BY Women and Hollywood
Trailer Watch: Wuthering Heights Directed by Andrea Arnold
Films got picked up by Oscilloscope for a 2012 release.
Where Do We Go Now? Wins Audience Award at Toronto Festival
Where Do We Go Now? written and directed by Nadine Labaki was the first film I saw in Toronto. As I wrote last week, it’s a strong symbol of women sick and tired of the men fighting over nothing...
Emmy Winners
Thought that Jane Lynch did great. She’s so funny. Other exciting moments: When Melissa McCarthy won best actress in a comedy — the woman has had a great year and it is so spectacular to...
Interview with Tatiana von Fürstenberg and Francesca Gregorini Directors of Tanner Hall
Women and Hollywood: How is your coming of age story different from others we have previously seen? Francesca Gregorini: We tried to make an artful, poetic film about teens. One that values...
New Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Poster?
I saw this on the site Female First. Could this be the new poster?
TIFF: The Lady — The Story of Aung San Suu Kyi
(Update: The Lady is opening today for one week in LA for an Oscar qualifying run. It will open early next year here in the US. I also have been told that about 30 minutes has been shaved...
TIFF: Interview with Malgoska Szumowska — Director of Elles
Elles tells the story of a journalist — Juliette Binoche — who interviews two young female students about their lives as prostitutes. This is bound to be a controversial film because for...
Trailer Watch: Breaking Dawn — Part 1
Some Deals for Women Directors at Toronto
Here are some of the deals that women directors scored here in Toronto: Wuthering Heights directed by Andrea Arnold will be released by Oscilloscope in North America in 2012. Lynn Shelton writing...
DGA Stats on Directing TV Show A White Male Dominated World
The DGA released a report this week on who directs TV shows and the news is abominably bad for women and people of color. Of the 2,600 episodes analyzed of scripted series for the 2010–2011 season...
Sisters in Crisis: Your Sister’s Sister and Union Square
My time in Toronto was spent trying to seek out as many women directed films as I could. Two of my favorites from the past week are films about sisters. First up was Lynn Shelton’s Your Sister’s...
Laugh Out Loud Bridesmaids Blooper Reel
I loved seeing Jill Clayburgh h/t Jezebel
Interview with Nadine Labaki — Director of Where Do We Go Now?
Women and Hollywood: Congratulations. I read your film is going to represent Lebanon in the Oscars. How does that feel? Nadine Labaki: It feels great. I don’t know what will happen afterwards, but...
Guest Post: From Hollywood to Bon Temps, and Nary a Feminist In Sight…by Emilie Spiegel
Sunday night’s HBO lineup included both the series finale of Entourage and the season 4 finale of True Blood — two vastly different shows, herein considered together not only because they...
Poster Premiere: Oka! — Directed by Lavinia Currier
Here is the poster for the new film Oka! directed by Lavinia Currier. The film opens in LA on October 14. Here’s the description of the film from the press materials: OKA! tells the story of an...
Toronto Day 5 — It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint
It’s Day 5 and I just feel like I’ve gotten my groove on. I think I’ve seen 10 movies and I have one more today. Power watching films is a skill, and I haven’t yet developed those chops....
Toronto Film Fest Day Four: Seen and Heard
I think they should change the name of this festival to the Toronto Carb Fest because that it all there is to eat here. Remembering 9–11Flowers in front of the US Consulate Here’s a quote from a...
Guest Post: Why I Write and the Top 10 Things Men Have Said in Pitch Meetings By Dani Faith Leonard
I write because I am a woman, and I am a woman because I write. Obviously, I write because I feel like I have stories that I must tell, but when I write, I discover my opinions about things. I form...
TIFF: Wuthering Heights Directed by Andrea Arnold and In Darkness Directed by Agnieszka Holland
There is no denying that Andrea Arnold is one of the most interesting and provocative directors working today. If you haven’t seen her first two films Red Road and Fish Tank you have missed two...
TIFF- Albert Nobbs
It was so great to see Glenn Close back on the big screen in Albert Nobbs. It’s been too long. She, like many other actresses of her generation, have found TV to be the place where she can play...
Toronto Day 3- We Need to Talk About Kevin and Think of Me
I woke up thinking about Tilda Swinton’s blank face from We Need to Talk About Kevin. It is amazing how much expressiveness there can be in a blank stare. The movie directed bravely by Lynne Ramsey...
Images from Day 2
I’m going to try and take some pictures to help supplement my writings. Picture 1 The lines of folks waiting to get in at the Lightbox Picture 2 Nadine Labaki — writer and director of Where...
Toronto Film Festival — Day 2
The thing that I’ve gotten from this festival so far is that this is a festival really about buying and selling. The cool thing for me is to look at all the great European films for sale and try...
Trailer Watch: Connected — Directed by Tiffany Shlain
Film opens September 16
Toronto Film Festival — Day 1
It didn’t look like I was going to make it this morning because the day started with a monsoon and my flight out of NY was cancelled which of course I wasn’t notified about until I was at the...
A Film That Is Making a Difference — The Whistleblower
A couple of months ago I participated in a Q&A with Amy Kaufman one of the producers of The Whistleblower. I asked her if the people at the UN had seen the film and her reply was that she...
Heading to the Toronto Film Fest.
I’m on my way to the Toronto Film Festival. I will be filing posts from there over the next week. Following my tweets @melsil to keep up with all the fun at the festival.
Winners of the 2011 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award
This is the 17th year that the Rona Jaffe Foundation has given awards to women writers at the early stage of their career. “This unique program offers grants to writers of fiction, creative...
Trailer Watch: Janie Jones
Film opens October 28 in select cities, as well nationally on cable VOD, iTunes, Amazon Watch Instantly and Vudu.
Four Years and Counting
This week is the 4th birthday of Women and Hollywood. It’s been an amazingly great year for me and for the blog. But none of my success would be possible without all the people who take the time to...
The Testosterone Driven Oscars
When I first read the Brett Ratner was going to produce the Oscars I let out a big sigh. Brett is not known for his gender sensitivity. He’s best known for the Rush Hour movies and I remember him...
Jennifer Yuh Nelson Becomes The Top Grossing Female Director
Jennifer Yuh Nelson, the director of Kung Fu Panda 2 has become the highest grossing female director. These are worldwide numbers and they are big. The tally now is at $645 million. She wins the...
Sarah Jessica Parker Talks to Katie Couric on Nightline
Katie Couric made her ABC debut last night with an interview with Sarah Jessica Parker about her upcoming film, I Don’t Know How She Does It which will open on September...
Sexism Watch: NY Times Piece on Toronto Docs Includes No Women Directed Films
It’s so fascinating how a genre supposedly equally divided between males and females can be made to seem so completely dominated by men. For those people who don’t know much about documentaries...
Women Win at the Box Office This Summer
While the big budget films dominated the cash at the box office, two movies with measly budgets in comparison that nobody expected to do well, soared beyond expectations. Bridesmaids started the...
While I Was Away — Some Cool Story Links
Here are some stories that I found interesting over the last week: In Movies by Iranians, a Feminist Streak (The Atlantic) Telluride: Glenn Close Talks Gender Bender Albert Nobbs (Thompson on...
Trailer Watch: Margaret
This long on the shelf film will finally see the light of day on September 30
Gender Watch: Vanity Fair’s New Establishment List
Another list is published and the there are not too many women on the list. The highest woman on Vanity Fair’s 17th annual New Establishment list is Lady Gaga at 9. Here’s what qualifies to get...
Taking a Break
Will be back after Labor Day.
Interview with Circumstance Writer and Director Maryam Keshavarz
Here’s a piece I wrote for this summer’s Human Right Campaign Magazine Equality on the film. You can tell from the piece how impressive a film it is. It is a change making film because it tells...
Vera Farmiga Steps Up to Direct with Higher Ground
It’s tricky business when you make a movie about religion. Religion elicits such passion that it’s hard to get the nuance without sounding preachy or judgmental. But that is exactly what Vera...
Zoe Saldana Kicks Ass in Colombiana
Here’s the thing about Columbiana the new film that stars Zoe Saldana that opens tomorrow, the only thing that makes it different from any other action film is that the killer is a woman. That’s...
The World’s Most Powerful Women According to Forbes
Forbes loves its lists. Its most recent list is the world’s most powerful women and it is of course dominated by female politicians with Angela Merkel topping the list. But there are many Hollywood...
Women Lose Ground as TV Writers
TV is supposed to be better than the movies for women creatives. It is supposed to be the place where women are taken seriously because we watch TV and we buy the things that are advertised on TV. TV...
The Women of The Debt
Love this photo. The Debt tells the story behind the search for one of the Holocaust’s deadliest butchers and the secrets behind that search. Helen Mirren plays a Mossad agent and Jessica Chastain...
Trailer Watch: The Lady
Yahoo! Video Player
Love and Risk in Iran: Circumstance Written and Directed by Maryam Keshavarz
Here is a piece I wrote on Circumstance written and directed by Maryam Keshavarz for the Human Right Campaign’s Equality Magazine, for their Summer 2011 Issue. Making an independent film is always...
Guest Post: I Sold My House To Make My Feature by Sloane U’Ren
I sold my home to make my feature film debut Dimensions: A Line, A Loop, A Tangle of Threads. It’s a sci-fi love story that takes place in England in the 1920s and 1930s…a period-science...
Poster Watch: The Lady
Here are the teaser posters designed by Shepard Fairey for The Lady starring Michelle Yeoh about the life of Aung San Suu Kyi. Film will premiere at The Toronto Film Festival. I hope to see...
Geena Davis in Conversation with Pat Mitchell
Check out this conversation of two female media icons from the Paley Center for Media. https://medium.com/media/4d27489cc07caf17804240a953eb5868/href
Guest Post: My Life as a Female TV Writer in the Sixties and Seventies by Rita Lakin
In the early 1960’s, even though I had an MA in English Lit, I was happy to get a job as a secretary at Universal studios. I had access to all scripts being shot on the lot. Using them, I taught...