News, Women Directors

Only One Female Filmmaker Invited to Join the Academy as a Director; Only 28% of Invitees Are Women

Only 75 74 of the 271 invitees announced yesterday to join the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences were women.

That constitutes a paltry 27% of invitees.

It’s not just the numbers that paint a clear picture of Hollywood’s institutional sexism. Gina Prince-Bythewood was the only female filmmaker to be sought for the directors’ category. Jennifer Lee, whose Frozen became the fifth highest-grossing film ever earlier this year, was invited as well, but only for the animation category. Iconic directors Claire Denis and Chantal Akerman were only considered for the writers’ category, while male foreign directors like Thomas Vinterberg and Hany-Abu Assad were invited to join the directors’ group proper.

For those counting at home, these new invitations bring the Academy directing numbers to a total of 388, with only 37 — or less than 10% — of those being women.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Sally Hawkins, and Lupita Nyong’o were some of the higher-profile actresses who received recognition from the Academy, but even the actors’ numbers are hideously lopsided (14 men to 6 women) — an undeniable illustration of the devaluation of women’s stories on the big screen and the consequent relative lack of opportunities afforded female thespians.

After becoming only the fourth person in Oscar history to receive two Best Picture nods in the same year, producer Megan Ellison finally received her invite as well.

The Academy invites new members every year; total membership stays around the 6000 mark. Under CEO Dawn Hudson and President Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the organization seems to be making some efforts to diversify.

Below are the female Academy invitees in each category:

Actors (6 women out of 20 invitees)
Beth Grant — “The Artist,” “No Country for Old Men”
Sally Hawkins — “Blue Jasmine,” “Happy-Go-Lucky”
Julia Louis-Dreyfus — “Enough Said,” “Planes”
Kelly Macdonald — “Brave,” “No Country for Old Men”
Lupita Nyong’o — “Non-Stop,” “12 Years a Slave”
June Squibb — “Nebraska,” “About Schmidt”

Casting Directors (15 women out of 22 invitees)
Simone Bar — “The Monuments Men,” “The Book Thief”
Nikki Barrett — “The Railway Man,” “The Great Gatsby”
Risa Bramon Garcia — “Speed,” “Wall Street”
Michelle Guish — “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” “Nanny McPhee”
Ros Hubbard — “Romeo & Juliet,” “The Mummy”
Allison Jones — “The Way, Way Back,” “The Heat”
Christine King — “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” “Star
Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith”
Beatrice Kruger — “To Rome with Love,” “The American”
Marci Liroff — “Mean Girls,” “Pretty in Pink”
Debbie McWilliams — “Skyfall,” “Quantum of Solace”
Robi Reed — “For Colored Girls,” “Do the Right Thing”
Gail Stevens — “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Slumdog Millionaire”
Lucinda Syson — “Gravity,” “Fast and & Furious 6”
Fiona Weir — “J. Edgar,” “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2”
Ronnie Yeskel — “The Sessions,” “Atlas Shrugged Part 1”

Cinematographers (0 women out of 5 invitees)

Costume Designers (4 women out of 7 invitees)
Pascaline Chavanne — “Renoir,” “Augustine”
Daniela Ciancio — “The Great Beauty,” “Il Divo”
Beatrix Aruna Pasztor — “Great Expectations,” “Good Will Hunting”
Karyn Wagner — “Lovelace,” “The Green Mile”

Designers (6 women out of 14 invitees)
Susan Benjamin — “Saving Mr. Banks,” “The Blind Side”
Marcia Hinds — “I Spy,” “The Public Eye”
Sonja Brisbane Klaus — “Prometheus,” “Robin Hood”
Diane Lederman — “Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” “Tower Heist”
Heather Loeffler — “American Hustle,” “Silver Linings Playbook”
Christa Munro — “Jack Reacher,” “Erin Brockovich”

Directors (1 women out of 11 invitees)
Gina Prince-Bythewood — “The Secret Life of Bees,” “Love and Basketball”

Documentary (6 women out of 18 invitees)
Dayna Goldfine — “The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden,” “Ballets Russes”
Julie Goldman — “God Loves Uganda,” “Gideon’s Army”
Lucy Massie Phenix — “Regret to Inform,” “Word Is Out”
Enat Sidi — “Detropia,” “Jesus Camp”
Molly Thompson — “The Unknown Known,” “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer”
Cynthia Wade — “Mondays at Racine,” “Freeheld”

Executives (3 women out of 18 invitees)
Nancy Carson
Michelle Raimo Kouyate
Kim Roth

Film Editors (5 women out of 12 invitees)
Sabrina Plisco — “The Smurfs 2,” “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow”
Tatiana S. Riegel — “Million Dollar Arm,” “The Way, Way Back”
Julie Rogers — “Wreck-It Ralph,” “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl”
Joan Sobel — “Admission,” “A Single Man”
Tracey Wadmore-Smith — “About Last Night,” “Death at a Funeral”

Makeup Artists and Hairstylists (5 women out of 5 invitees)
Vivian Baker — “Oz The Great and Powerful,” “Conviction”
Adruitha Lee — “Dallas Buyers Club,” “12 Years a Slave”
Robin Mathews — “Dallas Buyers Club,” “The Runaways”
Anne Morgan — “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone,” “A Little Bit of Heaven”
Gloria Pasqua-Casny — “The Lone Ranger,” “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”

Members-at-Large (1 women out of 9 invitees)
Jody Levin

Music (2 women out of 10 invitees)
Kristen Anderson-Lopez — “Frozen,” “Winnie the Pooh”
Angie Rubin — “Pitch Perfect,” “Sex and the City”

Producers (4 women out of 13 invitees)
Megan Ellison — “American Hustle,” “Her”
Nicola Giuliano — “The Great Beauty,” “This Must Be the Place”
Lynette M. Howell — “The Place beyond the Pines,” “Blue Valentine”
Tracey Seaward — “Philomena,” “The Queen”

Public Relations (5 women out of 9 invitees)
Nancy Bannister
Christine Batista
Karen Hermelin
Marisa McGrath Liston
Bettina R. Sherick

Short Films and Feature Animation (4 women out of 26 invitees)
Jennifer Lee — “Frozen,” “Wreck-It Ralph”
Lauren MacMullan — “Get a Horse!,” “Wreck-It Ralph”
Dorothy McKim — “Get a Horse!,” “Meet the Robinsons”
Selma Vilhunen — “Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitta? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?),” “The Crossroads”

Sound (1 women out of 21 invitees)
Ai-Ling Lee — “Godzilla,” “300: Rise of an Empire”

Visual Effects (0 women out of 19 invitees)

Writers (4 women out of 19 invitees)
Chantal Akerman — “A Couch in New York,” “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles”
Claire Denis — “White Material,” “Beau Travail”
Diane Kurys — “For a Woman,” “Entre Nous”
Melisa Wallack — “Dallas Buyers Club,” “Mirror Mirror”

Associates (3 women out of 10 invitees)
Melanie Ramsayer
Beth Swofford
Meredith Wechter

[via THR]


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