BY Women and Hollywood
Weekly Update for February 26: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (select IMAX theaters and streaming on Netflix) In this sequel to “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” four...
UCLA’s Hollywood Diversity Report Demonstrates the Benefits of Inclusive Casting
#OscarsSoWhite is an ugly symptom of an ugly problem that goes deeper than one particular awards show. The third annual Hollywood Diversity Report from the UCLA Bunche Center details just how...
New LA Times Study: Academy Membership Still 91% White, 76% Male
Nine-tenths white, three-quarters male: That’s the current Academy membership, according to a new study by the LA Times. Back in 2012, the Times found that the Academy was 94% white and 77% male,...
Kesha: Some of the Best Reading Picks About Her Case and Its Huge Significance
Kesha’s contractual dispute with Sony has been dominating headlines and sparking much-needed discussions about rape culture, corporate greed and institutional sexism. The bestselling...
In Appreciation of Inkoo Kang
Today is Inkoo Kang’s last day at Women and Hollywood. Our current Managing Editor is moving on to an amazing new gig as Lead Television Critic for MTV News. We’re thrilled about Inkoo’s...
Watch: ‘Eclipsed’ Playwright Danai Gurira Argues for the Need for Female Characters of Color
Judy Greer to Headline Fox Workplace Comedy From Laura Steinel
Just four months after the cancellation of her last show, FX’s “Married,” Greer has found a new starring project. In the unnamed workplace comedy, the talented character actress will play...
Shakespeare’s Sister Initiative Commissions Women-Directed Shorts
Shakespeare’s Sister, an initiative from Film London and the British Council, has commissioned two short films by female filmmakers to honor the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s passing. Lucy...
What You See Isn’t What You Get: February 2016’s VOD and Web Series Picks
February’s picks for VOD features and web series showcase new sides of seemingly familiar protagonists. In “The Skinny,” actress Jessie Kahnweiler plays a fictionalized version of herself to...
The 15 Best Quotes About Working in Hollywood as a Non-Straight White Male
Mindy Kaling, America Ferrera, Eva Longoria, directors Kimberly Peirce and Karyn Kusama and many, many others contributed to a fantastic NY Times feature published yesterday called “What It’s...
Jessica Chastain, Queen Latifah and More Launch Non-Profit Production Company to Tackle Gender Gap
A number of influential Hollywood players — including Jessica Chastain, Queen Latifah and Catherine Hardwicke — have teamed up to form We Do It Together (WDIT), a non-profit production...
20 of Hollywood’s Biggest Male Stars Have Never Worked With a Female Director
Of the top 100 grossing leading men in Hollywood, 20 haven’t worked on a single film with a woman director, Cosmopolitan has revealed. The magazine compiled a list of the big screen’s A-list...
Guest Post: Autism Stories Are Women’s Stories, Too
After decades of struggle, there’s finally emerging awarenessof the value of women sharing our experiences, insights and wisdom throughfilmmaking. But like many others, I know better than to wait...
‘Girls’ is Back, and Trolling the Trolls
HBO’s “Girls” returned for its fifth and penultimate season on Sunday, and there is a telling moment between Jessa (Jemima Kirke) and Hannah (creator Lena Dunham) in one of the early, upcoming...
Trailer Watch: Greta Gerwig Falls Out of Love in Rebecca Miller’s ‘Maggie’s Plan’
A trailer has been released for writer-director Rebecca Miller’s “Maggie’s Plan.” Greta Gerwig’s name is now pretty much synonymous with oddball comedies, but she continuously offers fresh...
The Roles That Win Actresses Oscars (Hint: Wedding Rings Are A Good-Luck Charm)
What kinds of roles do women win Oscars for? To answer that question, Fusion studied the history of the Academy Awards to learn more about the types of performances that Academy members favor....
Demi Moore to Star in Child-Kidnapping TV Drama ’10 Days in the Valley’ From Creator Tassie Cameron
Demi Moore is the latest film actress to find a meaty leading part on TV. In her first major small-screen role in two decades, Moore will star in the child-abduction drama “10 Days in the...
Trailer Watch: Rebecca Ferguson’s Spy Mission is Compromised By Love in ‘Despite the Falling Snow’
Rebecca Ferguson stole the show in “Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation,” and now the Swedish actress is headlining her own spy story. Ferguson takes the lead in Shamim Sarif’s “Despite...
Justina Machado to Star in Netflix’s Latino ‘One Day at a Time’ Reboot
“Six Feet Under” and “Private Practice” actress Justina Machado will play Penelope, the divorced mother of two at the center of Netflix’s Cuban-American reboot of “One Day at a Time.”...
Watch: “Hello, Academy,” Women and Hollywood’s Annual Oscar Video
Welcome to Oscar Week. In anticipation of the big night on Sunday, Women and Hollywood is proud to share its annual Oscar video. As we all know, it’s been another shitty year (when hasn’t it...
What Does Feminism Mean To You? Your Answer Could Win You $4000 And A Trip to NYC
Feminism means lots of different things to lots of different people: So, what exactly does this particular word mean to you? Your answer could get you $4000, a trip to NYC and a byline on SheKnows....
Black Women in Hollywood Special to Air on OWN
Oprah Winfrey is set to give viewers a peek into Essence’s 9th annual Black Women in Hollywood event. OWN will air a primetime special featuring highlights from the star-studded celebration as well...
Ava DuVernay Signs On To Direct Disney’s ‘A Wrinkle in Time’
“Selma” director Ava DuVernay will helm Disney’s “A Wrinkle in Time,” an adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s beloved and bestselling 1963 fantasy novel of the same name. “Frozen”...
Lynn Nottage Wins Blackburn Prize for ‘Sweat,’ Calls Theater “The Last Bastion of Segregation”
Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright Lynn Nottage can add yet another impressive accolade to her resume: She’s been named the 2016 winner of the Blackburn Prize. Established in 1978, the...
Emma Watson Taking a Year Off From Acting to Focus On Her Feminist Activism
Emma Watson is taking a hiatus from acting to concentrate on her feminist activism. Watson famously enrolled as an undergraduate student at Brown University in 2009 despite her budding film career....
‘Hedda Gabler’ Gets Distribution
Great news for both theater nerds and period drama lovers: Los-Angeles based distributor Vision Films has acquired the worldwide rights for a film adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play “Hedda...
Zoe Cassavetes On What Inspired Her to Tell the Story of an Aging Actress in ‘Day Out of Days’
Towards the beginning of Zoe Cassavetes’ “Day Out of Days,” we witness an awkward phone conversation between a former ingenue and her agent: the actress asks, “Don’t you think I’m a...
Amy Adams Signs on to Star and Exec Produce TV Adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s ‘Sharp Objects’
Five-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams may be heading to the small screen. The “Big Eyes” star has signed on to play the lead role in a TV adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s 2006 novel “Sharp...
Berlinale 2016 Women Directors: Meet Chloé Leriche — ‘Before the Streets’
Self-taught, Chloé Leriche has written, directed, edited and produced a number of short films since 2001, working with fiction and video art. Her work has been screened on TV, in museums and at...
Groundbreaking New Research Concludes “Hollywood Still Functions As A Straight, White, Boy’s Club”
With #OscarsSoWhite — and male — just under a week away, USC Annenberg’s Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative has released a groundbreaking new study offering a harsh, ugly...
Watch: Critics and Cinephiles Pick Top 20 Films Directed by Women for Fandor Video Essay
Critic and filmmaker Scout Tafoya asked over 50 film writers and cinephiles to name their ten favorite women-directed films. The resulting Fandor video essay counting down the resulting top 20 is a...
Weekly Update for February 19: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week The Witch In this exquisitely made and terrifying new horror film, the age-old concepts of witchcraft, black magic and possession are innovatively brought...
Jessica Chastain Launches Production Company
In welcome but wholly unsurprising news, outspoken actress Jessica Chastain has launched a production company. Chastain is partnering up with development executive Elise Siegel at Freckle Films,...
Trailer Watch: ‘Orphan Black’ Season 4 Gets Premiere Date and New Preview
Stockard Channing to Star in Buddy-Comedy Pilot ‘Me & Mean Margaret’
Stockard Channing is returning to television in the NBC multi-cam series “Me & Mean Margaret.” Channing will play the nasty diva of the title, a legendary actress who’s as famous for her...
Shonda Rhimes Explains Her Year of Yes in Inspirational TED Talk
Before writer and showrunner extraordinaire Shonda Rhimes decided to spend a year saying yes to everything, public speaking was not her bag. Luckily for us, her “year of yes” — which became...
Amazon Orders Jill Soloway Pilot ‘I Love Dick’
If you loved Jill Soloway’s forays into academia on “Transparent” (including her on-screen stint as an over-the-top women’s studies lecturer in Season 1), you’re in luck: the...
Trailer Watch: Meryl Streep’s Opera Singer ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’ Dazes More Than She Dazzles
In the opera biopic “Florence Foster Jenkins,” it ain’t over ’til the deluded lady sings — and boy oh boy, would her listeners like it to be all over. Meryl Streep plays the aging...
Indigenous Media Launches ‘Made By Women’ Incubator With Major Mentors
The absence and exclusion of women in Hollywood are severe and unjust, which is why it’s encouraging to see so many initiatives sprout up in recent years to battle industry sexism. The latest is...
4 Women-Directed Gothenburg Film Fest Features to Put on Your Radar
This is the third of three dispatches from the 2016 Gothenburg International Film Festival. As the largest film festival in Scandinavia, the world’s leader in gender equality, the Gothenburg...
New ABC Chief Channing Dungey Becomes First African-American Broadcast Network Head
Channing Dungey made history yesterday by becoming the first African-Amerian head of a major broadcast network. Dungey will take over managing ABC from diversity champion Paul Lee. She was...
Marti Noxon to Adapt ‘Dietland’ for TV; Noxon and Barbara Hall Signs Development Deals
A couple of TV heavyweights have inked overall deals. Marti Noxon, a co-creator of Lifetime’s “UnReal” and an EP on “Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce,” has signed a seven-figure, three-year...
WMC Study: Women Get Fewer Than 1 in 5 Oscar Nominations in Non-Acting Categories
When the Oscars take place on Sunday, February 28, just 22% of the non-acting award hopefuls at Dolby Theatre will be female. Depressingly, that’s actually an above-average rate for women...
Desolate Towns and Sacred Spaces: February 2016’s Crowdfunding Picks
This week’s crowdfunding picks are tied together by a strong sense of place, conjuring images of faraway landscapes or fleshing out the complexities of America’s marginalized communities....
We’ve Missed You, ‘Broad City’!
The effervescent, whip-smart “Broad City,” still the best rendering of best-friendship on TV, returned last night with an eye on one of New York (and women’s) most essential and least...
How the Swedish Film Institute Achieved 50–50 Funding Distribution Between Male and Female Directors
This is the second of three dispatches from the 2016 Gothenburg International Film Festival. Last year, we praised Anna Serner, the head of the Swedish Film Institute, who achieved her...
Elizabeth Wood’s ‘White Girl’ and Penny Lane’s ‘NUTS!’ Land at Streaming Sites
Two female-helmed features out of Sundance — Elizabeth Wood’s drug drama “White Girl” and Penny Lane’s animated medical documentary “NUTS!” — have found distribution....
Guest Post: How I Met the Subject of My Doc (Which Was Nominated for an Oscar 8 Years Later)
Listen: Women & Hollywood Podcast #20: Playwright Theresa Rebeck
What Happened After Swedish Theaters Introduced a Bechdel Rating for Its Movies?
This is the first of three dispatches from the 2016 Gothenburg International Film Festival. The Bechdel Test is a vastly imperfect tool for gauging a film’s feminism and gender progressivism. And...