BY Women and Hollywood
First Trailer for Suffragette: “We Will Win”
The first trailer for ‘Suffragette’ has rolled out along with the announcement that it will open the London Film Festival on Wednesday October 7th. This incredibly powerful trailer shows the...
28% of 50th Karlovy Vary Film Fest’s Competition Films Helmed by Women Directors
Female filmmakers will make up 28% of the competition lineup at the 2015 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The Czech-based event, one of Europe’s premier film festivals, holds four...
‘Hannibal’ Showrunner Bryan Fuller Explains Why He Banned Rape on His Show
NBC’s “Hannibal” often makes perverse art out of mutilated bodies, stretching the limits of what can be shown on television. But “Hannibal” showrunner Bryan Fuller has, until now, barred...
Update!: 115 Films By and About Women of Color, and What We Can Learn From Them
The response was overwhelming after we posted the original list of 84Films By and About Women of Color, which came from a recent Twitterconversation led by director Ava DuVernay. Not only was the...
Help Improve ‘Women and Hollywood’: Take Our Survey
Women and Hollywood has been in existence for almost 8 years now. I cannot tell you how much the site and the work has grown since that day in 2007 when I pushed the “publish” button on Blogger...
Congresswoman Tells Federal Government to Investigate Social-Media Abuse
Back in March of this year, feminist blogger and critic Anita Sarkeesian stated, “I’m angry that I’m expected to accept online harassment as the price of being a woman with an opinion.” The...
Study: How Much Older Are Male Leads in Romantic Films than Their Female Co-Stars?
Last week, Oscar-nominated actress Maggie Gyllenhaal revealed that, by Hollywood standards, she was “too old” to play the on-screen love interest of a 55-year-old man. She’s 37. Following...
Catherine Hardwicke in Talks to Adapt Ava Dellaira’s YA Novel ‘Love Letters to the Dead’
Director Catherine Hardwicke (“Thirteen,” “Twilight,” the upcoming “Miss You Already”) is in talks to channel teen angst once more with an adaptation of the YA novel “Love Letters to...
June 2015 Film Preview
Summer brings more great news for those of us who long to see women-centric films in theaters.Many of the biggest and most anticipated films of the season are aboutwomen — and a fair portion...
Reese Witherspoon and Bruna Papandrea Discuss “Making Movies with Women at the Center of the Story”
Reese Witherspoon and her Pacific Standard co-founder Bruna Papandrea aren’t like most producing teams. One half of the shingle is an Oscar-winning actress, of course, but more importantly, the...
2016 Athena Film Festival Now Accepting Submissions
Interested in submitting your film to the 2016 Athena Film Festival? The festival is now accepting submissions! Please read our criteria and fill out the form below to submit your application. What...
Weekly Update for May 29: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Gemma Bovery — Co-Written and Directed by Anne Fontaine Life begins to imitate art in uncanny ways when earthy British beauty Gemma (Gemma Arterton) and her...
Happy Friday: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Get ‘Weekend Update’ Action Figures
Comedy BFFs Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are having their achievement as the first female co-hosts of “SNL’s” Weekend Update segment commemorated with action figures from Entertainment Earth. The...
Swedish Film Institute Achieves 50–50 Funding Distribution for Male and Female Directors
Meet Anna Serner, CEO of the Swedish Film Institute and our latest film-industry heroine. Since she took up her current position in October 2011, Serner has reached her stated intent of...
Listen: Women and Hollywood Podcast #13: ‘I Believe in Unicorns’ Writer-Director Leah Meyerhoff
https://medium.com/media/eebb1ca85e47ae9eb271ec5fc7913d3c/href
Jessica Chastain to Star in April Prosser Comedy; Amy Schumer in Talks to Co-Star
In her first live-action comic turn since her breakthrough role in “The Help,” Jessica Chastain has signed on to play the lead in the April Prosser-penned comedy “Plus One.” Chastain’s...
Review: Lifetime’s ‘Unreal’ is Real Good
Highlights from The Hollywood Reporter’s Amazingly Candid TV Comediennes Roundtable
The Hollywood Reporter hosted an especially candid and entertaining roundtable interview with some of TV’s best and brightest comic actresses, and the results speak for themselves. The...
Patricia Highsmith’s ‘Ripley’ Books in Development to Become TV Series
Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara’s “Carol” didn’t take home the top prize at Cannes, but the lesbian romance was undoubtedly one of the highest-profile films of the festival. Perhaps it’s...
Quote of the Day: George Clooney on Hollywood’s Pay Gap, the Under-Employment of Female Directors
George Clooney is weighing in on what have become two very hot topics in Hollywood: the pay disparity between male and female actors and the lack of opportunities for female directors. “One good...
Female Students Studying Animation in Increasing Numbers, but Future Uncertain for Grads
Animation has traditionally been the realm of nerdy white men, but that may soon be changing. A recent Los Angeles Times article has found anecdotal evidence suggesting that female students are...
A Gender Quake in the Film World
From my latest Forbes post on the sudden but momentous political progress women in film have made this month: “These last two weeks have been the most important moments in the fight for gender...
Inside Out 2015 Women Directors: Meet Na Torres — ‘Liz in September’
Na Torres is currently adirector/writer/producer who brings experience from all areas of filmmaking to her work. In 1985, Torres won the CannesFestival Camera d’Or, among twelve other...
Trailer Watch: Artist and Survivor Amy Everson Creates Concealing/Empowering Costumes in “Felt”
People have all sorts of coping strategies to deal with trauma, but crafting and donning gender-bending superhero costumes is one we haven’t heard before. Blurring fact and fiction, “Felt” is...
‘Game of Thrones’ Star Lena Headey Pens a Letter to Her Unborn Daughter and Girls All Over the World
Actress Lena Headey, best known for her role as the conniving Queen Cersei on HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” has written a letter to her unborn daughter and girls worldwide about the relative...
Read: The ACLU’s Letter to the EEOC Citing Employment Discrimination Against Women Directors
Two weeks ago, the ACLU sent letters to three government agencies requesting an investigation into the gender-based discrimination against women directors in the film and TV industries. The...
Trailer Watch: Marielle Heller’s Hormone-Charged Sundance Hit ‘The Diary of a Teenage Girl’
Minnie’s life has, by her own admission, “gone really crazy as of late.” She has sex for the first time, and her partner in action isn’t a gangly, pimple-plagued adolescent peer struggling...
Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda’s ‘Grace and Frankie’ Renewed for Season 2
Netflix has renewed its septuagenarian sitcom, “Grace and Frankie,” for a second season. Starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as two very different women who turn to each other for comfort when...
Trailer Watch: Artist and Survivor Amy Everson Creates Concealing/Empowering Costumes in “Felt”
People have all sorts of coping strategies to deal with trauma, but crafting and donning gender-bending superhero costumes is one we haven’t heard before. Blurring fact and fiction,...
‘Belle’ Director Amma Asante to Make Africa-Set Drama About Royal Interracial Marriage
Amma Asante (“Belle”) is set to direct “Selma” star David Oyelowo and “Gone Girl” Oscar nominee Rosamund Pike in an upcoming period drama about a black-white marriage that creates a...
4 Female Directors Discuss What It Takes to Make a Passion Project
RichardLinklater’s “Boyhood” got a lot ofdeserved attention for the dedication it took to make a feature film over 12years. While that timeline was planned, getting a film made often turns out...
Frances McDormand on Shoegate, Hollywood’s Pay Gap and What Makes Her a Successful Producer
Frances McDormand made quite the statement on Shoegate — and sundry other issues relating to women in the film industry — during a Women in Motion panel at this year’s Cannes Film...
Agnes Varda Admits She Has Trouble Securing Funding, Confesses Love for Lena Dunham’s “Girls”
Apparently not even achieving legendary status has shielded Agnes Varda from a common problem afflicting women directors. “I have an entire bestiary of prizes with bears, dogs, etc., but people...
Inside Out 2015 Women Directors: Meet Christina Zeidler — ‘Portrait of a Serial Monogamist’
Christina Zeidler is a film and video artist with over thirtytitles in distribution. Zeidler is one half of the Euro-electronica-pop-diva sensation “ina unt ina” and part of the high-conceptart...
Female Cannes 2015 Award Winners: Rooney Mara, Emmanuelle Bercot, Pippa Bianco and More
The 68th annual Cannes Film Festival has come to a close, with a number of female performers and helmers recognized for their talent and accomplishments. As with previous installments of the...
Get Involved: A Call to Action about the Representation of Women at the Tony Awards
On June 7th, when girls across the country turnon the Tony Awards, what do you want them to see? This is the question we’re posing to the Tony AwardsManagement Committee and CBS in a petition...
Cannes’ Heelgate: What Women in Heels Really Think (CARTOON)
Liza Donnelly is a contract cartoonist and writer with The New Yorker Magazine, where she has been drawing cartoons about culture and politics for over thirty years. She is also a columnist and...
7 Queer Female Filmmakers to Watch for in 2015
In what is already shaping up to be an exciting year for lesbian features, with both “Carol” and “Freeheld” sporting high-profile casts and higher expectations, queer female filmmakers are...
First Kill, First Wave, First Love and First Unemployment Line: New Women-Centric VOD and Webseries
In both real life and fictional narratives, there is always a turning point in the story, a catalytic moment when everything begins to change. Whatever happens going forward can be traced back to...
Weekly Update for May 22: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Aloft — Directed and Written by Claudia Llosa As we follow a mother (Jennifer Connelly) and her son (Cillian Murphy), we delve into a past marred by an...
Watch: Exclusive Clip from ‘Queen of Versailles’ Director Lauren Greenfield’s ‘Beauty CULTure’
Before she directed the critically lauded documentary “The Queen of Versailles,” about the construction of the largest mansion in the country and the wealthy weirdoes who contracted it,...
Catherine Deneuve’s Cannes Opener ‘Standing Tall’ Acquired by Cohen Media Group
For the first time in 28 years, a female-directed film kicked off the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. Now comes word, just as the Croisette is winding down, that the US rights of Emmanuelle Bercot’s...
Amy Schumer Making Mother-Daughter Comedy with Paul Feig
In what feels like a match made in heaven, Amy Schumer is set to team up with proven female-comedy-lover Paul Feig (“Spy,” “The Heat,” “Bridesmaids”). The rising star will act in a...
Inside Out 2015 Women Directors: Meet Barbara Hammer — ‘Welcome to This House, a Film on Elizabeth Bishop’
A highly prolific filmmakerand videographer, Barbara Hammer has directed over eighty films and videos in acareer that spans 40 years. She is considered a pioneer of queer cinema. Hammer made the...
Anne Pasternak Becomes the First Female Director of The Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum has announced that its next director will be Anne Pasternak, making her the institution’s first-ever female chief. Founded in 1977, the museum is the second largest in New York...
Trailer Watch: The World Makes a Dying Child’s Wish Come True in ‘Batkid Begins’
Batman’s least broody iteration introduced himself on the streets of San Francisco on November 15, 2013, in front of thousands of enraptured strangers. Behind the mask was five-year-old Miles...
Stand for #FilmEquality and Sign the ACLU’s Petition on Behalf of Women Directors
The American Civil Liberties Union has launched a petition with the hopes of gaining more support and momentum in the struggle to put an end to the industry’s gender-biased hiring practices. Last...
Reese Witherspoon to Play Tinker Bell in Live-Action Disney Movie
Reese Witherspoon is claiming one of Disney’s most iconic characters as her next big-screen role. The Oscar-winning actress will play Tinker Bell in “Tink,” a live-action, revisionist take on...
84 Films By and About Women of Color, Courtesy of Ava DuVernay and the Good People of Twitter
If you were on Twitter recently, you might have seendirector Ava DuVernay’s clever call to social media to name films with “black,brown, native or Asian women leads” which were also directed...
Sexual Violence on “Outlander” vs. “Game of Thrones”
Barbra Streisand to Write Memoir About Her Career and Personal Life
EGOT winner Barbra Streisand will pen a book reflecting on her life and her five-and-a-half decades in showbiz. Viking will publish the as-yet-untitled memoir in 2017. Streisand has discussed...