BY Women and Hollywood
Toronto 2013 Adds Films to Galas, Special Presentations and World Cinema
This year’s Toronto Film Festival has added more films to their Gala, Special Presentation and World Cinema programs. There are now 19 Galas with only one woman directed film out of that. The...
Fall 2013 Preview – The Women
Entertainment Weekly released its annual Fall Preview issue and so we thought it was time to do an overview of the women directed and women centric movies coming out over the next several months....
Nine for IX: The Runner Directed by Shola Lynch Premieres Tonight
The latest Nine for IX documentary The Runner directed by Shola Lynch (Free Angela and all Political Prisoners) will premiere tonight at 8pm on ESPN. The film tells the story of the...
Trailer Watch: Homeland – Season 3
Check out Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison in the trailer for the upcoming 3rd season of Homeland. New episodes of Showtime’s acclaimed drama begin on September 29th at 9:00pm.
Rebel Wilson’s Super Fun Night: When Self-Deprecating Heroines Tear Themselves Too Far Down
“I want to defend you, and then I find out you’re the person who wrote it which is brilliant,” Conan O’Brien told Australian comedienne Rebel Wilson at the ...
Trailer Watch: Philomena – Starring Judi Dench
Judi Dench’s upcoming Philomena focuses on a woman looking for her son. Forced to give up her child, after becoming pregnant at a young age, Philomena spends the next 50 years looking for...
Joy Behar Has Last Day on The View
Friday was Joy Behar’s last day on The View and she was sent out with a bevy of celebrity friends. Behar’s 16 years on the show were celebrated by her The View castmates as well as Joan...
Cross Post: Heroines of Cinema: 15 Female Directors Who Made Their First Feature After Turning 40
Two weeks ago, this column profiled ten female directors aged 40 or younger . My reasons for imposing an age limit were clearly stated, but it had the unfortunate side...
Karen Black: Perfectly Misunderstood
Karen Black died last week and she was my unlikely friend. I say so because all the conventional markers could not have predicted it. I am an atheist, a feminist and a film director and Karen...
Trailer Watch: Mother of George – Written by Darci Picoult
Mother of George, written by Darci Picoult, was a Sundance hit with massive praise for Danai Gurira’s standout performance. It’s gorgeous cinematography took home the top award. Gurira...
Weekly Update for August 9: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Currently Playing Lovelace The only thing I knew about Linda Lovelace was that she was a porn star from the infamous porn movie Deep Throat. Sadly, I think...
Patricia Cornwell Switches Publishers and Gets Huge Advance for New Book
Patricia Cornwell, after 18 years at Penguin, has jumped ship to HarperCollins. She is the first writer to go elsewhere after the Penguin and Random House mega-merger. She’s signed on...
Lake Bell’s Directorial Debut, In A World…, Smartly Examines Industry Sexism
Lake Bell’s directorial debut, In A World…, is a hilarious and uncomfortable look into how deeply sexism can plague an industry. She stars as Carol Solomon, a struggling...
Mira Nair to Direct Bengali Detective
Mira Nair is set to helm Bengali Detective as her next project. The film, which is based on a 2011 documentary by Phil Cox, follows a Calcutta based detective who while navigating the crime...
Cross Post: Fostering Our Future
The new fantastic, flashy, female-fronted shows of the season have received seemingly endless and endlessly deserving ink. We all love “Orphan Black” and “Orange Is the New...
Women Created Pilot News Roundup
In the past week, there’s been a ton of notable women created pilot news. Writers like Marti Noxon, Jill Soloway and Rashida Jones (the soon to be dearly departed Ann Perkins from Parks and...
Tangerine Entertainment’s Juice Fund to Support Women Directors
Tangerine Entertainment, a production company and community builder for female filmmakers, has launched the Juice Fund. It will provide community involvement and a direct way to support women...
The Hillary Clinton TV Panic – Part One
It’s summer and everyone is sick of talking about Anthony Weiner and his sexting, so now there is another controversy to discuss — the impending Hillary Clinton media TV projects on both...
The Heat Opening Weekend Box Office in the UK
Paul Feig’s follow-up to the gender-defying Bridesmaids was ushered into UK cinemas by supportive critics and very positive reviews. Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy received...
Trailer Watch: Winnie Mandela
Winnie Mandela, which premiered two years ago at TIFF, finally has a release date and a trailer. Starring Jennifer Hudson, the film follows Mandela through her upbringing, the beginnings of...
An Appreciation of Summer Roberts: The O.C.’s Greatest Character
It’s eerie to think that 10 years ago this week, I watched The O.C. huddled around a TV in my friend’s parents basement. It was a show I had been anticipating all summer...
Billie Jean King Talks Coming Out and Tennis for Upcoming PBS Special
Iconic tennis player, Billie Jean King, spoke at the PBS TCA panel this week for her upcoming American Masters special. King is the first sports figure to be profiled in the series. The...
Glass Ceiling Breakthrough of the Day: Two Women to Anchor Weeknight News Show
Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff are making major history at PBS. The pair will be co-anchoring PBS Newshour. The pair will both serve as anchors and managing editors of the newscast which will...
Trailer Watch: Enough Said – Directed by Nicole Holofcener
Nicole Holofcener’s latest Enough Said will premiere at this year’s Toronto Film Festival before hitting theaters. Starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Eva, a divorced, single parent and...
Meryl Streep Books Two New Roles
Meryl Streep has just booked two new roles in the upcoming adaptations of The Giver and The Good House. Streep is in talks to portray the Chief Elder in The Giver. Based on Lois Lowry’s...
Trailer Watch: Full Trailer – Diana
I have to say that this looks really good to me. I just wonder how it will play in the new Princess Catherine world we live in. But I think people are still fascinated with Diana, and...
HBO to Develop Comedy Series Starring Issa Rae
Issa Rae is teaming up with Larry Wilmore to co-write a comedy series for HBO. Rae is set to star. The project will focus on the life of a modern African-American woman through both her extremely...
TIFF Trailer Watch: Gloria
Celebrating its North American Premiere at the Toronto Film Festival is Gloria starring Paulina Garcia. Garcia plays Gloria, a middle-aged divorcee, who is trying to embrace her single status...
Mariska Hargitay to Make Documentary on Rape Kit Backlog
Mariska Hargitay is working on a documentary, slated to shoot within the next two months, about the backlog of untested rape kits in this country. The project has a producer but they are currently...
Update to Romola Garai’s Campaign Against Tesco
Romola Garai’s support of UK Feminista’s and Object’s Lose the Lads’ Mags campaign has paid off – both the Co-op and Tesco have capitulated, albeit in limited...
The Sapphires DVD Cover Controversy
The Sapphires, which was released earlier this year, is about the true story of four indigenous women from Australia who are discovered by a talent scout and are sent to Vietnam to perform for the...
Kathy Bates is Not Happy With NBC
Over the weekend at the Television Critics Association’s Summer TV 2013 Press Tour, Kathy Bates spoke out about the Harry’s Law cancellation and her experience with NBC. When asked...
Trailer Watch: Paradise – Written and Directed by Diablo Cody
We’ve been reporting a lot about Diablo Cody’s directorial debut in the last couple weeks–first about the film’s initial October release alongside Kimberly Peirce’s...
Guest Post: Gender Disparity and the Problem of Marketability
A couple years ago, I wrote a script that was made into a movie, and this summer it came out on DVD and VOD. It’s called Red Line, and it’s about the survivors of a subway crash who...
Film and TV News Round Up for August 2nd: Lake Bell’s Next Project, SXSW Short to Lifetime and Sarah Hyland to Produce
Here’s a news round up of some of the most notable television and film news from the past couple days. Modern Family’s Sarah Hyland is going to star in and produce the indie...
Weekly Update for August 2nd: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
This week there are no new women centric, directed or written films opening. Here’s the list of what’s currently playing in theaters near you. Films About Women Currently Playing ...
Diablo Cody’s Paradise to Premiere on Direct TV Next Week
As we previously reported, Diablo Cody’s directorial debut was hitting theaters on October 18th, the same day that Kimberly Peirce’s remake of horror classic Carrie drops as...
Guest Post: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Gender Equality?
This piece is in response to a piece published on FilmInk that listed the 20 Most Powerful People in Australian Film As an Australian I’ve long believed that my home country’s industry...
Headline of the Week: Where Are All the Women Directors?
A story from the UK Telegraph entitled Where are All the Women Directors by David Gritten has been making its way around the internet over the last couple of days. On the surface the story...
Ellen DeGeneres to Host Upcoming Oscars
Friday in August usually mean boring, but not today. After a big week when the Academy elected its first female African American leader, more news was made this morning with the announcement...
Trailer Watch: A Teacher – Written and Directed by Hannah Fidell
Hannah Fidell’s A Teacher was a favorite at SXSW where Fidell won the Emergent Narrative Women Director Award at the festival. A new trailer for Fidell’s taut and unflinching film,...
Helen Hunt to Write, Direct, Produce and Star in Ride
Helen Hunt is writing, directing, producing and starring in Ride. This will be her second directing gig following the 2007 film Then She Found Me. The film focuses on a 20 year...
Forbes Releases Hollywood’s Highest Paid Actresses List
Forbes recently released their annual highest paid actress list. The list is unfortunately, unsurprisingly very white and very young. And several of the actresses such as Angelina Jolie and Natalie...
A Open Letter to Cheryl Boone Isaacs: Remember the Ladies
Yesterday marked the first day of Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs’ tenure and she made the press rounds to talk about her priorities and goals for her new job. As we know, she is...
Gwyneth Horder-Payton: A Woman Who Specializes in Directing Men
At a panel of directors who work on FX shows at the Television Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles on Sunday, one of the reporters in the room asked newly-minted Directors Guild of America...
TIFF Announces Documentary Line Up
Last week, the 2013 Toronto Film Festival began announcing its line up. However that came with dismaying news for female directors–out of the 16 galas not one was directed by a woman. And of...
Romola Garai Takes on Sexist Magazines
Romola Garai, star of The Hour, is taking a stand against U.K.’s “Lads” Mags. In the video below, Garai perfectly explains the importance of eradicating these harmful images...
Women and Hollywood Welcomes UK Writer Kate Wilson
As you probably know by now, Women and Hollywood isn’t just about women working in Hollywood. That’s why it’s called women and Hollywood because the site is about how the...
Guest Post: How I Accidentally Became a Feminist Animator
Two years ago, I walked into a dimly lit garage on a severely potholed street in Hollywood. The linoleum floors were covered in waves of styrofoam powder interrupted only by piles of broken...
Kristin Chenoweth Gives it to Anthony Weiner
This is what we have to deal with for the next month here in NYC. I hope we make it. It is just awful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgAjzlwClBw
Questioning the Canon
When I arrived at graduate school for theatre we were told to have read books entitled “Famous American Plays” of the 20s, 30s, 40s etc. before we arrived. I did as I was told and really...