BY Women and Hollywood
Guest Post: Lizzie Borden on Harvey Weinstein and The Need to Stand Together
Guest Post by Lizzie Borden I have been silent because I felt my story was of no great significance compared to the women who were raped and assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. But I feel compelled to...
2017’s Best TV Created By and About Women
“Big Little Lies”: HBO A group of tight-knit mothers with some very dark secrets. Two 20-something women of color trying to excel in their professional and personal lives. A rag-tag team of...
2017’s Best Documentaries By and About Women
“Step” A workers’ rights activist, a movie star-turned-inventor, and a retiring prima ballerina are just a few of the characters at the center of our favorite documentaries by and about women...
2017’s Best Films By and About Women
“Girls Trip”: Michele K. Short/Universal Pictures The big screen had a lot to offer in 2017: Amazonian warriors kicking ass (and breaking box office records), tennis stars smashing misogyny, a...
Golden Globe Nominations Are In, and Once Again Women Directors Are Shut Out
“Lady Bird” is officially the best-reviewed film ever on Rotten Tomatoes. The coming-of-age dramedy has been scoring award after award, giving many hope that writer-director Greta Gerwig would...
#MeToo Is Time’s Person of the Year but the Reckoning Still Has a Long Way to Go
Time’s Person of the Year 2017 is not a person at all, but a movement: The women and men of #MeToo, who Time has dubbed “The Silence Breakers.” The activists who came forward with their...
Guest Post: Why Diversity Programs Fail in Hollywood — And How to Fix Them
Guest Post by Kylee Peña In the entertainment industry, there are a lot of diversity programs. Initiatives serving diverse writers, diverse directors, diverse engineers, and diverse...
Guest Post: Why We Still Need Niche Film Festivals
Guest Post by Savine Wong I was very lucky, and I knew it. As a woman working in the financial sector in Hong Kong, my strong command of the English language set me apart from the other women in my...
Guest Post: How Film Schools Lead to Pipelines Full of Weinsteins
Guest Post by Mary Celeste Kearney Want to know how to eliminate sexual harassment in the Hollywood industry? Stop it in film schools. Yes, I realize that not all media professionals attend film...
Women and Hollywood Announces London Trailblazer Awardees & First-Time Female Filmmaker Contest…
Women and Hollywood Announces London Trailblazer Awardees & First-Time Female Filmmaker Contest Winners Women and Hollywood is honored to share the recipients of the Trailblazer Awards, which...
Apply Now: Women and Hollywood Internship
Women and Hollywood is looking for two interns for the first half of 2018. The positions will begin on January 2, 2018 and end on June 30, 2018. Applicants must be willing to commit to six months...
Guest Post: How to Stay Open to Collaboration When Your Film is Deeply Personal
Guest Post by Victoria Negri My debut feature film “Gold Star” is loosely inspired by my experiences as one of my father’s caregivers in the last year of his life following an intense stroke....
Help Amy Ziering & Kirby Dick Document Hollywood’s Sexual Abuse Problem
A couple weeks ago “The Hunting Ground” and “The Invisible War” filmmakers Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick announced their next project: a documentary tackling Hollywood’s rampant sexual...
Watch: Women and Hollywood Celebrates 10th Anniversary with Highlights of Women in Film and TV
Women and Hollywood is celebrating our 10th anniversary this year. To mark the occasion, we held parties in New York City and Los Angeles in October. The events included a contest for first-time...
Guest Post: How a Joan Didion Doc Became a Kickstarter Success and Landed at Netflix
Guest Post by Elise McCave This past week “Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold” arrived on Netflix. It’s been quite a road to launching the doc on the streaming service, including a New...
Round-Up: The Latest Writing on Hollywood Rape Culture
The press is finally addressing Hollywood’s sexual assault problem, a subject that’s been swept under the rug for far too long. Admittedly, there have been journalists and outlets dedicated to...
Some Recommended Reading About Hollywood’s Sexual Harassment Problem
In the three weeks since The New York Times published an exposé about Harvey Weinstein’s history of sexual harassment and assault, the floodgates seem to have opened. The #MeToo movement has...
Meet the NYC and LA First-Time Female Filmmaker Contest Winners
Women and Hollywood has selected the New York and Los Angeles winners and runners up of its First-Time Female Filmmaker Contest, an initiative to help build a pipeline of women directors. The NYC...
Women and Hollywood Would Like to Thank Its 10th Anniversary Sponsors
Women and Hollywood’s 10th anniversary is finally here! Tomorrow night we’ll be celebrating at a sold-out event in New York City. We’ll also be gathering for events in Los Angeles on October...
Some Essential Reading About Harvey Weinstein and The Women Who Brought Him Down
One week ago The New York Times published an explosive story about Hollywood titan Harvey Weinstein. Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s story detailed how the producer had “paid off sexual...
Reina Gossett Says “Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson” Director Stole Her Work
The director of the new Netflix doc “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson,” David France, has come under fire for allegedly stealing ideas and research from Reina Gossett. Gossett, a...
Women and Hollywood Announces 10th Anniversary Trailblazer Award Winners
Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot on the set “Wonder Woman”: Warner Bros. Entertainment and THR Women and Hollywood is honored to share the recipients of the Trailblazer Awards, which will be given...
Guest Post: What It’s Like to Be a Fiercely Independent Woman Film Fest Director in the Trenches
Guest Post by Meira Blaustein When I co-founded the Woodstock Film Festival 18 years ago I had no sense of how hard the work would be, and how immense the positive influence on so many people, near...
Horrible Misogyny in the Film World Is Surfacing, But Are We Really Surprised?
This week has been quite the shitshow in the film community. A lot of ugliness came to the surface via the Alamo Drafthouse and Cinefamily debacles, but how many women in the industry can really say...
Guest Post: Directing “Red Trees” and Discovering My Own Identity
Guest Post by Marina Willer The title of my film, “Red Trees,” refers to the moment when my father discovered that he was color blind as a child, drawing trees with red leaves. It makes...
17 Films By and About Women to Check Out at TIFF 2017
“Unicorn Store” The 42nd edition of the Toronto International Film Festival will kick off in just two days, and as always, there is an overwhelming amount of amazing-sounding films screening at...
Guest Post: Why the Lack of Women-Made Films in the National Film Registry Is a Problem — and How…
Guest Post: Why the Lack of Women-Made Films in the National Film Registry Is a Problem — and How We Can Fix It Guest Post by Maya Pearson New strides towards equality are being made every...
Guest Post: Plenty of Qualified Women Directors Are Ready to Fill the Ranks
Guest Post by Rachel Feldman If asked to imagine a film or TV director, most people conjure the image of a man. Sadly, this is true for those who work in the film and television industry as well....
Book Excerpt: “Nancy Meyers”
The following is excerpted from Deborah Jermyn’s “Nancy Meyers,” which will be released July 27. May 2014. A BBC journalist was on the phone. It was shortly to be the twentieth anniversary of...
Guest Post: Why I Made “Birthright: A War Story,” The Real-Life “Handmaid’s Tale”
Guest Post by Civia Tamarkin As a veteran journalist and documentary filmmaker, much of my focus has been criminal and social justice issues. My investigations led to the releases of a young man...
Ingrid Jungermann on How “Serial” Influenced “Women Who Kill”
Ingrid Jungermann created the WGA-nominated web series “F To 7th,” featuring Amy Sedaris, Michael Showalter, and Gaby Hoffmann, and co-created “The Slope.” She received her MFA at NYU...
Book Excerpt: “Off the Cliff: How the Making of Thelma & Louise Drove Hollywood to the Edge”
The following is excerpted from Becky Aikman’s “Off the Cliff: How the Making of Thelma & Louise Drove Hollywood to the Edge,” which is available now. Less than two years earlier, Callie...
Cross-Post: A Collective Call Against Critical Bias
Paula Vogel’s “Indecent”: NewYorkTheater/YouTube This piece, “A Collective Call Against Critical Bias,” was originally published on HowlRound, a knowledge commons by and for the theatre...
Guest Post: How — and Why — I Made a Movie That Tackles Mental Health
Guest Post by Angela Cohen Why do we go to the movies? Maybe it’s to escape, to relate, live vicariously, feel less alone, or get inspired. Why do I make movies? I want people to love, laugh,...
Guest Post: Why I Produced a Documentary About Getting Girls into Classrooms Around the World
Guest Post by Martha Adams How can the 130 million girls missing from classrooms around the world get the education they deserve? That’s all I wanted to ask the three Imams sitting across from me...
Cross-Post: Lillian Hellman’s Regina Giddens: The Theatre’s Original “Nasty Woman”
By Sarah Rebell The following has been reposted from The Interval with the author’s permission. When I set out to write a piece on “The Little Foxes,” I headed right to the Drama Book Shop in...
Exclusive: Sony Pictures Classics Co-President Tom Bernard Talks Supporting Women Directors
Michael Barker and Tom Bernard of Sony Pictures Classics were honored with the The Women In Film Beacon Award at last night’s Women in Film LA’s Crystal + Lucy Awards. Below is Bernard’s...
Lynn Nottage’s “Sweat” and Paula Vogel’s “Indecent” to Close on Broadway
In just a few short weeks, Lynn Nottage’s “Sweat” and Paula Vogel’s “Indecent” will close on Broadway. This is sad news for theater fans — and especially ones invested in women’s...
“Megan Leavey” Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite Talks Dogs, War, and Feminism
“Megan Leavey” is both a story of war and a story of love. Based on a true story, the movie centers on Megan (Kate Mara), a woman at the end of her rope. She joins the Marines and winds up in a...
Guest Post: I Used an All-Female Crew to Shoot My Movie and Was Called Sexist
Guest Post by Rainy Kerwin Being on set of “The Wedding Invitation” with my all-female crew was the greatest experience of my life. Nope, we didn’t get into catfights. Nope, no one was...
Cross-Post: Parents in the Palais: An Open Letter to the Cannes Film Festival
The following has been reposted from agnès films with the authors’ permission. In response to reports of mistreatment from mothers and parents at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, agnès films’...
“Wonder Woman” Takes Flight at the Box Office
“Wonder Woman” and her Lasso of Truth are lighting up the box office. The New York Times writes that the superhero movie and its director, Patty Jenkins, “just broke Hollywood’s superhero...
“Letters from Baghdad” Directors on Spy, Explorer, and Political Powerhouse Gertrude Bell
Interview by Kate Gardner Sabine Krayenbühl is an award-winning editor with over 20 theatrical documentaries and narrative features to her credit. Her work includes Oscar and Independent Spirit...
Guest Post: How Writing “The Women’s Balcony” Made Me Rethink My Relationship with Judaism
Guest Post by Shlomit Nehama My debut screenplay centers on the aftermath of an accident at a synagogue. The women’s balcony collapses, leaving the synagogue in shambles. When repairs are made...
Quote of the Day: Patty Jenkins on the Pressure and Responsibility of Directing “Wonder Woman”
“I can’t take on the history of 50 percent of the population just because I’m a woman,” Patty Jenkins told The Hollywood Reporter in an in-depth interview published earlier today. The...
Karlovy Vary Competition Lineups Announced, Program Is 26% Women-Directed
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has announced its 2017 competition lineups. Of 35 films screening in competition programs, nine are directed or co-directed by women, amounting to 26...
Women and Hollywood is Looking for Interns for the Second Half of 2017
Women and Hollywood is looking for two interns for the second half of 2017. The positions will begin on July 1, 2017 and end on December 23, 2017. Applicants must be willing to commit to six months...
Guest Post: What It’s Like to Attend a Film Fest with a Newborn
Jennica Schwartzman with her daughter Winslow at the Bentonville Film Festival Guest Post by Jennica Schwartzman “And the Best Narrative award goes to: Jamaica Schwartzman…” My name is Jennica...
Guest Post: Cannes Can’t Seem to Figure Out How to Accommodate Working Moms
Guest Post by Nanna Frank Rasmussen Working mothers are not very welcome at the Cannes Film Festival, it seems. This year at least two mothers attending the fest have spoken out about the major...
Guest Post: Why My New Film “AWOL” Is More Than a Love Story
Guest Post by Deb Shoval “AWOL” was a long time coming, the kind of fabled first feature film journey that humbles, challenges, and educates — the kind of experience one hopes to...
Guest Post: How a Short I Wrote Ended Up Being Directed by Robin Wright and Premiering at Cannes
Guest Post by Denise Meyers I am the antithesis of what a successful screenwriter looks like: I am 57, female, and live in the fly-over zone. I am also a great one for beating the odds, because on...