Documentary
Lucy Walker to Direct ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ Sequel
Oscar-nominated documentarian Lucy Walker (“The Crash Reel,” “Waste Land,” “Devil’s Playground”) will helm a follow-up film to “Buena Vista Social Club.” The original Academy...
Amy Berg’s Exposé of Hollywood Sexual Exploitation, ‘An Open Secret,’ Gets Distribution Deal
Oscar-nominated documentarian Amy Berg was afraid that the world premiere of her latest nonfiction film, “An Open Secret,” at DOC NYC last November would be its last. “We get one screening,”...
Trailer Watch: Nina Simone is “as Fragile as She is Strong” in ‘What Happened, Miss Simone?’
Hot Docs 2015 Women Directors: Meet Donna LoCicero — ‘3 Still Standing’
Donna LoCicero is a writer, producer and documentary filmmaker with more than 15 years experience working on dozens of groundbreaking film projects for network, cable and international television....
Hot Docs 2015 Women Directors: Meet Amber Fares — ‘Speed Sisters’
Amber Fares is a Canadian-born filmmaker with Lebanese roots. In the aftermath of 9/11, Fares left her career in marketing to deepen her understanding of life in the Middle East. In response to her...
Hot Docs 2015 Women Directors: Meet Erinnisse Rebisz — ‘Shoulder the Lion’
Erinnisse Rebisz is a seasoned editor for television and film, born and based in NYC. Her credits include numerous unscripted TV shows and documentaries such as “What Not To Wear,” “24 Hour...
Hot Docs 2015 Women Directors: Meet Amy Benson — Drawing the Tiger
Amy Benson is the co-owner of Nonfiction Media, a production company in Seattle. She has shot and edited over 25 short films, telling the stories of nonprofits in the Pacific Northwest, Africa and...
Hot Docs 2015 Women Directors: Meet Rebecca Parrish — ‘Radical Grace’
Rebecca Parrish is director, cinematographer and an editor on “Radical Grace.” She has run her Chicago-based film company, Interchange Productions, since 2007. She has worked as an editor and...
Guest Post: The Challenges of Filming a Sexual Health Workshop in an Ultra-Conservative Country
“Leaving Africa” is a story of friendship andstrength. Finnish doctor Riitta has been working in Uganda for morethan 25 years. Together with her Ugandan friend Catherine, she brings sex...
Laura Bispuri’s Transgender Odyssey ‘Sworn Virgin’ Wins Tribeca Film Fest’s Nora Ephron Prize
Italian director Laura Bispuri has won the third annual Nora Ephron prize at the Tribeca Film Festival. Awarded to female filmmakers “with a distinctive voice” since 2013, the recognition comes...
Hot Docs 2015 Women Directors: Meet Laurie Kahn — ‘Love Between the Covers’
Laurie Kahn started her film career by helping a friend make an adaptation of a Guy de Maupassant story. While working on this project, she found paying work on the side writing film reviews for the...
Hot Docs 2015 Women Directors: Meet Tonje Hessen Schei — ‘Drone’
Tonje Hessen Scheiis an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has worked with independentdocumentary productions since 1996. Her films focus on human rights, theenvironment and social justice....
Susan Sarandon to Exec Produce Rebecca Parrish’s Doc About Feminist Nuns
Twenty years after her Academy Award-winning performance as Sister Helen Prejean in “Dead Man Walking,” Susan Sarandon is attached to another project about politically progressive nuns. Sarandon...
Cinedigm Acquires Sarah Hirsh Bordo’s ‘A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story’
Cinedigm has secured the North American rights to Sara Hirsh Bordo’s directorial debut, “A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story.” The documentary premiered at SXSW to great acclaim, winning...
Tribeca 2015 Women Directors: Meet Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy — ‘Song of Lahore’
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy is an Academy-and Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker. Her work centers on human rights and women’s issues. She has worked with refugees and marginalized communities...
Tribeca 2015 Women Directors: Meet Cosima Spender — ‘Palio’
London-based director Cosima Spender graduated with a degree in anthropology and art history from the University of London. Since graduating from the National Film and Television School in 2001, she...
Tribeca 2015 Women Directors: Meet Vanessa Hope — “All Eyes and Ears”
Vanessa Hope started her film career in China while teaching a graduate course at People’s University. Fluent in Chinese, she’s produced multiple films in China, with civil rights as a common...
Tribeca 2015 Women Directors: Meet Lisa Immordino Vreeland — ‘Peggy Guggenheim — Art Addict’
Long immersed in the world of fashion, Italian director Lisa Immordino Vreeland adapted her book “Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel” into her first documentary. It won the Silver Hugo at the...
Tribeca 2015 Women Directors: Meet Amy Kohn — ‘A Courtship’
Amy Kohn is an Emmy Award-winning television producer and showrunner. Her documentary work has included the critically acclaimed “My Life as a Child” (TLC), which profiled children ages 7 to 11...
Tribeca 2015 Women Directors: Meet Hemal Trivedi — ‘Among the Believers’
Hemal Trivedi’s credits include “Outlawed in Pakistan,” “Saving Face,” “Shabeena’s Quest” and “Beyond Mumbai.” She has produced and edited over 50 award-winning shorts for...
Tribeca 2015 Women Directors: Meet Abigail Disney — ‘The Armor of Light’
Tribeca Film Festival alumna Abigail Disney is an Academy Award nominee, philanthropist and activist based in New York. Her passion for women’s issues has led her to producing films. Her film...
Tribeca 2015 Women Directors: Meet Malika Zouhali-Worrall — ‘Thank You For Playing’
Malika Zouhali-Worrall is an award-winning filmmaker of British/Moroccan origin. She is one of the directors and the producer of “Call Me Kuchu” (2012), a documentary that depicts the last year...
Tribeca 2015 Women Directors: Meet Ivy Meeropol — ‘Indian Point’
Ivy Meeropol is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker. Her work has been featured on the Sundance Channel and HBO. Meeropol’s films have been nominated for numerous awards, and her feature, “Heir...
Tribeca 2015 Women Directors: Meet Jeanie Finlay — ‘Orion: The Man Who Would Be King’
Jeanie Finlay is an acclaimedBritish artist and filmmaker who creates intimate, funny and personaldocumentary films and artworks. Her focus is on creating compelling portraits, and she is obsessed...
Tribeca 2015 Women Directors: Meet Andrea Nevins — ‘Play It Forward’
Academy Award-nominated Andrea Nevins has produced, directed and written for documentary film, television news, public radio and newspapers for over 25 years. She has produced critically acclaimed...
2015 Full Frame Doc Film Fest Announces Winners: Lyric R. Cabral, Alexandra Shiva, Phie Ambo
Female documentarians made up 8 of the 11 award winners at the 2015 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, North Carolina. Betzabé Garcia’s “Kings of Nowhere” and Lyric R. Cabral...
Tribeca 2015 Women Directors: Meet Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg — ‘In My Father’s House’
Tribeca Film Festival alumni Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg are multi-award-winning producers and directors best known for “Knuckleball!,” “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work,” “The Devil Came...
Tribeca 2015 Women Directors: Meet Anna Sandilands — ‘Uncertain’
Anna Sandilands and her co-director Ewan McNicol are the directing and producing team behind and the co-owners and creative directors of the documentary studio Lucid Inc. Both are named in Filmmaker...
Tribeca 2015 Women Directors: Meet Erin Lee Carr — ‘Thought Crimes’
Erin Lee Carr is a documentary filmmaker. Before that, she covered the vast intersection between science and technology for Vice Media, specifically for their science vertical Motherboard. She also...
Guest Post: What I Learned From a Post-It Note to Make My First Film
Back in 2008, I heard about that Oprah tip — the one whereyou make a list of goals on a Post-It and put it on your bathroom mirror. Youare supposed to look at it every morning when you wake up...
Jessica Edwards’ Doc ‘Mavis!’ About Singer Mavis Staples Acquired by HBO
Jessica Edwards’ “Mavis!,” the first documentary about gospel/soul music legend and civil rights icon Mavis Staples, has been acquired by HBO. Edwards described “Mavis!” as an exploration...
Documentary About Plus-Size Modeling, ‘A Perfect 14,’ in the Works
A new documentary about the plus-size modeling industry will explore the issue of sizeism in fashion and the larger world. Currently in production, “A Perfect 14” is directed by Giovanna...
Trailer Watch: Amy Winehouse Contemplates Fame in First Teaser for Doc About the Late Singer
Malala Yousafzai Doc ‘He Named Me Malala’ to be Released by Fox Searchlight
Malala Yousafzai is the subject of a new nonfiction portrait by Oscar-winning documentarian Davis Guggenheim (“Waiting for ‘Superman,’” “An Inconvenient Truth”). Yousafzai became the...
Distribution Deals: Milla Jovovich’s “Alchemy,” Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi Climbing Doc “Meru”
Two action thrillers with women in prominent roles have found distribution. Milla Jovovich’s latest vehicle, about a diplomat on the run after being framed, has been acquired by Alchemy. Set in...
Trailer Watch: ‘Armor of Light’ Explores the Intersection of Gun Culture and Evangelical Christianity
“Almost two children are killed every week in unintentional shootings,” wrote Reverend Rob Schenck in an USA Today editorial earlier this year. “The presence of a gun in the homes of women and...
Rihanna Becomes Subject of Documentary “Character Study,” First Black Spokeswoman for Dior
Rihanna’s world domination continues. Two weeks before the release of “Home,” in which the “Diamonds” singer voices a resourceful teenager who befriends a banished alien, Rihanna...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Jessica Edwards — ‘Mavis!’
Jessica Edwards has a broad background in the film industry as a director, producer and publicist. Her short film “Seltzer Works” screened at SXSW and many other festivals before airing on PBS....
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Alex Sichel and Elizabeth Giamatti — ‘A Woman Like Me’
Alex Sichel (Writer, Director) directed the feature “All Over Me”, released by New Line, which UCLA’s Journal of Cinema and Media Studies named one of the top films by women directors. All...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Director Phie Ambo & Producer Malene Flindt Pedersen — ‘Good Things Await’
PhieAmbo directed the film “Mechanical Love,” which was in the Joris Ivenscompetition in 2007. It has screened at 15 film festivals and won two first prizes. In 2005 she directed the film...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Alexandria Bombach and Mo Scarpelli — ‘Frame by Frame’
AlexandriaBombach is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker who lives on the road. The founder of Red Reel, Bombach is known to sell all her belongings to tell a story shebelieves in. Mo Scarpelli is a...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Betzabé García — ‘Kings of Nowhere (Los Reyes Del Pueblo Que No Existe)’
Betzabé García’s first feature documentary film, “Kings of Nowhere,” was thewinner of the Program of Promotion of Projects, the Cultural Joint Ventures ofthe National Fund for Culture and...
India’s Daughter: Can a Movie Change a Country’s Attitude Towards Women?
As I sit on this flight to India to participate in the American Film Showcase program, I can’tstop thinking about the documentary “India’s Daughter.” The filmmade headlines across the world...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Zuzanna Solakiewicz — ’15 Corners of the World’
Zuzanna Solakiewicz graduated from the University of Warsaw before going on to study directing at the Sam Spiegel Film & TV School in Jerusalem. She has completed an internship at the Lodz Film...
Trailer Watch: ‘Iris’ Makes Fashion Fun Again
“I didn’t give a damn about going to the party or being at the party, it was getting dressed for the party — and there’s truth and poetry in that,” says fashion icon Iris Apfel, the...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Samantha Futerman — ‘Twinsters’
Samantha Futerman is a Korean American adoptee from New Jersey. She attended the Professional Performing Arts School in New York City and graduated from Boston University in 2009 with a BFA in...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Lina Mannheimer — ‘The Ceremony’
After obtaining a degree in film and art history from the University of Nebrija in Madrid, Lina Mannheimer embarked on a Master’s of Science program at the Stockholm School of Economics. She also...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Olivia Wyatt — ‘Sailing A Sinking Sea’
Olivia Wyatt is a filmmaker and photographer based in Los Angeles. She is a member of the Sublime Frequencies film and music collective. Her first feature, “Staring Into the Sun,” is about...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Sara Hirsh Bordo — ‘A Brave Heart’
“A Brave Heart” is Sara Hirsh Bordo’s film directorial debut. She has held senior roles at Paramount Pictures and MGM Studios as Co-Founder of NowLive and Producer of TEDxAustinWomen. In 2012,...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Ondi Timoner — ‘BRAND: A Second Coming’ and ‘The Last Mile’
Director and producer Ondi Timoner won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance twice — for “Dig!” (2004) about the collision of art and commerce through the story of two bands and “We Live in...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Shannon Sun-Higginson — ‘GTFO: Get The F#$% Out’
Shannon Sun-Higginson is a documentary filmmaker from New York City. In 2009, her first documentary short, “Hapa Perspectives,” aired on Current TV. She has worked as a Production Coordinator...