BY Women and Hollywood
The Renaissance Of Reese Witherspoon
From my latest Forbes post on the imminent “Reese-surgence” via Oscar hopefuls like Gone Girl, The Good Lie, and Wild: Witherspoon could be looking at multiple Oscar nominations, both as an...
Guest Post: Living With and Making Films About Dementia
Let’s be completely honest. Professional women are still expected to be faultless and competitive, make it look effortless, and downplay the demands of family and life outside of work. But every...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Torill Kove — ‘Me and My Moulton’
Torill Kove is an award-winning director, animator, illustrator, and author. Born in Hamar, Norway, Kove lived in Kenya before moving to Montreal in 1982 to attend Concordia University. She went on...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Caroline Mailloux — ‘The Barnhouse’
The Barnhouse is the third short film written and directed by Caroline Mailloux. Her films Motel Pluton and Cher Dieu (Dear God) both enjoyed much success on the festival circuit, and Cher Dieu was...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Amanda Strong — ‘Indigo’
Amanda Strong is a filmmaker and media artist working in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Making use of diverse media (film, photography and illustration) and artistic collaboration, her work seeks...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Johanne Ste-Marie — ‘Migration’
Johanne Ste-Marie is a Montreal native who dove head firstinto the burning ring of animation after graduating with a BFA in FilmAnimation from Concordia University. In 2002, she formed an art duo,...
Trailer Watch: Claire Danes is a “Soldier in a War” and a New Mom in ‘Homeland’ Season 4
When Homeland killed off Brody and fired Saul from the CIA in the third season’s finale, it pushed the restart button on the show. The new trailer for Season 4 hints at what’s next: Carrie is...
Reese Witherspoon, Viola Davis, and Jane Fonda Among Variety’s Power of Women Honorees
A quintet of Hollywood power players and luminaries will be recognized for their philanthropic efforts on October 10. Variety’s 6th annual Power of Women luncheon will name Reese Witherspoon,...
Fall TV Preview Part 2: Shonda, Selfies, and Sick Kids
Last week’s look at some of the fall shows created by women was far from comprehensive. As a commenter pointed out, I did not include the much-anticipated How to Get Away with Murder, from Scandal...
Special NYC Preview Screening of Fox Shows
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TIFF Women Directors: Meet Michelle Latimer — ‘The Underground’
Michelle Latimer, writer and director of the dramatic short The Underground, is an actor, filmmaker, and curator. Her award-winning documentary Aliaspremiered at the 2013 Hot Docs Film Festival...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Ruba Nadda — ‘October Gale’
Ruba Nadda is a Montreal-born, Toronto-based filmmaker. She attended York University and the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. She has written and directed several feature films, including Sabah...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Atsuko Hirayanagi — ‘Oh Lucy!’
Atsuko Hirayanagi wasborn in Nagano and raised in Chiba, Japan. She is a recent graduate of NYUTisch School of The Arts, Asia, with an MFA in Film Production. Her short films have played at numerous...
Trailer Watch: Jennifer Lopez is Stalked by ‘The Boy Next Door’
Jennifer Lopez returns to the thriller genre in The Boy Next Door, a lascivious guilty pleasure about obsession and control. Lopez plays a teacher and single mother who has a one-night stand with...
Halle Berry’s Production Company Gets Pilot Deal
With two episodes left in the debut season of her CBS sci-fi mystery series Extant, Halle Berry has signaling that she is taking another step in making television her new medium. Berry’s...
Helen Hunt’s Sophomore Directing Effort Finds Distribution
Helen Hunt continues to make starring roles for herself. As with her feature directorial debut (Then She Found Me), Hunt helmed and stars in her sophomore effort, Ride. The surf comedy has just been...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Kasia Nalewajka — ‘Pineapple Calamari’
Kasia Nalewajka attended the National Film and Television School in London. She wrote and directed the animated short film Sacculina Carcini (2014), and co-wrote and directed the animated shorts...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Isabel Coixet — ‘Learning to Drive’
Isabel Coixet was born in Barcelona.Since her debut feature, Too Oldto Die Young (1989), she has directedThings I Never Told You (1996), My LifeWithout Me (2003), The Secret Life of Words...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Sophie Barthes — ‘Madame Bovary’
A Columbia University graduate, Sophie Barthes was born in France and grew up in the Middle East and South America. Barthes has just completed an English adaptation of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame...
Is Hillary Clinton Fall’s Biggest TV Star?
America has never been readier for a female president, which may be why there are two new shows about women politicos this fall. The NY Times argues that CBS’s Madam Secretary and NBC’s State...
Susanne Bier to Lead Zurich Film Festival Jury
Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier is set to serve as President of the International Feature Film Jury at the Zurich International Film Festival (September 25-October 5). Bier, who won the Best...
‘Awkward’ Creator Lauren Iungerich Sells ‘Couch Detective’ to ABC
Awkward creator Lauren Iungerich has secured a put-pilot commitment from ABC for her new comedic murder-mystery series Couch Detective. Iungerich has teamed up with producer Jerry Bruckheimer on the...
Todd Haynes to Direct Reese Witherspoon as Peggy Lee
The Peggy Lee biopic that Reese Witherspoon has championed since 2010 has finally found a new director in Todd Haynes. After securing the rights to Lee’s story in 2010, Witherspoon had approached...
Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette Are Best Friends in Catherine Hardwicke’s ‘Miss You Already’
Drew Barrymore replaces Rachel Weisz as Toni Collette’s best friend in Catherine Hardwicke’s upcoming dramedy Miss You Already. Morwenna Banks’ script finds two lifelong friends being pulled...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Yassmina Karajah — ‘Light’
Yassmina Karajah was born in Amman, Jordan, and is a graduate of the Bristol Law School. She studies film production at the University of British Columbia. In Light (2014), her directorial debut, a...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Marie-Ève Juste — ‘The Sands’
Based in Montreal, Marie-Ève Juste worked at the Cinémathèque Québécoise between 2003 and 2007, where she first got familiar with cinema history and practice. In 2011, she co-directed her first...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Elizabeth Lazebnik — ‘Liompa’
Elizabeth Lazebnik is quickly becoming a recognized name in the Canadian film industry. Her shorts have previously played at TIFF, the Montreal World Film Festival and received awards from WWSFF,...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Grazia Tricarico — ‘Persefone’
Grazia Tricarico attended the University of Milan and the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. She has directed the short films Brightbox (2009), L’arte marziale (2010), Michele nella...
Seattle Fest Announces Women in Cinema Lineup: Lynn Shelton, Hannah Espia, Jessica Yu, More
The Seattle International Film Festival has released the lineup for its Women in Cinema showcase. The showcase will be a four-day event at SIFF 2015, and will include 12 features and documentaries,...
Mary-Louise Parker to Play Writer Mary Karr in New Showtimes Series
Unlike its distant rival HBO, Showtime has struggled for years to capture prestige for its original programming. The other premium cable network recently accomplished just that with the...
TIFF Women DIrectors: Meet Shonali Bose — ‘Margarita, With a Straw’
Shonali Bose was raised in Calcutta, Mumbai, and Delhi. She received her BA from Delhi University and her MA from Columbia before earning her MFA at UCLA film school. She made her feature debut as...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Tamara Erde — ‘This is My Land’
Tamara Erde was born in Tel Aviv. She studied at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem and Le Fresnoy in France. In her first feature film, This is My Land, Erde visits six independently run Israeli and...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Lindsay MacKay — ‘Wet Bum’
Lindsay MacKay is the writer-director of WetBum, her debut feature film, which was named a Top 10 Finalist in theprestigious Zoetrope Screenwriting Competition. She is a graduate of theDirecting...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Linnea Saasen — ‘Meet Me in Montenegro’
Linnea Saasen was born and raised north of the Arctic Circle in Harstad,Norway. She moved to Oslo to study art before settling in Berlin, where sheworked as a contemporary dancer and performance...
TIFF 14 First Thoughts — The Appetizer Before the Meal
I’ve been on the ground here in Toronto for three days. This is my fourth year, and it’s the first time that the first couple of days didn’t feel like I was going out of my mind. There are a...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Suha Arraf — ‘Villa Touma’
Suha Arraf was born in the Palestinian village of Melyia, near Lebanon. She began her filmmaking career as a documentary producer. Her latest work, Women of Hamas (2010), received 13 awards at...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Marte Vold — ‘Out of Nature’
Marte Vold (b. 1978 in Tromsø, Norway) studied film at Nordland Art andFilm School, attended the National Art Academy in Oslo, and then graduated fromthe Norwegian Film School in 2005. Between 2002...
Weekly Update for September 5: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening Rocks in My Pockets — Written and Directed by Signe Baumane (Opened September 3) Rocks in My Pockets is Signe Baumane’s autobiographical “funny film about...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Lone Scherfig — ‘The Riot Club’
Lone Scherfig was born inCopenhagen and graduated fromthe National Film School of Denmark.Her features Italian for Beginners(2000), Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself (2002),Just Like Home (2007), and An...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Isidora Marras- ‘I Am Not Lorena’
Isidora Marras was born in Santiago, Chile, and studied audiovisual direction at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Her short films include “Mirada a Vapor” (2008) and “En la Azotea”...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Laura Nix — ‘The Yes Men Are Revolting’
Laura Nix is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles.She has over seventy productioncredits and has directed the featurefilm The Politics of Fur (2002) and twofeature documentaries, The Light inHer Eyes...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Tala Hadid — ‘The Narrow Frame of Midnight’
Tala Hadid was born in London, graduated from Columbia University in NewYork City, and participated in the Sundance Institute Directors Lab. Her filmsinclude the documentary feature Sacred Poet, the...
Joan Rivers: An Appreciation of a Feminist Comedy Revolutionary
Like the rest of the world, I’m really sad about Joan Rivers’ death. I didn’t know her, though I met her once at the press day for the riveting and brilliant documentary about her life, Joan...
Patricia Clarkson and Ruba Nadda to Reteam for HBO Drama
After winning two Emmys for her guest turn as Sarah O’Connor on HBO’s Six Feet Under, Patricia Clarkson is eyeing a return to the premium channel, this time in a starring role. Clarkson is in...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Martine Époque — ‘Coda: The Finale for The Rite of Spring’
Choreographer Martine Époque is the founder of Montreal’s renowned contemporary dance company Groupe Nouvelle Aire and was its Artistic Director from 1968 to 1981. She was also the driving force...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Afia Nathaniel — ‘Dukhtar’
Afia Nathaniel was born in Quetta, Pakistan, grew up in Lahore, and is now based in Brooklyn, NY. She graduated from Columbia University’s Film Directing program. She directed the short films...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Kristina Grozeva (‘The Lesson’)
Kristina Grozeva was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, in1976. She graduated from the National Academy for Theater and Film Art with a degree in Film Directing. She and her co-director Petar Valchanov make...
Watch: Melissa Silverstein Talks About Hollywood’s Woman Problem
The best-performing movie of 2013 was The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, starring Jennifer Lawrence as the ass-kicking, fast-thinking Katniss Everdeen. And yet we’re still in the position of having...
The Unspoken Biases in Film School
Film school hasbecome an inextricable step in becoming a successful filmmaker. I went to NYU’sTisch School of the Arts and have not regretted it. I know I would not be whereI am today without my...
Fall’s Fab Female Showrunners
“What a wonderful time for women on television!” said Julianna Margulies during her Emmy acceptance speech for The Good Wife last week. The remark, while not untrue, was somewhat undermined by...
‘Kelly & Cal’ Director Jen McGowan on Finding the Perfect Riot Grrrl and the Biggest Challenge for Indie Filmmakers
Delighted at being told sex is back inthe cards during her post-natal check-up, new mom Kelly (Juliette Lewis) hurries home to husbandJosh (Josh Hopkins) — but Josh doesn’t seem so keen on...