are complaining about the objectification of Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson.  Now you’re upset about the fact that movies taunt and flaunt? The only thing that makes this different is that Megan Fox had to keep her short shorts on in Transformers, and Taylor Lautner spent most of New Moon with his shirt off.  If you’re going to complain about these guys being sexualized, you will have a hard time getting anyone to take you seriously.  Women are sexually objectified in basically every Hollywood film.

But at the end of the day the success of New Moon (there are many other people having better conversations about the content of New Moon and whether it sets back women and if it is anti-feminist), is a HUGE triumph, and has the potential to be a game changing moment in the film business.  The fact that a film fueled by woman power and starring a woman has called such waves in Hollywood is unprecedented.  The business must figure out ways to build on it.  If they don’t they are squandering a huge opportunity and all their shareholders should have them fired.

New Moon Shines at Box Office (Variety)

New Moon Tops Foreign Box Office (Hollywood Reporter)

So Precious rolled out further this past weekend and continued to astound at the box office.  The movie made it to number three for the week grossing over 5.8 million in just 174 theatres.

A little perspective: The Men Who Stared At Goats starring George Clooney made a little less than Precious coming in at 4th place.  But that movie played in 2,453 theatres.  Precious grossed over $33,000 per theatre and the number 1 movie of the week 2012, which made over $65 million, grossed a little over $19,000 per theatre.

Precious will roll out further this weekend onto over 600 screens in 100 markets.

Here’s what the boxofficeguru.com’s Gitesh Pandya had to say about Precious via Gold Derby:

Its $35,000 average proves that it’s not a one-weekend wonder that worked in just a few top markets but something that will build in the weeks ahead into a surefire blockbuster appealing to moviegoers in towns big and small.

Precious is one of only two films this entire decade to reach the Top 5 with less than 200 theaters. The other was ‘Paranormal Activity’ last month.

Awards contender ‘Brokeback Mountain’ opened four years ago with a similar limited bow with an eye-popping $100,000-plus average. It expanded to 69 sites in its second weekend and grossed $2.5 million for a $36,355 average. The fact that Precious generated a similar average from more than double the number of theaters is nothing short of remarkable, even when factoring in four years of ticket-price increases. So this one is well-positioned to keep growing since the publicity it generates in two weeks of limited play will get a broader audience to get off the sidelines by the time it opens wide.

And let’s not forget about New Moon which opens this Friday.  The film is the advanced ticket record holder at Fandango beating out Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and The Dark Knight.  And Twilight is fifth on the list.

So that means that two of the top five films on Fandango’s list for advanced tickets are for films about and fueled by women.  People are buying multiple tickets in advance and in a fandango survey, 22% said that mothers and daughters are going to see the movie together.

Both these movies are lightning in a bottle.  The movie business needs to figure out how to build on this and not say it’s a fluke.  But, keep in mind that both films are directed by men. (Twilight’s script is written by Melissa Rosenberg and the novels of Precious and Twilight are written by women – Sapphire and Stephenie Meyer.)

The next person who says that women aren’t a market is going to get my foot shoved up their ass.

‘Precious’ is truly precious at the box office; $2.5 million is ‘remarkable’ (Gold Derby)

Jeers to the Hollywood Reporter for convening a year end discussion with high-profile producers round-table without a SINGLE WOMAN!  Please don’t tell me a single female producer was not available.

Here are two points, from the conversation of note:

Laurence Mark: on How Julie & Julie got made:

Mark: “Julie & Julia” happened, without question, because of Meryl Streep. We all know it, Meryl knows it, Sony is certainly happy to say it.

And Ivan Reitman talking about casting Vera Farmiga and the discussion he had with his son writer/director Jason.

I’d say the biggest disagreement we had was over Vera Farmiga, who is a wonderful actress but she was eight months pregnant about two months before he started shooting. He said “Look, I wrote it for her, I think she’ll be perfect.” And she was as big as a house! As a producer, I have to say to him, “I know she’s a great actress, she’s going to be great in it, but she’s got to be someone George Clooney is going to fall in love with.” There were all kinds of actresses who wanted to play this part, bigger names than Vera was at that moment, so I kept saying, “Well, how about her?” But he just hung in there. I had to really defend his decision, and I know he agonized about it enormously. There were a couple rough opening scenes — first days — that he reshot at the end of the schedule to give her a little more time to get into shape. Apart from that, there was really no downside.

Thank goodness Jason stuck to his guts.

And our second jeer of the day goes to CNN and this story, When Actresses Turn Ugly which is basically about the fact that Mariah Carey wore no makeup for her part in Precious.  How does wearing no makeup make you ugly?  Unacceptable.

Awards Watch: Producers Roundtable (Hollywood Reporter)

When Actresses Turn Ugly (CNN)

I love when I get my Entertainment Weekly preview issues.  Just love them.  This year’s holiday movie preview just arrived and lo and behold it looks like it could be a pretty decent season for us women.

The season has already begun with Oscar frontrunner Precious, but when the cover gives me a picture of Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin in a Nancy Meyers flick, I am happy.  It’s Complicated opens on December 25 and I for one cannot wait to see it.  It’s looks to be Something’s Gotta Give but even better.

I am also psyched for Sandra Bullock’s new film (she has been busy this year) The Blind Side based on the Michael Lewis book.  It’s about a white couple from Memphis who take in a homeless very large African-American teenager and makes him a part of their family.  Here’s the description: “A cross-pollination of heart warming family film and rousing sports movie, with a little Erin Brockovich social consciousness thrown in…”  My kind of movie.  Sounds like this film can get the guys and the girls.

The whispers are starting about Bullock’s performance (haven’t seen it yet) as Oscar material but she shuns that kind of conversation.

“People who do what I do don’t do award winning films…which is kind of a relief…I’d rather roll home, put on the jeans, go outside, pick up dog poop, or go for a run or something.”

Another reason why I love her.  She’d rather pick up dog poop than wear a fancy dress.

Then of course there is juggernaut of Twilight- New Moon which opens opposite The Blind Side and this movie will be HUGE.  (working on a separate post about this.)  I think it will beat Twilight’s 68 million opening weekend numbers.

I’m about to see The Private Lives of Pippa Lee written and directed by Rebecca Miller based on her own novel starring Robin Wright.  Wright who has shed soon to be ex Sean’s last name feels like she has finally gotten a juicy role and she is psyched:

Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and the Kates have all gotten great roles, and were so good in them, and now I got one…I finally got one.

Here’s a little shout out to the adorable Anna Kendrick who at 24 really holds her own opposite George Clooney in Up in the Air.  Here’s what she said that got me loving her:

My character is so rare.  She doesn’t have sex with anybody.  She doesn’t revolve around the boy.  She’s smart and complicated and really messed up.

She knows the it may be a while because she gets another character like this, which incidentally writer/director Jason Reitman wrote with her in mind.

I’m going to have to deal with a lot of characters that revolve around a guy or just aren’t that well-rounded.

Isn’t it sad that a 24 year old knows that she may have already have gotten the best part of her career already?  Hopefully, that’s not true since based on her performance and the Oscar buzz, she’s going to be around a long, long time.

Other movies (including some that star guys) I am looking forward to over these next couple of months include: Avatar; A Single Man; The Lovely Bones; Nine; Invictus; Brothers; The Last Station; Serious Moonlight; Did You Hear About the Morgans?; The Young Victoria and The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond.

What movies are you looking forward to?

This weekend catapulted Precious to the top of the Oscar list with a record setting debut in theatres.  Let me say that again- RECORD SETTING DEBUT.  It made $1.8 million dollars on a total of 18 screens.  That is an average of $100,000 per screen which never, ever happens.

A little perspective.  Michael Jackson’s movie This is It opened to 6,675 per screen average.  Harry Potter and the Half Blood Price opened at 17,997 per screen.  Granted people had a lot more places to see both movies and both grossed more for the weekend, but Precious’ debut is unprecedented.

The only movies to open over $100,000 per screen were Dreamgirls and Brokeback Mountain.  Dreamgirls opened on 3 screens, and Brokeback Mountain opened on 5 (and I would guess probably in just NY and LA before they rolled out wider.)

Here’s what Greg Ellwood said on HitFix about the debut:

The more screens you make available, the lower your per screen usually is. In fact, the difference between 3 and 10 screens can be over a 50% drop. That what makes “Precious’” 18 screen debut so remarkable.

Lionsgate was smart to roll out in NY, LA, Chicago (Oprah’s home) and Atlanta (Tyler Perry’s home).  The buzz on these numbers will generate more buzz and the great reviews will make these one of the must sees of the year.

It opens wider this weekend in Philly, SF, Dallas and Houston and goes even wider on November 20.

The road to the gold statue has begun.

Box Office: “Precious” Stuns With $100K Weekend Average (IndieWire)

‘Precious’ makes box office history and sets its sights on ‘New Moon’ (Hit Fix)

I have not stopped thinking about Precious since I saw it almost a week ago.  This is a movie that unleashed many emotions many that have been hard to articulate properly.  Here are some of the things I’ve been pondering (more on the film’s content to come tomorrow.)

Could this film win the Best Picture Oscar?  Now, I’m no Oscar expert but this film has basically won every award at the film festivals it has been a part of since the premiere at Sundance last January.  It wins audience and critics awards.  It gets standing ovations.  (It was however shut out of the Gotham nominations)  It seems that lots of folks (at least those who go to film festivals) love the film. The film rolls out this weekend in Atlanta, Chicago, NY and LA and will then expand in the coming weeks.

The question is, can Precious become this year’s Slumdog Millionaire?  It’s the same type of hopeful movie that can make people feel good about themselves when things around them are still pretty shitty.  But keep in mind Slumdog was about kids from another country.  What they went through is something we can’t, and don’t imagine happening here.

But Precious is about US.  It is about this country.  It is about people here left behind.  Even though it is based on the novel by Sapphire and set in 1987 NYC, it still feels real and present.  That’s why it is breaking hearts everywhere.  You look at Precious and see Hurricane Katrina all over again.  You look at Precious and you see things you don’t necessarily want to see but need to see.

We might be a year into this Obama experiment but the reality of women’s lives – of women who could be like Precious have not changed.

This is not an easy movie to watch.  And that’s one of my big concerns.  It hammers at you and then it hammers again.  It may end hopeful, but it is a tough and brutal slog.  You need to come in with the right mind set and I am just wondering if the Oprah watching minions are going to take the leap to see this film.  Are they (we) ready to confront the racism and classism and abuse that happens here every day? I just don’t know.

This film needs women to see it to be successful.  I think it will even harder to get men in the door because of the Oprah endorsement.  Oprah = women.  This is not a slam dunk by any means.

Let’s also remember that the writer (Geoffrey Fletcher) and director (Lee Daniels) of this film are men.  That still so bothers me.  It wouldn’t bother me as much if the film’s roll out had not become the Lee Daniels show.  So much of the press has been about him (especially the NY Times Magazine piece called the Audacity of Precious which should have been called the “Audacity of Lee Daniels.”)  Granted, the film would not have gotten made without his vision and fortitude, so congrats to him.  But in lots of the press he comes of as this Svengali-like character who orchestrated these women into his perfect picture.  It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  I wonder what the whole roll out would be like with a female director.  He got the chance to direct because he secured the financing and got Sapphire to trust him.  That’s a big deal, especially for someone with only one awful film Shadowboxer under his belt.  The good news is that the press folks have realized that Gabourey Sidibe is a secret weapon for them and now she is doing some great press.

The thing about Precious that is important to note is the conversation that it has created and will hopefully create in all over the country in the coming weeks.  This is a movie about an obese, black, illiterate, abused, pregnant young woman who refuses to count herself out even though many people have already written her off.  The fact that this is getting a mainstream release and is also seriously in the Oscar hunt makes me hopeful for a business where so much of the talk is usually about how much money the latest crapfest made the previous weekend.  So while Precious’ story is a hopeful tale for all of us, the fact that Precious even exists is a hopeful tale for the movie business.

From everything I’ve heard she is beyond spectacular in her film debut Precious so much so that there is already Oscar talk.  I loved what she had to say to NY Magazine about her weight and her body.  I cannot wait to see this movie.

“I learned to love myself, because I sleep with myself every night and I wake up with myself every morning, and if I don’t like myself, there’s no reason to even live the life. I love the way I look. I’m fine with it. And if my body changes, I’ll be fine with that.”

Have you seen the trailer yet?

Living the Life (NY Magazine)

Why We Love Gabourey Sidibe (Lemondrop)

Sapphire

I met Michele Landsberg last March at WAM in Cambridge and we have been corresponding (mostly tweeting) since then.  She is a long time feminist activist and writer based in Toronto, and was kind enough to write a report from the Toronto Film Festival on some of the films and experiences not making the international headlines.

Sapphire was on stage in the middle of Yonge-Dundas Square in downtown Toronto on Saturday. The square is devoted this week to free films, readings and events tied to the Toronto International Film Festival, which takes over the whole centre city for 10 days every September. (Drew Barrymore and her cast did  a demo of roller-skating, for example, and The Topp twins, yodeling New Zealand lesbians, were scheduled to appear). Sapphire’s reading  from her tough novel, Push —  the film version, Precious, got its debut here as one of the gala presentations, ushered in by a beaming, emotional Oprah —provided me with a true Toronto mirthquake.  Picture the audience: Perched on a couple of hundreds folding chairs were weary shoppers just passing by, bewildered Asian tourists, suburbanites with sun-hats and backpacks determined to “do” the Festival and a smattering of passionately attentive black women.

Precious, as you know, is an abused  teenager in Harlem. Sapphire reads her dialogue as she confronts a hated teacher, rolling  out the Harlem-inflected epithets with crisp emphasis. “White bitch!  Cuntbucket!”

It’s fan heaven here, with more than 300 films and hundreds of stars strutting the red carpets, crowding the best restaurants and often stopping for streeter photographs and interviews in the middle of gaping crowds.

For the first time ever, about 20 per cent of the 300 movies are directed by women. Ticket triage was easy this year: I went through the hefty, telephone-book size program guide and checked off every film directed by a woman, then narrowed it down to select only those that might never get general North American distribution. The industry, distributors and deal-makers flock like seagulls feasting on an incoming tide, but to me it often seems as though they swoop in only on the trash fish.

Will any of them light on My Queen Karo, a beautifully lyrical feature directed by Belgian Dorothee van den Berghe?  The co-director of the Festival, Cameron Bailey, came to the screening to introduce the film personally, praising it for telling a story through a young girl’s point of view — a rarity, but not here this year, where at least three or four other features are about a girl’s coming of age. In My Queen Karo, the protagonist is a wonderfully unaffected, dark-eyed girl of 11, just beginning to develop, scrambling up as the daughter of radical parents in a squat in ‘70s Amsterdam. Their utopian collective life begins to break down as their leader, Karo’s father, insists on his right to have other lovers. My guess is that the scenes of  children and adults swimming naked together,  not to mention the adults performing group sex while their kids watch, will have this sensitive and thought-provoking movie shunned in North America.

Drawing attention at the festival is Google Baby, a determinedly non-judgmental Israeli documentary about the international baby-making trade. Director Zippi Brand Frank follows a gay couple in Israel who have a daughter created with the help of an ovum bought in the U.S. One of the couple, Doron, gets the idea of starting a business to provide cheaper babies to his yearning gay friends. The camera follows him matter-of-factly as he arranges baby deals on his cell phone, lugs tanks of frozen sperm in a carry-on suitcase to the U.S., and travels to Gujarat, India, where he finds a clinic run by a brilliant Indian woman doctor who provides a stable of surrogate mothers, ready to be implanted with imported frozen embryos. The Gujarat scenes are genuinely stunning, both revelatory and morally complex.

More in a day or two: I want to write about Blessed, a superb Australian film by Ana Kokkinos about mothers and children. And I have tickets to three more films by women, including Fish Tank, the much anticipated new film by Andrea Arnold of the U.K.

The Toronto Film Festival kicked off this week and there are some very special and excellent films about young women that are getting a lot of notice.  It seems that young women coming of age has emerged as one of the themes of the festival.  The great thing is that all the films look so cool and are getting great notices.

Here’s what Cameron Bailey the festival’s co-director said to IndieWire last week:

“There’s been some really great films about the coming of age of young women,” he said. “It began probably at Sundance with films like ‘An Education’ and ‘Precious’ – two very different approaches to that turf – and then at Cannes in films like ‘Fish Tank.’  With ‘Cracks’ and ‘Tanner Hall’ – two new films that Toronto has – we see [those themes] picked up again.  It’s sometimes with women directors, and sometimes with men, but in every case you’re seeing a kind of new approach to the coming-of-age story. The coming-of-age story of a young man is kind of a staple in the movies, but I think we’re seeing filmmakers pay more attention to how young women come of age and what they’re going through.”

As he says- the coming of age for young men is so common and finally we are starting to pay attention to young women. FINALLY.

Even more important is that the conversation about both Precious and An Education are just beginning as they both get ready to roll out.  I am also going to throw Bright Star in here as a woman’s coming of age story.  Even though it’s basically a love story the growth of Fanny in the relationship and what she has to endure and live with after the death of her beloved is one of those life changing moments.  All three films are potential Oscar bait so I for one am psyched for these films and themes to be a part of our cultural conversation.

The NYFF released the lineup for its 47th edition earlier this week.  Of the 29 films listed on its main slate only 4 (actually 3 and a half) are directed by women.  Unacceptable.  The list of women directed and women centric films is below.

The dates of the festival are September 25-October 11.

Women Directed (All summaries form the NYFF site)

Bluebeard / La Barbe Bleue
Catherine Breillat, France, 2009, 78m
Two sisters reading Charles Perrault’s 17th century tale of perhaps the first “serial killer” becomes a meditation on the enduring fascination with a character who has served as inspiration for countless novels, plays and films.

Everyone Else / Alle Anderen
Maren Ade, Germany, 2009, 119m
The ups and downs, joys and jealousies, frustrations and fulfillments of a young couple on a summer holiday provides the premise for this brilliant meditation on modern coupling.

Sweetgrass
Ilisa Barbash, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, USA, 2009, 105m
This breathtaking chronicle follows an ever-surprising group of modern-day cowboys as they lead an enormous herd of sheep up and then down the slopes of the Beartooth Mountains in Montana on their way to market.

White Material
Claire Denis, France, 2009, 100m
A handful of Europeans try to make sense of-and survive-the chaos happening all around them in an African country torn apart by civil war.

About Women

CENTERPIECE
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Lee Daniels, USA, 2009; 109m
Precious is sixteen and living a miserable life. But she uses all the emotional energy she possesses to turn her life around. Director Lee Daniel’s audacious tale features unforgettable performances by Mo’Nique, Mariah Carey and newcomer Gabourey Sidibe. A Lionsgate release.

Hadewijch
Bruno Dumont, France, 2009, 105m
A young woman searches for an absolute experience of faith-and in the process grows increasingly distant from the world around her.

Mother/ Maedo
Bong Joon-ho, South Korea, 2009, 128m
Convinced that her son has been wrongly accused of murder, a widow throws herself body and soul into proving his innocence. Kim Hye-ja in the title role gives perhaps the performance of the year.

New York Film Festival

Nzingha Stewart

Lionsgate Studios which has been in the very lucrative Tyler Perry business for several years now is clearly on track to take up more of the slack in producing and distributing entertainment for the underserved African American market.  They bought Push (now renamed Precious) out of Sundance with Perry and Oprah, and now has acquired the film rights for Ntozake Shange’s play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf.

The play was supposed to have been revived recently on Broadway with India.Arie but financing fell through.  The play initially opened off Broadway in 1974, then moved to Broadway and was nominated for a best play Tony in 1977.  A TV movie was made of the play in 1982.

Lionsgate “touted its ‘leadership role in producing and distributing a diverse roster of motion pictures about black characters.’” when announcing the film.

Interesting.

From what I can tell this is all about Tyler exerting some power.  For Colored Girls will be directed by music video director Nzingha Stewart who adapted the screenplay and who has an affiliation with Perry having directed The Marriage Counselor which is a part of the “Tyler Perry Collection.”

It’s pretty interesting that the last indie studio is being this formal, deliberate and public about it’s strategy.  Will it be a success and can it maybe influence someone to think about women this way?

Lionsgate acquires ‘Suicide’ (Variety)