BY Women and Hollywood
Swedish Cinemas Push Hard for Gender Equity
What is it about Sweden? What’s in the water? On the heels of my recent piece about what the Swedish government is doing to combat the gender disparity in the directing ranks, now comes news that...
Indie Director Ava DuVernay on Dressing for Success
Clothes make the director. That’s the lesson filmmaker Ava DuVernay imparted in her keynote speech at the LA Film Independent Forum last week. In her 45-minute speech, the 2012 winner of the...
Welcome Inkoo Kang to the Women and Hollywood Family
After 18 months, Kerensa Cadenas has moved on to a new position, and I am happy to welcome Inkoo Kang as the news editor for Women and Hollywood. Inkoo comes to Women and Hollywood with lots of...
The Square Directed by Jehane Noujaim Partners with Netflix and Participant Media
In another indication of just how much things are changing in the business, award winning documentarian Jehane Noujaim whose film The Square is now in an Oscar qualifying run has decided to forgo...
My Latest Forbes Piece: The Evolving Conversation About Women Directors
Last week I attended the first conference ever held in Israel to discuss the status of women working in the film and television industries. They had brilliant academics, high level executives in TV,...
Diana — A Dystopian Love Story
People prefer gossip, conspiracy, or drama over truthbecause we’re cynical. The recent release Dianaabout the final years of Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales, is a controversialattempt at...
Final Trailer for Hunger Games Catching Fire
The tracking for this film is huge. Predictions have it opening at $150 million. The first film in the series opened in March and grossed $152 million on its opening weekend. It is the largest...
SNL Addresses the Lack of African American Women Straight On
Over the last couple of weeks there has been an ongoing controversy over the lack of African American women on Saturday Night Live. Honestly, it’s probably something we all should have been...
NYWIFT Announces 33rd Annual Muse Awardees
New York Women in Film and TV has announced the awardees for the 33rd annual Muse Awards. The honorees include: actors Ellen Barkin, Connie Britton, and Robin Wright; Sesame Street actor and writer...
Weekly Update for November 1: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend Running from Crazy — Directed by Barbara Kopple (doc) Running from Crazy is a documentary examining the personal journey of model and actress Mariel...
Ellie Kemper to Headline Tina Fey Written Comedy
We’ve been following all news about the multiple television projects that Tina Fey has in the works. And one of those projects just got a straight to series order at NBC along with a star for...
November Film Preview
After an Oscar buzzy October with Sandra Bullock’s turn in Gravity and the tremendous performances of the controversial Blue is the Warmest Color, we move into a more mainstream November. November...
The Big O: Oscar Could be Swayed by Leto’s Feminine Mystique
Ifsomeone said a year ago that Jared Leto is expected to be a likely Oscarnominee for his next film, most people who recognize his name would have saidone of three things: Youmean that cute guy...
October Horror Series Wrap Up
Throughout October, Women and Hollywood has been examining women in horror — coming of age, lady killers, demon girls, witches, haunted women — in television and film. We’ve also had...
“Fear Teaches Us A Lot About Ourselves” — An Interview with Ginger Snaps Writer Karen Walton
As we’ve explored in this month’s horror series, there’s a lot — both good and bad — to discuss when it comes to the intersection of horror, women and feminism. One movie that...
Season of the Witch: Conjuring Strength Through Power
It’s the season of the witch, both in the sense that it’s Halloween, and that supernatural sisters are in the midst of a huge comeback. Meryl Streep’s playing the Witch in a movie adaptation...
Examining the “Woman Anxiety” Problem in The Exorcist
William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973) has been a horror classic for the past 40 years, often referred to as one of the scariest films of all time, and an Oscar winner to boot. The film comes at...
Barbra Streisand to Receive 2013 Glamour Woman of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award
Barbra Streisand will be receiving Glamour magazine’s 2013 Woman of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award during the 23rd annual Women of the Year Awards on November 11th in New York. The legendary...
Margaret Dean and Kristy Scanlan Elected WIA Co-Presidents
Margaret Dean and Kristy Scanlan have been elected co-presidents of Women In Animation. The organization is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2014 and it includes women from all aspects of the...
Happy 10th Anniversary of Wicked
Today celebrates the 10th anniversary of the now classic musical, Wicked. Based on Gregory Maguire’s novel, the show written by Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz changed theatre forever. It...
Ripley: Believe it or Not, It’s About All That
When Women and Hollywood asked me if I wanted to do a couple of guest posts on horror movies, I jumped at the chance. Like Kerensa Cadenas mentioned in her introduction to the series, I have an...
Directing News: Susanne Bier and Carol Morley Start New Projects
Susanne Bier and Carol Morley are helming some new and exciting projects — both of which include cast members from HBO’s Game of Thrones. Morley will be directing The Falling, which she...
IDA Documentary Awards Announces 2013 Nominations
IDA has announced their 2013 Documentary Awards nominations. Among them are some of the most talked about female directed documentaries of the year including Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s Blackfish,...
Turning Ash into Mia: Changing the Gender of One of Horror’s Most Iconic Characters
In the past few years, horror films have seen more than their fair share of sequels, remakes and reimaginings. As a genre, it’s been particularly hospitable to distinctive, memorable characters,...
Noomi Rapace to Play Septuplet Sisters in Sci-Fi Drama
Noomi Rapace will be playing septuplet sisters in the upcoming sci-fi drama, What Happened to Monday? Rapace will play the seven sisters who are struggling to hide in an overpopulated world whose...
Ellen DeGeneres and Liz Feldman Developing Lesbian Sitcom for NBC
Ellen DeGeneres and Liz Feldman will be developing a lesbian sitcom for NBC. Written by Feldman, the sitcom will focus on a lesbian who gets pregnant with her straight male best friend just as he...
International Trailer Watch: The Book Thief
The Book Thief, based on Marcus Zusak’s bestselling novel, just released an international trailer for the upcoming film. The film follows a young girl Liesel (Sophie Nelisse) who lives in Nazi...
Cross Post — 13 Myths Hollywood Uses to Hide Discrimination Against Women Directors
1. The number of women directors is so small because women are not really interested in directing and few women are exceptional enough to do a man’s job. Right, so 3,500 women DGA members pay...
The Horror of Little Girls and Social Anxiety About Women
Horror films frequently provide commentary on the social fears and anxieties of their time. A universally recognized truth of horror is that children can be terrifying — especially little...
LFF Interview with Gabrielle Tana — Producer of Philomena and The Invisible Woman
Gabrielle Tana’s name made two notable appearances at the London Film Festival — through her New York-based shingle Magnolia Mae, she is the producer (with her partner Carolyn Marks...
Valentine Road: An Examination of Accountability, Awareness and Compassion
The documentary Valentine Road — depicting the aftermath surrounding the shooting of young Oxnard, California high school student Larry King — had been winning accolades and gaining...
Director Antonia Bird Has Died
Over the weekend, it was announced that director Antonia Bird had died. She was 62. Bird started working as an assistant in the Royal Court Theatre, working her way up to directing projects. That...
Quote of the Day: Manohla Dargis Putting the Button on Blue
Manohla Dargis has had some issues with the film Blue is the Warmest Color (which did very well at the box office in the US where it opened this weekend) since she saw it back in Cannes in May. In...
Trailer Watch: Belle — Directed by Amma Asante
Amma Asante’s Belle premiered last month at TIFF. The film tells the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) the bi-racial, illegitimate daughter of a Royal Navy admiral in the 18th...
Weekly Update for October 25: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend Blue is the Warmest Color There’s no doubt when Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue is the Warmest Color hits theaters today it will cause controversy. The movie...
October Horror Series Interview: Emily DiPrimio on Horror, Carver and Directing at 13 Years Old
At 13, Emily DiPrimio is well on her way to starting a career in the lady-sparse horror genre. She co-wrote and will co-direct, Carver, which just made its Kickstarter goal earlier this month. From...
Questions of Queer Identity, Coming of Age and Loss of Self in Blue is the Warmest Color
There’s no doubt when Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue is the Warmest Color hits theaters today it will cause controversy. The movie has already experienced the both praise and backlash from critics,...
Octavia Spencer to Murder She Wrote Reboot, Melissa McCarthy to Produce Sitcom and Other TV News
In the most exciting TV news of the week, NBC has given a put pilot commitment to a Murder She Wrote reboot starring Oscar winner, Octavia Spencer. Alexandra Cunningham will write and executive...
Stockholm International Film Festival Announces Competition Films and Lineup
The Stockholm International Film Festival has announced their films in competition and their general lineup. The 24th annual festival runs from November 6–17 and will screen over 180 films from 50...
Trailer Watch: Gloria
Gloria, which screened at TIFF last month and has been riding high since its premiere in Berlin, is Chile’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Film for the upcoming Academy Awards. The...
We are the Weirdos, Mister: Revisiting The Craft
I was eight years old when The Craft came out in 1996. I remember seeing the VHS on the shelves of the video store for years and then finally picking it out when I was in sixth grade. There’s...
Pathe Picks Up Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette
We recently reported about Sarah Gavron’s latest, Suffragette, previously titled The Fury, when Carey Mulligan was in early talks to star. The film has since been retitled, Mulligan is signed,...
The Big O: Will Audiences (and Oscar Voters) Surrender to 12 Years a Slave?
Can movie audiences handle the truth — especially when it’s unpleasant to sit through? That is one of the main questions surrounding the widely praised 12 Years a Slave. Consider there are...
Gotham Awards Announce Nominees for 23rd Annual Ceremony
The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) have announced the nominees for the 23rd annual Gotham Independent Film Awards. Nomination criteria includes that the works must be independent American...
Women and Hollywood is Hiring a News Editor
After almost a year and a half, Kerensa Cadenas will be moving on from the day to day work of helping me edit and write Women and Hollywood. In the time Kerensa has worked on the site it has grown...
The LA Femme Film Festival: By Women, For Everyone
Leslie LaPage launched the LAFemme Film Festival in 2005 after a dispiriting trip to the Sundance Film Festival, where she saw precious few films directed or written bywomen. The first LA Femme...
There’s a New “Final Girl” in the House — and She’s a Beast: A Review of You’re Next
Crispian : Where’s Felix? Erin : I put a blender on his head and killed him. You’re Next is sick, and I mean sick like “disgusting” and sick like “badass” because somewhere in my...
The Disrespecting of Parks and Recreation
A furor went through the ranks of tasteful television-lovers earlier this week with the announcement that NBC was moving three episodes of Parks and Recreation, bringing the show back for two weeks,...
Big Vision Empty Wallet Chooses All-Female Screenwriting Fellowship Roster
At the kick-offmeeting for Big Vision Empty Wallet’s 2013 Screenwriting Fellowship we laughed,shared our industry horror stories, toasted our successes, and examined ourcreative goals. My business...
AFI Film Festival Announces 2013 Lineup
The AFI Film Festival, held in Los Angeles, announced its 2013 lineup yesterday. Mother of French New Wave cinema, Agnes Varda, will be this year’s guest artistic director. While this year boasts...
Cinema Eye Announces List of 25 Most Influential Documentaries
Cinema Eye announced their list of the 25 Most Influential Documentaries which was put together by current filmmakers who are vying for the 2014 Cinema Eye Honor, one of the top awards for...