BY Women and Hollywood
Weekly Update for January 10: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films Directed By and About Women Opening The Truth About Emanuel — Written and Directed by Francesca Gregorini Emanuel (Kaya Scodelario), a troubled girl, becomes preoccupied with her...
TV: A Preview of Girls’ Third Season from TCA
Lena Dunham’s Girls, which returns to HBO for its third season on Sunday night, can be difficult to see as simply a television show. When it premiered in 2012, the series, which follows the lives...
When the Little Gals Get Stepped On: How Huff Po Stole from Women and Hollywood
Last night I got an email from a friend with a link to a Huffington Post piece he thought I would be interested in. I clicked on it and to my immediate alarm, I realized it was a piece that had been...
Why Judd Apatow Directing Amy Schumer in Trainwreck is a Great Thing
It looks like we’ll be able to look forward to at least one mid-budget female-driven comedy every summer. 2011 had Bridesmaids; 2012, Pitch Perfect. After last year’s The Heat, we’ll have...
Sarah Polley, Lucy Walker, Barbara Kopple Win at Cinema Eye Awards
Sarah Polley, Lucy Walker, and Barbara Kopple were honored at the seventh annual Cinema Eye Honors, which “recognize and honor exemplary craft and innovation in nonfiction film.” Polley won the...
The New DGA/Studio Agreement: Nothing New for Women
Yesterday, the DGA voted by “an overwhelming margin” to ratify a new contract between its members and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). DGA President Paris Barclay...
The Big O: Will the Academy’s Love of Female Ensembles Help August: Osage County?
What is almost over but has only just begun? The seeminglyendless race for the Oscars, of course. With the Golden Globes ceremony onSunday and Academy Award nominations being announced next...
Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson’s Feminist Love Fest
Holy hell. Last night at the National Board of Review awards ceremony, Meryl Streep outed herself as Emma Thompson’s biggest fan by celebrating her for being “a rabid, man eating feminist, like...
Watch the Athena Film Fest 2014 Trailer
The 2014 Athena Film Festival has released a trailer for the February event. Watch the video below, read the full Athena lineup here, and see you there!
BAFTA Nods Recognize Women Directors and Female Protagonists
After an award season apparently blind to non-acting female talent, we finally got some good news today. Among the BAFTA nominees are films by several women directors: Clio Barnard’s The Selfish...
An Open Letter to Martin Scorsese
Dear Mr. Scorsese- Your letter to your daughter Francesca came to my attention and I just had a few comments in response. First, I apologize for not seeing The Wolf of Wall Street. There was a time...
10 Highest-Grossing Films of 2013 by Women Directors
As we previously reported, 2013 was the year of the box-office heroine, with girl protagonists headlining the #1 (Hunger Games: Catching Fire) and #4 (Frozen) most popular films of the year. For...
TV: The Women-Created Network Shows in Contention for Fall 2014
The Hollywood Reporter has published a running list of all the network pilots in contention for the 2014–2015 season. About 40% of them (11 of 26) feature women creators, showrunners, and/or...
Women-Directed Films in 2014 Will Be Few and Far Between (Updated)
Movie-lovers interested in films by women directors won’t have much reason to go to the mutliplex this year. In 2013, only three films from female filmmakers — Frozen, Carrie, and Black...
Black Comedienne Sasheer Zamata Joins SNL
Sasheer Zamata became the most famous performer on Saturday Night Live yesterday when the show announced her addition to the cast. Zamata was hired after two of SNL’s black comedians, Kenan...
Jane Campion to Lead Cannes 2014 Jury
The Cannes Film Festival has selected New Zealand director Jane Campion to preside over the 2014 jury. Campion has been one of the most vocal critics within the industry of Hollywood’s...
Athena Film Fest Lineup Announced
The Athena Film Festival, the Women and Hollywood-affiliated event co-founded by Melissa Silverstein, has announced the lineup for its fourth annual showcase of works by women directors and about...
Trailer Watch: Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s The Mask You Live In
Sometimes you wear the mask, and sometimes the mask wears you. After the success of her documentary Miss Representation, which details the mainstream media’s pernicious effects on girls, Jennifer...
What the F@#- is Cancer and Why Does Everybody Have It?
I’ve been around a bit in this business. I came up throughthe ranks of production and then moved into post, all the while writingand working towards helming a film of my own to make my life...
Hunger Games: Catching Fire Will Be Top Grossing Movie of 2013, Frozen Surges to #4
All hail Katniss, Anna, and Elsa. The heroines of Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Frozen, introduced to us all the way back in November, have started off the new year still kicking box-office...
WGA Nominates Women Screenwriters for Dallas Buyers Club, Before Midnight
The Writers Guild of America announced their 2014 award nominees today. Only two female screenwriters — Dallas Buyers Club co-writer Melisa Wallack and Before Midnight co-writer/star Julie...
The Bechdel Test is a Good Indicator of Box Office Performance
Movies that pass the Bechdel test make significantly more money than movies that fail the test. That’s the conclusion that Vocativ.com writers Versha Sharma and Hanna Sender came to when they...
What It’s Like to Be a Woman Director in a Country with a Tiny Film Industry
I’m often askedwhat it’s like to be a woman working in the film industry. My answer? Depends on the context. While I am aware of the dismal statistics on gender inequality in Hollywood and what...
Megan Ellison Leads PGA Awards Nominations
The Producers Guild of America, an industry group that predicts and influences the Oscar nominees more often than not, announced the ten films in the running for its annual awards. Wunderkind...
Trailer Watch: Veronica Mars’ Theatrical Preview
The official trailer has been released for the much anticipated Veronica Mars movie. Thankfully, it turns away from the “choosing boyfriends” theme of the previously released “first look” to...
Women and Hollywood January 2014 Film Preview
January is for December movies. That’s the conventional knowledge in Hollywood, where the first two months of the year are reserved as dumping grounds for stinkers while audiences catch up on the...
Make Her as Likeable as Possible and Other Advice Filmmakers Should Ignore
My narrative feature, Vino Veritas, opens with a wife and husband arguing. Lauren, a former globe-trotting photojournalist and adventurer, expresses her extreme dissatisfaction with her current...
Exclusive Trailer: Hannah Espia’s Transit
In 2010, Israel began deporting the children of migrant workers, many of whom were fluent only in Hebrew and had never seen the land of their parents. First-time director Hannah Espia’s Transit...
The Most Anticipated Films of 2014
2013 was a great year for a few key female players in Hollywood (congrats to Jennifer Lawrence and Sandra Bullock), but for most women who work in the film industry, it was another 365 days of...
The Big O: Remembering 2013’s Top Female Film Moments
I have always been a list-maker. After all, they come in handy when it comes to remembering what groceries to buy, what clothes to pack and what chores to nag my husband about. But unlike many film...
The High and Low Points of 2013
This was a very interesting year for writing about issues related to women in entertainment. On the one hand, I feel very hopeful and think we may have hit a tipping point with the box-office...
Goodbye to Strong Female Characters
We are so over Strong Female Characters. Strong Female Characters were useful a few years ago when there was a dearth of women on film and most were so rubber-limbed, glass-ankled, or prone to...
Pussy Riot No Longer a Band; First Russian Screening of Their Doc Canceled
Just a day after newly freed Pussy Riot members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina announced the disbandment of Russia’s most important feminist punk group, the Putin administration...
Happy Holidays
We’re going to take some downtime this week. Hope you have a happy holiday.
Weekly Update for End of 2013: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films Directed by and About Women Opening Let’s Ruin It with Babies — Written, Directed, and Starring Kestrin Pantera Channing has it all: a beautiful home, a rock-star lifestyle, and a...
Sarah Polley, Nicole Holofcener, Sandra Bullock Big Winners of AWFJ Awards
We previously wrote about the Alliance of Women Film Journalist (AWFJ) nominations, about which the big takeaway was that “female critics have more or less the same tastes as their male...
Ellen DeGeneres is Utterly Charming in the First Oscars Trailer
After last year’s Seth MacFarlane fiasco, the Academy apparently took a long, hard look at itself in the mirror and asked, “What the hell were we thinking?” because it wisely invited Ellen...
Rose Kuo Steps Down as Head of Film Society of Lincoln Center
In a surprise move earlier this week, Rose Kuo announced her resignation from her post as the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s executive director. Kuo has led the Film Society for the last...
Feminist Filmmaking Means NC-17 Rating from MPAA
Director Jill Soloway gave a wonderfully insightful interview to Flavorwire yesterday about the crude double standards at work at the MPAA. Soloway directed this year’s Afternoon Delight, a story...
TV Superlatives of 2013
All this week, Women and Hollywood will run our own “Best of” lists to honor and celebrate the year’s best women-directed and women-centric movies and TV shows. See our previous posts on the...
Maria Friedman Talks Directing Merrily We Roll Along
Last summer when I was in London, I had the opportunity to see one of the most under-rated shows of Stephen Sondheim’s career, Merrily We Roll Along. It’s got some of his best songs, but as a...
Best Women-Directed Films of 2013
All this week, Women and Hollywood will run our own “Best of” lists to honor and celebrate the year’s best women-directed and women-centric movies and TV shows. See our previous posts on the...
The Big O: Looking at the Women of Oscars Past, Present, and Future
The Oscar derby often offers interesting, if disturbing, insights into how women are treated in the world of film. As the year draws to a close, let’s review what happened the last time Hollywood...
Blood-Boiler of the Day: TV Show Canceled for Having Too Many Smart, Interesting Girl Characters
Hollywood execs can get awfully creative when they need to come up with excuses for why film and TV should stay so male-centric. Boys won’t watch stories about girls? Wrong. Women and girls...
Most Popular Women and Hollywood Posts of 2013
All this week, Women and Hollywood will run our own “Best of” lists to honor and celebrate the year’s best women-directed and women-centric movies and TV shows. See our previous posts on the...
Director Jasmila Zbanic Is Wary of Quotas for Women Directors
Quota is a dirty word in our supposed meritocracy. But it’s a less contentious, even normal, practice in other parts of the world. Sweden, for example, recently mandated that “funding shall be...
10 Films from Women Directors, Screenwriters, or Stars Added to National Film Registry
The National Film Registry has announced its 2013 list of “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” films to be preserved by the Library of Congress, and 10 of its 25 selections...
Less Than 20% of Black List Scripts Are By Women Screenwriters
The 2013 Black List — Hollywood’s annual compilation of the industry’s “most liked” but as-yet-unmade scripts — was released yesterday. Of the 72 screenplays that made it on the...
Less than 10% of Oscar-Eligible Films Directed by Women
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have released their list of films eligible for the 2014 Oscars, and of the 289 films that qualified for Oscar consideration, a paltry 25, or 8.6%,...
Best Women-Centric Films of 2013
All this week, Women and Hollywood will run our own “Best of” lists to honor and celebrate the year’s best women-directed and women-centric movies and TV shows. See our previous post on the...
Best Women Directed Documentaries of 2013
All this week, Women and Hollywood will run our own “Best of” lists to honor and celebrate the year’s best women-directed and women-centric movies and TV shows. With Hollywood in the grips of...