BY Women and Hollywood
43% of 2014 DOC NYC Features Directed by Women, But Where Are the Films About Women?
It’s generally not hard to find female-directed features at documentary film festivals, since women filmmakers face less obstacles in the nonfiction world. This year’s DOC NYC Film Festival...
Jenny Bicks to Adapt ‘Marley & Me’ for TV
Marley & Me, the 2008 dramedy about the death of Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston’s beloved labrador retriever, is the latest film to be adapted for TV. Jenny Bicks, best known as a writer on...
LFF Review: Falling for ‘The Falling,’ Carol Morley’s Swoon-Worthy New Film
There were no less than twelve femalemembers of the cast and crew on stage to introduce The Falling at its world premiere at the London Film Festival, andit made for quite a sight. One of the most...
Learning from ‘Transparent’ and ‘OITNB’: There’s No Single Right Way to Do Diversity
We often talk about the need for diversity in Hollywood, but we rarely talk about how to do it. This leaves us with the clumsy approach in practice today, as writer Beejoli Shah discovered last...
Julianne Moore to Be Honored at the Museum of Moving Image
The Oscars have demonstrated a stinginess toward Julianne Moore over the years, but other institutions have been lining up to shower the actress with trophies and accolades. After winning the Best...
Weekly Update for October 17: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening Dear White People Sam White (Tessa Thompson) is a media studies major and student filmmaker determined to tell the world that things are far from where they should be. She...
Guest Post: ‘Last Hijack’ Goes Home with a Somali Pirate
In 2009 there was a swarm of news reports aboutpiracy off the coast of Africa. I got intrigued by the subject because of thethrilling hijack stories, but almost immediately focused on the Somali...
Trailer Watch: Olympic Runner and WWII P.O.W. Louis Zamperini Perseveres in Angelina Jolie’s ‘Unbroken’
We finally have a trailer for Unbroken, Angelina Jolie’s highly anticipated follow-up to her directorial debut, In The Land of Blood and Honey. Awards buzz has circulated around Unbroken since its...
The Big O: Watch Out, Rosamund Pike — Oscar Doesn’t Fall for Amy’s Type
Spoilers for Gone Girl ahead. As the iconic silver-screen siren Mae West once said, “When I’m good, I’m very good, but when I’m bad, I’m better. ” Since Hollywood’s earliest days,...
GamerGate: A War on Women Hiding Behind a Mask of “Ethics”
Being a woman in the gaming community is scary. For pointing out demeaning stereotypes of female characterswithin video games in a series of YouTube videos, feminist cultural critic AnitaSarkeesian...
Crosspost: Number of Women Directors of Shorts at London Film Festival Doubles From Last Year
The following is crossposted with the permission of the author. It was originally published here. Last year, I posted this analysis of the huge underrepresentation of women among directors of short...
Guest Post: You Don’t Need Anyone’s Permission to Make a Film But Your Own
Throughout my life as anactor, I have waited for people to give me permission. Waited for someone towrite something, someone to produce it, direct it, and hopefully, eventually, hire me. Until...
Watch: Jennifer Lawrence Takes Center Stage Again in New ‘Hunger Games’ Teaser
Little of the marketing thus far for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1, which opens in just five weeks, has focused on the franchise’s heroine, Katniss Everdeen. That’s partly because...
LFF Women Directors: Lynette Wallworth — ‘Tender’
Lynette Wallworth is an Australianartist/filmmaker whose immersive video installations and film works reflect onthe connections between people and the natural world and explore fragile states of...
‘Cristela’ and ‘Jane the Virgin’ Vanquish Latina Stereotypes
Dear WB, Consider Hiring These Women Writers and Directors for Your Wonder Woman Movie
Yesterday, Warner Brothers did what studios do these days: announce superhero movies and spin-offs. This announcement was a little different than the usual proceedings, though, because among the 15...
Trailer Watch: Katie Holmes is a Captivating Female Vigilante in ‘Miss Meadows’
Marvel Introduces New Asian-American Superheroine
After creating a Muslim-American superheroine in teenage Kamala Khan (alias: Ms. Marvel), Marvel Comics will continue to diversify its roster of do-gooders with a new series devoted to Silk, an...
Jane Campion’s ‘Top of the Lake’ to Return for Season 2
Top of the Lake was one of the most notable breakthroughs in television of the last five years, a masterwork of tone, suspense, and cinematography that upended the routinely sexist murder-mystery...
LFF Women Directors: Rebecca Johnson — ‘Honeytrap’
Layla (Jessica Sula) is 15 and has been living in Trinidad. Returned to her estranged mother in London, she is faced with settling into a new home and a new city with a fresh set of rules and codes....
Crosspost: Tony-Nominated Writer Sarah Ruhl on Plays About Motherhood and Challenging Theater’s Male Domination
The following has been cross-posted with permission from The Interval. “You should know about me arranging playdates for my daughter,” says Sarah Ruhl as she runs into a friend during the course...
Monica Potter to Star in NBC Sitcom Produced by Ellen DeGeneres
Parenthood star Monica Potter, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for her portrayal as Kristina Braverman, will headline a new sitcom on NBC when the critically acclaimed family drama goes off the...
Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls at the Party Goes Legendary
Patricia Ariza Wins Award for Creating Social Change Through Theater
Patricia Ariza, a Columbian artist and activist, has received the LPTW Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award for her endeavors toward peace and greater awareness of women’s issues during...
LFF Women Directors: Meet Corinna McFarlane — ‘The Silent Storm’
On a remote Scottish island in the 1950s, Aislin (Andrea Riseborough) lives with her minister husband Balor (Damian Lewis). He is a man of sudden and violent mood swings and stern religiosity....
Susanne Bier on ‘A Second Chance,’ ‘Serena,’ and Her Upcoming Mary, Queen of Scots Biopic
Susanne Bier is one of the most respected and well-known women directors in the world. One of three female filmmakers to win the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, the prolific Danish helmer’s...
Trailer Watch: ‘She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry’ Chronicles the Turmoil of the Women’s Movement
Feminist movements, then and now, have been largely ignored by the movies. Unlike, say, the civil-rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s, which receives respectful remembrance in high-profile...
Gamora and Wonder Woman to Get New Comic-Book Series
Neither Marvel nor DC, the two powerhouses that dominate the comics industry, has a great track record at gender diversity. According to 538, female characters account for only about one of four...
Watch: Viola Davis on Her Anti-Hunger Campaign: “I Didn’t Know Where My Next Meal Was Coming From”
As an honoree at Variety’s 2014 Power of Women event, a celebration of female philanthropy within the film industry, Viola Davis delivered a personal speech last Friday about her difficult...
Laura Poitras Humanizes Edward Snowden in ‘Citizenfour’
Woodstock Film Festival Women Directors: Jenna Ricker — ‘The American Side’
There’s three sides to every story. The truth, the lie, and the American Side. Following a mysterious suicide at Niagara Falls, a low-rent detective unravels a conspiracy to build a revolutionary...
Athena Film Festival: Igniting Conversation and Sparking Ideas — What Would You Like to Hear?
As we enter our 5th Year, the Athena Film Festival is proud to have offered a history of unique panels, conversations, and standalone events featuring powerful women leaders. To name a few: In...
Weekly Update for October 10: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women OpeningYou’re Not You — Co-Written by Shana Feste Hilary Swank plays a very put together successful woman who seems to have the perfect life. Yet that life quickly...
Power Showrunners — The Women
The Hollywood Reporter has published its list of the “50 Power Showrunners of 2014.” The list features 14 women who serve as the showrunners for 16 series. You’ll definitely recognize some of...
Guest Post: Finding a Rare POV on a Familiar Global Issue in ‘Waiting for August’
There have been many discussions in the film industry lately about the stubborn imbalance against women’s representation in cinema. Although we have gone a long way in theright direction, there is...
4 Ways Shonda Rhimes Is Changing the Conversation About Herself
As TV’s most successful female showrunner — and TV’s most successful black showrunner — there are a lot of questions Shonda Rhimes is sick of being asked. Sometimes well-intended,...
LFF Women Directors: Josephine Decker — ‘Butter on the Latch’ & ‘Thou Wast Mild and Lovely’
One of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of 2013, Josephine Decker makes films, performances, and friends in strange places. Her newest two films, Butter on the Latch and Thou Wast Mild and...
The Big O: Who’s More Overdue for a Win — Amy Adams or Julianne Moore?
Think back to last year’s Best Actress category and what a titanic lineup it was. Sandra Bullock for Gravity, Judi Dench for Philomena, Meryl Streep for August: Osage County, and Cate Blanchett,...
Mary Harron, Karyn Kusama, Jennifer Lynch, Jovanka Vuckovic to Direct Horror Anthology
Anthologies are one way the horror genre has experimented with new stories, effects, and themes without the arduous burden of stretching out a good idea or visual into feature length. As with...
Biopic of Mexican Pop Superstar Gloria Trevi Finds Distribution
Pop stars: they’re not like us. Most of us don’t wear conical bras in public, judge televised singing contests, or French-kiss our professional competitors for the cameras. But Mexican diva...
The Mother of all Bad Guys: ‘Homeland’ Returns
[This essay contains some spoilers for the last episode of Homeland Season 3 and the first two episodes of Season 4.] I’ve never watched a character go from complicated to villainous in the public...
LFF Women Directors: Desiree Akhavan and Cecilia Frugiuele — ‘Appropriate Behaviour’
Appropriate Behavior writer-director Desiree Akhavan is the Iranian-American co-creator and star of the criticallyacclaimed web series The Slope, acomedy that follows a pair of superficial,...
Watch: Gillian Jacobs and Leighton Meester Are Codependent Besties in the Female-Friendship Comedy ‘Life Partners’
Paige is straight, Sasha is gay. Paige suddenly has a fiance, Sasha is still alone. The first of these two situations isn’t remotely a problem. The second one, though, creates a riff between the...
Jessica Chastain Deconstructs Strong Female Characters as “A Disservice to Women”
Jessica Chastain has called out for more female protagonists once more as part of her press tours for The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her/Him (October 10), Interstellar (November 7), and A Most...
Kerry Washington Lands Her First Starring Film Role in More Than a Dozen Years
I first saw Kerry Washington in a 2001 indie called Lift, in which the Scandal star played a put-together young woman with a shoplifiting problem. Written and directed by Boston natives DeMane Davis...
13 Studio Execs Sign On to Mentor for AFI Directing Workshop for Women
Thirteen female executives from the six major studios will assume mentorship duties for filmmakers at the AFI’s Directing Workshop for Women (DWW). Those women comprise the “Executive Circle,”...
Scarlett Johansson to Star in Edith Wharton Miniseries
No one’s had a better career in the last year than Scarlett Johansson. She earned enthusiastic praise (and some Oscar consideration) for a vocal performance in Her, followed up with crowd-pleasing...
LFF Women Directors: Shira Geffen — ‘Self Made’
Self Made’s opening scene sees a young woman sleeping contentedly, only for her bed to suddenly give way and collapse underneath her. It is a moment that is at once dreamlike and shocking, and it...
Watch: New Trailer for Kristen Stewart’s Guantanamo Drama ‘Camp X-Ray’
Guest Post: Patience is a Virtue — and a Screenwriter’s Best Friend
It’s the spring of 2006. A book arrives by messenger, sent to me by my agent: Addicted by Zane, about “a woman’s sexual obsession.” Compelling title. Provocative cover. I open to a page at...
London Film Fest Director Clare Stewart on Cinephilia as a Religion and Her Advice to Future Programmers
As the Director of the London Film Festival and the Head of Exhibition at the BFI, Clare Stewart has curated and will showcase nearly 250 films this month. The London festival will run from October...