ALL POSTS
New Research Shows a Six-Year Low for Women Directors, 98% of Films Feature More Male than Female Characters
When I started the site nearly seven(!) years ago, research on women onscreen and behind the scenes was sparse. The good news is that, today, studies on this subject arrive regularly from all types...
Elle Fanning to Play Mary Shelley in Haifaa Al-Mansour’s Biopic of Frankenstein Author
Elle Fanning continues to impress with her film choices. Her latest anounced project is Wadjda director Haifaa al-Mansour’s A Storm in the Stars, a biopic of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley. A...
Director Leigh Silverman on Mounting the Broadway Musical Violet and Working with Sutton Foster
Violet is one of those rare Broadway shows where less is more. The sparsely set stage is a perfect showcase for veteran Broadway actress Sutton Foster to soar in her Tony-nominated role. Foster...
Trailer Watch: Mercenaries Beats ExpendaBelles to the Big Screen
While we wait for The ExpendaBelles to arrive, mockbuster-factory The Asylum has churned out Mercenaries, a prison break-out-then-break-in action thriller starring Kristanna Loken, Zoe Bell, Vivica...
Biopic of Anna May Wong, First Chinese-American Star, in the Works
Anna May Wong, Hollywood’s first Chinese-American star, never got her due. After attracting notice as a slave in the 1924 Douglas Fairbanks swashbuckler film The Thief of Bagdad, she became a...
Quote of the Day: Sandra Adair on Hollywood’s Slippery Career Ladder for Women
Variety published a long-ish article yesterday on the difficulties many female crewmembers face in the film industry, from blatant chauvinism and dismissive assumptions to the long hours and lower...
Jessica Lange to Be Honored at Santa Barbara Film Festival
American Horror Story co-star Jessica Lange will become the first female recipient of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film. Lange boasts two...
The 4 Best Reasons to Make a Web Series
Let’s start with the number-one reason NOT to make a webseries: To get famous. In spite of the fact that it seems like everyone you meet has one, creating a web series as a way to get a TV deal is...
Trailer Watch: Peek Inside the Hallowed Halls of Lone Scherfig’s The Riot Club
“I am sick to death of poor people.” That about sums up the philosphy of The Riot Club, the ultra-exclusive society at already tony Oxford University, where the future leaders of the world learn...
Toronto Film Fest Announces More Films; Only 12% of Lineup So Far Directed by Women
Though the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival (September 4–14) may prove an effective launching pad for award-hungry actresses, the new lineups announced today affirm our earlier assessment...
Quotes of the Day: Zoe Saldana on Hollywood Sexism and Ageism
On the PR trail for Guardians of the Galaxy, Zoe Saldana, who plays the alien orphan Gamora in the Marvel movie, has been surprisingly open about the sexism and ageism she’s encountered in...
Showrunner Courtney Kemp Agboh’s Journey from Connecticut “Black Nerd” to 50 Cent Collaborator
The Starz drama Power, about a NYC drug kingpin and nightclub owner played by Omari Hardwick, will wrap up its inaugural eight-episode season this Saturday. Good news is that it has already been...
Guest Post: How I Quit the LA Actor Race and Became the Filmmaker I Always Wanted to Be
Ever since I saw Jaws, I knew I wanted to be a director. I wanted to take people on the same thrill ride I’d experienced watching that movie. I came to Los Angeles and got on set as quickly as I...
Guest Post: What I Learned as a First-Time Comic-Con Attendee
San Diego Comic-Con hosts a plethora of fans portraying theirfavorite superheroes, villains, TV and film characters, over 200,000 people were projected to attend on Saturday alone. Booths selling...
Trailer Watch: Katniss Joins the Rebellion in Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1 Teaser
At the end of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) found herself rescued from the fighting arena and transported to the previously unknown District 13 by her mentor Haymitch...
Lucy Continues the Trend of Successful Women at the Box Office
This weekend, Lucy, starring the newest female action star Scarlett Johansson, took the middling summer box office by storm. The film, directed by Luc Besson, took in a little over $44 million at...
Jodie Foster to Direct George Clooney in Thriller Called Money Monster
Jodie Foster will direct her fellow actor-turned-filmmaker, George Clooney, in a media- and money-themed thriller. In Money Monster, Clooney will play the host of a finance show taken hostage by a...
ESPN Debuts Shorts Series About Female Pro Athletes and Coaches
Premiering today is the Nine for IX documentary shorts series, a collection of five films about female athletes from women filmmakers. An extension of ESPN’s Emmy-nominated, feature-length Nine...
Women in Film and Video Seeks DC-Area Screenwriters
When you think of Washington, D.C.,congressional battles and presidential photo-ops are probably what come tomind. Lesser known is the community of diverse screenwriters in the...
Trailer Watch: First Look at Susanne Bier’s A Second Chance
Though her most recent film was the winsome rom com Love is All You Need, director Susanne Bier is best known for her grave, weighty dramas like Brothers, After the Wedding, and the Oscar-winning In...
Princess Leia and Orphan Black to Get Their Own Comic Books
The 47% of comic-book readers who are female have something new to celebrate: Princess Leia and Orphan Black are coming to newsstands. At San Diego Comic Con, Marvel announced that the first of...
Weekly Update for July 25: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening Very Good Girls — Written and Directed by Naomi Foner Very Good Girls, the first directing effort from veteran screenwriter Naomi Foner, is a nostalgic look at girls...
Trailer Watch: Jessica Chastain and Colin Farrell Battle for Sexual Dominance in Liv Ullmann’s Miss Julie
Jessica Chastain and Colin Farrell are perfectly cast as an uptight but secretly passionate noblewoman and an unrepentant horndog in Norwegian director Liv Ullmann’s Miss Julie. The adaptation of...
Soska Sisters to Direct Superheroine Movie
While the Wonder Woman and Black Widow movies remain just a hope in many a superheroine-adoring fan’s heart, the Soska sisters have decided to do it for themselves with an adaptation of Painkiller...
Guest Post: Bechdel Ain’t Just for the Ladies: Westerns, and Protagonists Who Are Not Like Me
A director friend of mine was making a Western when we met, but I hadto admit that Westerns had never much appealed to me. When I was a kid, theywere on TV every Saturday, and my genuine assumption...
Very Good Girls’ Naomi Foner on What She Learned as a First-Time Filmmaker and Why There Are So Few Women Directors
Very Good Girls, the first directing effort from veteran screenwriter Naomi Foner, is a nostalgic look at girls on the cusp of womanhood. While it is set in contemporary times, the girls, with...
Trailer Watch: New Spot for Chloe Grace Moretz’s Teen Melodrama If I Stay
Fans looking forward to the big-screen adaptation of Gayle Forman’s YA novel If I Stay have another trailer to enjoy. In the teenage melodrama, aspiring cellist Mia (Chloe Grace Moretz) lies in a...
Trailer Watch: Fifty Shades of Grey Doesn’t Bother with the Niceties
Disrupting Nicholas Sparks’ takeover of Valentine’s Day next year will be Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Fifty Shades of Grey, the adaptation of E.L. James’ S&M-y take on Bella and Edward’s...
17% of Venice Film Fest’s Main Lineup Directed by Women
The Venice Film Festival released the full lineup for its 71st iteration (August 27-September 6) today. Though the Lido beats out Toronto’s paltry 10% female lineup, its 17% female statistic...
New York’s Women’s Project Theater Hires New Producing Artistic Director
After a tumultuous shake-up last month, the Women’s Project Theater in Manhattan has found a new producing artistic director in Lisa McNulty. She will be leaving her position as the artistic line...
Amanda de Cadenet on Becoming the Newest Women in Late-Night TV and How Chelsea Handler Opened Doors for Her
British personality and renowned photographer Amanda de Cadenet dives into the late-night talk-show field tonight with her live, half-hour, news- and pop culture-themed Undone with @AmandadeCadenet,...
You’re the Worst: Misanthropes In Love
FX premiered two new sitcoms last week, Married and You’re the Worst. As I sort of expected, the latter is the interesting one. Perhaps Married will get better (as I have heard it does), but the...
Trailer Watch: Dear White People Tackles the Myth of Post-Racial America
I don’t know about you, but I can’t get enough of angry women in pop culture. Thus it’s refreshing to see rising star Tessa Thompson take center stage in writer-director Justin Simien’s...
Tina Fey’s Mean Girls Had The Most Women on a Crew in the Last 20 Years
We here at Women and Hollywood are always interested in new data that reveals where women stand in the film industry. Today, Stephen Follows, a producer and writer in the UK, released a new study...
Amma Asante Inspires Women Filmmakers at BAFTA Event: “I Want to Do a Studio Film to Show that as a Woman I Can”:
Belle director Amma Asanteoffered encouragement and advice to young women filmmakers at aBAFTA Film Question Time event in London on Monday. Asante was one of four panellists — threeof them...
Quote of the Day: Joe Swanberg on the Movies: “Men Are Out of Ideas”
With Drinking Buddies and Happy Christmas, director Joe Swanberg has made two critical darlings featuring well-rounded female protagonists in arrested development. Asked about the “female...
The Big O: Watch Out, Toronto — The Great Kate, Dame Maggie, and Some Stellar Female Directors Are Coming Your Way
Lastyear’s Toronto International Film Festival provided invaluable lift-off to atleast three female-driven movies that landed in the 2013 Oscar race: Gravity, Philomena,and August:...
Half of Sarajevo Film Fest Doc Contenders Directed by Women
Sometimes it’s necessary to travel far afield to find good news, as was the case this week when the Toronto Film Festival’s first-round lineup was revealed to be only 10% directed by women....
Chicken and Egg Launches New Fund for Women Documentarians from India
Chicken and Egg Pictures, the nonprofit film fund dedicated to incubating socially conscious documentaries from female filmmakers, has partnered up with the Indian Documentary Foundation to launch a...
Terry Press Takes Over As Sole Head of CBS Films
Terry Press became the latest (sole) female head of a studio after a shake-up at CBS FIlms led to the ousting of her co-president Wolfgang Hammer. Press and Hammer were both hired in April 2012....
Women in Animation Rolls Out Mentorship Program
Women in Animation has launched a pilot program in Los Angeles that’ll match neophytes in the field with industry professionals for one-on-one mentorships lasting six months. The nonprofit...
Only 10% of Toronto Lineup So Far Directed by Women
The Toronto International Film Festival (September 4–14) announced an initial lineup of 59 films today, and only a measly six of them are from women directors, including an anthology film. Danish...
First-Time Female Filmmakers Take Home Best Film and Best Screenplay Awards at Outfest
Director Sydney Freeland’s Drunktown’s Finest was named Outfest’s Best US Dramatic Feature Film at the festival’s awards ceremony this past Sunday. The reservation-set drama also won the...
Trailer Watch: It’s All About Carrie in Season Four
Homeland has been very good at changing the show’s stakes between seasons, but the Showtime series has practically had to reinvent itself for its fourth year when (SPOILER) it killed off Brody and...
Sandra Bullock to Play Tupperware Marketing Exec in Biopic
Sandra Bullock has been choosy with her post-Gravity projects, but the actress has finally selected a new starring vehicle: an untitled biopic of Tupperware marketing exec Brownie Wise. Wise was the...
Angelina Jolie to Direct, Co-Write, and Star in “Intimate” Film with Brad Pitt
Angelina Jolie is busy with post-production on Unbroken, her Oscar shoo-in opening Christmas Day, but the actress-turned-filmmaker has already lined up her next project. Jolie announced last week...
Half of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces Are Women
Women directors and screenwriters make up half of Filmmaker Magazine’s 2014 list of the New Faces of Independent Film. Spanning narrative helmers and documentarians, studio collaborators and...
Weekly Update for July 18: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening A Five Star Life — Directed by Maria Sole Tognazzi; Co-Written by Francesca Marciano and Maria Sole Tognazzi It’s a debate as old as time: does a woman need a...
Guest Post: Celebrating Woman Directors with a Look Back at Jane Campion’s The Piano
At last weekend’s Etheria Film Night,director Lexi Alexander received an award for inspiring women directors. In her acceptance speech,Alexander bemoaned the current statistics, but she also...
A Five-Star Life Director Maria Sole Tognazzi on Rejecting the Trope of the Selfish Career Woman
It’sa debate as old as time: does a woman need a family in order to live afulfilled life? In Italian director Maria Sole Tognazzi’s A Five Star Life (out today), Irene (Margherita Bey), a...
Jessica Chastain to Be Honored at Deauville Film Fest
Two months before the arrival of her next film, the marriage drama The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, news arrives that Jessica Chastain will be honored at the Deauville American Film Festival...