BY Women and Hollywood
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Nikole Beckwith — ‘Stockholm, Pennsylvania’
Nikole Beckwith’s plays have been read and performed in Ensemble Studio Theater, LAByrinth Theater Company, The Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Barrow Street Theater, 3LD, The Flea, Lesser...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Liz Garbus — ‘What Happened, Miss Simone?’
Academy Award-nominated director/producer Liz Garbus co-founded Moxie Firecracker, Inc., an independent documentary production company, with filmmaker Rory Kennedy in 1998. Her directorial credits...
TCA 2015 Update: New TV Deals With Eva Longoria, Dolly Parton, and Pamela Adlon
If the 2015 TCAs are anything to go by, TV continues to increase diversity, experiment with form, and welcome women over 35. Cases in point: Eva Longoria, Dolly Parton, and Pamela Adlon will take...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Alanté Kavaïté — ‘The Summer of Sangaile’
Born in Lithuania, Alanté Kavaïté studied Beaux Arts in Avignon and in Paris, where she specialized in photography and video. Her first feature film, Ecoute le Temps (Fissures), was released in...
Angelina Jolie’s ‘Unbroken’ is the Sleeper Hit No One’s Talking About
Angelina Jolie may not have wowed critics with Unbroken, but she’s certainly proven herself a director to watch with her true-life survival tale. After collecting another $4.2 million at the box...
Academy Awards President Cheryl Boone Isaacs Responds to ‘Selma’ Snub; Ava DuVernay Sends MLK Day Message
Last week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) once again disabused the notion that the Oscars have anything to do with merit by nominating Selma in just two categories, Best...
Quote of the Day: George Lucas on Hollywood’s Lack of Movies for Girls
http://secure-us.imrworldwide.com/novms/html/ls.html
Women Writers Excluded From the Original ‘Odd Couple’
While we’re still nursing our wounds about the snubbing of Selma director Ava DuVernay by the Academy Awards, here’s a rare story of actual feminist triumph in the showbiz world that might cheer...
Weekly Update for January 16: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Appropriate Behavior — Written and Directed by Desiree Akhavan For Shirin (Desiree Akhavan), being part of a perfect Persian family isn’t easy....
Charlize Theron Developing Women-Centric TV Shows in New Production Deal
Charlize Theron’s name isn’t exactly synonymous with TV (though the Oscar-winning actress can boast an unforgettable guest arc sending up the manic pixie dream girl trope in Arrested...
Trailer Watch: A Pussycat Urges to Kill! Kill! in Marjane Satrapi’s ‘The Voices’
Alexandra Shiva’s Autism Coming-of-Age Doc ‘How to Dance in Ohio’ Acquired by HBO
How to Dance in Ohio Featurette – Meet the Artists – Trailer Addict
Women Made Up 15% of the Protagonists in the Top 250 Grossing Films in 2014
A warning: if you’re still reeling from the profoundly disappointing news that 100% of this year’s eight Oscar-nominated feature films are about men, this post is likely to make you even more...
‘The Fall’ is a Serial Killer Drama with a Feminist Twist
The second season of The Fall premieres on Netflix today, and if you haven’t watched this BBC drama yet, now’s a good time to start. (The first season’s only five episodes long, so you’ll be...
Watch: Jessica Chastain Calls for More Diversity in Hollywood
The Oscars have always been dominated by white men, but its demographic lopsidedness became a flashpoint of anger yesterday when this year’s nominations failed to include Selma director Ava...
Thoughts on the Oscar Noms from Female Film Writers and Experts
Here are some thoughts from some people I reached out to earlier today about the Oscar nominations, in alphabetical order. Thelma Adams, Film Editor at ZEALnyc: First of all, I welcome more voices...
The Big O: In Directing, a Sin of Omission — But At Least ‘Selma’ Makes the Final 8
We had a dream last fall: that two female directors, Ava DuVernay for Selma and Angelina Jolie for Unbroken, would compete in the Best Director category at the 87th Academy Awards. Considering that...
‘Broad City’ Renewed for Season 3
Get your celebratin’ on, because Broad City has been renewed for a third season. The second season of Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson’s sketch-sitcom hybrid premiered just this week, but the...
2015 Oscar Nominations: A Dark Day for Women in Hollywood
I couldn’t sleep at all last night because I knew in the pit of my stomach exactly what was going to happen this morning. Based onthe wind and on the hatchet job against Selma, I knew that Ava...
Jodie Foster, Lisa Cholodenko, Jill Soloway, Laura Poitras Nominated by DGA
Yesterday’s Directors Guild of America Awards coverage was dominated by one major (and painful) snub: that of Ava DuVernay for the entirely deserving Selma. But we should also talk about some of...
Trailer Watch: Emma Thompson Urges Dakota Fanning’s ‘Effie Gray’ to Flee a Bad Victorian Marriage in Newly Cut Promo
https://medium.com/media/c3f68a76a3581cc8fda1797819db0d63/href
Suffragettes, Action Heroines, and BDSM: Most Anticipated Films By and About Women in 2015
Our 2014 end-of-year coverage highlighted the good and the bad for women and Hollywood in 2014. As we usher in a new year, let’s focus on some of the exciting female-centric films that await us in...
Listen: Women and Hollywood Podcast #8: ‘Appropriate Behavior’ Writer-Director Desiree Akhavan
https://medium.com/media/b3f5df46c1fd9eb95a05ebb18f762f89/href
Trailer Watch: Melissa McCarthy is a Different Kind of ‘Spy’
Trailer Watch: New Promo for ’50 Shades of Grey’ Offers a Different Kind of Lady Porn
Trailer Watch: Juliette Binoche and Rinko Kikuchi Explore the Arctic in ‘Nobody Wants the Night’
Quote of the Day: Patricia Arquette on Making Less Money Than Her Dog Walker
Artists can’t get by on awards and adulation alone, so we’re thrilled that Patricia Arquette is using her post-Globes spotlight to bravely broach the topic of compensation. “It’s important...
Study: Fewer Women Directing and Writing Movies Than 17 Years Ago
If Hollywood were graded on how well it excluded women directors from making films, it’d receive an A. The newest Celluloid Ceiling Report from Dr. Martha Lauzen at San Diego State finds that men...
Trailer Watch: Female Friendship is the Heart of Celine Sciamma’s Black Parisian Coming-of-Age Drama ‘Girlhood’
2015 Golden Globes: Fey, Poehler, Fonda, Tomlin, Moore, Adams, Arquette, and Gyllenhaal Speak Out for Women
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler set the theme for the 2015 Golden Globes in more ways than one last night. Perhaps it was Fey or Poehler’s gender-conscious jokes the two years before — or maybe it...
Greta Gerwig’s ‘Mistress America’ Sold at Sundance
Ten days before the launch of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, Park City’s first major deal has been struck. Fox Searchlight has bought Mistress America, Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s...
Hailee Steinfeld to Play Carrie Pilby in YA Adaptation
Oscar-nominated teenage actress Hailee Steinfeld will join Jennifer Lawrence, Shailene Woodley, and Chloe Grace Moretz in laying claim to a popular YA adaptation of her own. Steinfeld will star as...
Trailer Watch: Hollywood Drives Julianne Moore and Mia Wasikowska Insane in New ‘Maps to the Stars’ Promo
Weekly Update for January 9: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Vessel (doc) — Directed by Diana Whitten Vessel begins with a young doctor who lived by the sea — and an unlikely idea. Rebecca Gomperts, horrified by...
Tig Notaro Gets Her Own HBO Special
Grammy-nominated comedienne Tig Notaro will appear in her first HBO special later this year. Notaro will record an all-new standup performance before a live audience in the coming months. A guest...
DGA Study: “Women and Minority Directors Face Significant Hiring Disadvantage at Entry Level”
The Directors Guild of America has revealed the results of a five-year study examining the gender and ethnic diversity of first-time directors on scripted series. In the five-year span from the...
‘Selma’ Director Ava DuVernay is a Woman Daring to Tell History
From my latest Forbes post on how Ava DuVernay is making history by interpreting our shared past and defending Selma from its short-sighted critics: Whether we like it or not, there are different...
Women Wrote 17% of 2014’s Top 250 Grossing Films
On Wednesday, we revealed that women directed only 17 of last year’s top 250 grossing films — a depressing 6.8%. Fortunately, the number of female screenwriters who penned the scripts to...
Guest Post: How I Met My Mother By Making My Family History Doc ‘Farewell Herr Schwarz’
After two hours of interviews, thecinematographer signals that the battery is running out and that we need tostop. Thank God. I have been interviewing my mother for what feels like aneternity now,...
Isabel Coixet’s ‘Nobody Wants the Night’ to Open the 2015 Berlinale
Prolific Spanish director Isabel Coixet (My Life Without Me, Learning to Drive) will open the 65th Berlin International Film Festival (Feb. 5–15) with her latest film, Nobody Wants the Night. The...
The 2015 Athena Film Festival Trailer Is Here!
Trailer Watch: Everyone’s Someone’s ‘DUFF’ in New Promo
Guest Post: Inside the Fox Global Director’s Initiative
When I found out that I was invited to take part in the Fox Global Director’s Initiative, I was in Beirut, on my way to the Bekaa Valley. The lab would commence in just seven days — by which...
Dunham does Iowa: ‘Girls,’ Season Four
Trailer Watch: Kat Dennings Struggles to Stay Sober and Alive in ‘To Write Love on Her Arms’
Women Directed 17 of the Top 250 Grossing Films of 2014
Female directors accounted for only 17 of the top 250 grossing films of 2014 — a mere 6.8%. As paltry as this number is, it represents a minor improvement from 2013, when women comprised 6% of...
ABC Family Orders Single-Cam Comedies from Lauren Iungerich, Barbie Adler
ABC Family is expanding its appeal to women in their twenties by adding two single-cam comedies from female creators to its development slate. The cable network has ordered pilots from Awkward...
Quote of the Day: Rose McGowan
Rose McGowan said what we’re all thinking at the New York Film Critics Circle awards ceremony earlier this week when she urged for more films from women directors while accepting the group’s...
Megan Ellison to Produce ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night’ Director Ana Lily Amirpour’s Next Film
The critically lauded A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night didn’t just garner writer-director Ana Lily Amirpour a Breakthrough Director Award at the Gotham Independent Film Awards, but a powerful...
The Big O: The State of the Race — and Where the Women Are
I had a sinking feeling when the Producers Guild announced their ten nominees for Best Picture on Monday. Take a gander at what was selected: American Sniper, Birdman, Boyhood, Foxcatcher, Gone...
Trailer Watch: Helen Mirren Returns to Broadway as Queen Elizabeth II in ‘The Audience’
Anglophiles, rejoice! Helen Mirren will reprise one of her greatest roles, albeit in an entirely different production, when she returns to Broadway this winter. Mirren will play Queen Elizabeth II...