Features
Ending the “Bury Your Gays” Trope Would Help Storytellers
How do you solve a problem like LGBT characters dying at disproportionate rates on American television? How do you catch a trope and pin it down? With the fandom uproar over the slew of LGBT...
Why Research on Women Filmmakers Matters To Us All
When I was an undergraduate, I wanted to be a filmmaker. I wrote an essay declaring I would be a woman director, who made films about women, with all-women crews. Today, I am an Associate Professor...
5 Reasons to Check Out Chelsea Handler’s New Gig on Netflix
On May 11, the deeply snarky Chelsea Handler comes back with a new talk show — the first for Netflix, premiering at 12:01 a.m. This means she’s officially back in the late-night club where,...
The Dudeocracy of Film Writers
Yesterday, Owen Gleiberman was appointed chief film critic at Variety. We congratulate him on the position, and consider him a great writer, but his hiring has capped off a bothersome trend we’ve...
U.S. Film Fests Screen Three Times as Many Male-Directed Narratives As Female Ones
New research from Dr. Martha Lauzen reveals that high-profile U.S. film festivals screen more than three times as many narrative films directed by men than women. It’s well-known that female...
Directors UK Research: “Systemic Bias Against Women Directors”
In one week most of the worldwide film industry will be in Cannes celebrating the “best in cinema.” There will be monumental press attention paid to these movies and these directors. While we...
Why Are We Ignoring Female-Centric Horror Films?
“The Boy” Women in horror movies get a bad rap. Don’t get me wrong — the majority of horror films in existence today are insulting to all female and female-identifying humans, with their...
Sexism and Misogyny Plague “Ghostbusters” Trailer Proving Even Male Directors Aren’t Immune
Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Kristen Wiig, and Leslie Jones in “Ghostbusters’: Sony It wasn’t a surprise when the announcement of Paul Feig’s all-female remake of “Ghostbusters” was...
May 2016 Film Preview
“Gayby Baby” There’s an array of choices to support female-centric and/or women-directed films in May. The month kicks off with “Gayby Baby,” a documentary that explores the increased...
“Game of Thrones” Season 6 Has Less Misogyny… For Now?
Did “Game of Thrones” take all the criticism about misogyny to heart? The plot of its season premiere would suggest so. While Season 6 kicked off with about the same level of crushing gloom and...
Friends, Family, and Strange Creatures: May 2016’s Crowdfunding Picks
“No Man’s Land” This month’s crowdfunding picks feature nuanced works by women directors looking to tell stories that don’t get told often enough. These picks examine family relationships,...
Weekly Update for April 22: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week The Meddler — Written and Directed by Lorene Scafaria (Opens in LA and NYC) Susan Sarandon is every young woman’s nightmare — a mom with nothing...
Prince, Queer Girls and the Permission to be Weird
The permission to be weird isn’t so much granted as it is finally realized. Yet if you were a queer kid growing up in the 1980s, the permission to be weird was something you thought would never...
Prince, Queer Girls and the Permission to be Weird
The permission to be weird isn’t so much granted as it is finally realized. Yet if you were a queer kid growing up in the 1980s, the permission to be weird was something you thought would...
Katherine Heigl Clarifies Her ‘Knocked Up’ Comments But She Was Right All Along
Katherine Heigl seems to have begun an apology tour for the nearly decade-old “Knocked Up” scandal that simply seems rooted in sexism. Appearing on Howard Stern this week, Heigl referenced her...
Jennifer Peedom Explains Why She Showed Everest from a Different Perspective in ‘Sherpa’
Jennifer Peedom is an Australian documentary filmmaker based in Sydney. Her television credits include high-altitude direction and cinematography on the Discovery Channel’s “Everest: Beyond the...
‘Inside Amy Schumer’ Now with Less Self-Loathing
Welcome back to Comedy Central, Amy Schumer — although as the comic has noted in a trailer for the new season, premiering tonight, it’s not exactly like she’s been off the radar on her...
Katherine Heigl Clarifies Her “Knocked Up” Comments But She Was Right All Along
Katherine Heigl seems to have begun an apology tour for the nearly decade-old “Knocked Up” scandal that simply seems rooted in sexism. Appearing on Howard Stern this week, Heigl referenced her...
“Inside Amy Schumer” Now with Less Self-Loathing
Welcome back to Comedy Central, Amy Schumer — although as the comic has noted in a trailer for the new season, premiering tonight, it’s not exactly like she’s been off the radar on her...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Maura Axelrod — ‘Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back’
Maura Axelrod has been producing news and documentaries for over 15 years. She began at ABC News in New York as a writer and producer. She lived and worked as producer for AP Television News in the...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Kristi Zea — ‘Everybody Knows… Elizabeth Murray’
“Everybody Knows… Elizabeth Murray” is the documentary directorial debut for Kristi Zea, a two time Oscar-nominated production designer and producer. Her narrative directorial debut...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Nancy Buirski — ‘By Sidney Lumet’
Nancy Buirski’s documentary “Afternoon of a Faun” (2013) had its world premiere at the 51st New York Film Festival and international premiere at the 64th Berlinale. She is the director,...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Sophie Goodhart — ‘My Blind Brother’
Sophie Goodhart began her career in news and documentaries for UK television. She is perhaps best known for her short film “My Blind Brother,” which screened in competition at Cannes in 2003...
Listen: Women and Hollywood Podcast #26 — ‘The Night Manager’ Director Susanne Bier
Women and Hollywood spoke with Danish helmer Susanne Bier about her role in bringing one of this year’s most addictive series, “The Night Manager,” to the small-screen. Bier directed all six...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Meera Menon — ‘Equity’
Meera Menon was recently selected to be a fellow at 20thCentury Fox’s Global Directors initiative. Her directorialdebut, “Farah Goes Bang,” premiered at the TribecaFilm Festival, where Menon...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Lorene Scafaria — ‘The Meddler’
Lorene Scafaria made her directorial debut with her original screenplay “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World,” starring Steve Carell and Keira Knightley. She also adapted the young adult...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Liza Johnson — ‘Elvis & Nixon’
Liza Jonhnson is a writer and director whose feature films “Return” (2011) and “Hateship Loveship” (2013) have screened at the Cannes, Toronto, New York, Berlin and Rotterdam film festivals,...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Ferne Pearlstein — ‘The Last Laugh’
Ferne Pearlstein is is a prize-winning cinematographer, a feature film editor and a writer/director whose work has won numerous awards and been screened and broadcast around the world. In 2003...
Guest Post: A Woman in Film Highlights Women in Science
Years ago, when my husband, Hal, and I first arrived as young filmmaking partners in Washington, D.C., the first person I met was the wife of a fellow filmmaker. After talking to her briefly, it...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Tracy Droz Tragos — ‘Abortion: Stories Women Tell’
Tracy Droz Tragos is an award-winning independent filmmaker. Tragos’ “Rich Hill” explored rural poverty through the intimate lens of vulnerable adolescents and their families struggling for a...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Vanessa Gould — ‘Obit’
Vanessa Gould is a filmmaker, editor and camera operator working in Brooklyn. Her film “Between The Folds” premiered on PBS’s “Independent Lens” in December 2009 and was re-broadcast the...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway — ‘The Return’
Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega are documentary directors, producers and screenwriters whose work explores the intersections of institutional power, civil and human rights and political...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Priscilla Anany — ‘Children of the Mountain’
Priscilla Anany was born in Ghana and migrated to the U.S. She studied Fine Arts at the University of North Carolina’s School of Arts’ School of Filmmaking and obtained her Master’s degree in...
Weekly Update for April 15: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Sky — Directed by Fabienne Berthaud; Co-Written by Fabienne Berthhaud and Lucy Allwood Fleeing from the scene of a terrible crime, a young woman (Diane...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Stéphanie Gillard — ‘The Ride’
Stéphanie Gillard’s first documentary, “Une histoire de ballon,” explored the meeting point of oral tradition and soccer culture in Cameroon. She made a second documentary in 2009 in...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Kristi Jacobson — ‘Solitary’
Kristi Jacobson’s 2013 film “A Place at the Table” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film won the IDA’s prestigious Pare Lorentz Award and was nominated for Best Feature...
‘Echo Park’ Director Amanda Marsalis Talks Race, Gentrification and Love
Director Amanda Marsalis is a photographer for publications including Vogue, Conde Nast Traveler, GQ and The Guardian, as well as a commercial director. Marsalis is an Echo Park resident. Her unique...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Marina Person — ‘California’
Director, TV show host and actress, Marina Person graduated in Cinema from the University of São Paulo. She directed the 2007 feature documentary “Person,” selected for the Locarno and Trieste...
Shamim Sarif on Her Politically-Charged Romance ‘Despite the Falling Snow’
Shamim Sarif is an award-winning novelist, screenwriter and film director who has spoken at TED events in London, Jerusalem and India. Her and her partner Hanan Kattan are founders of the...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Rachel Tunnard — ‘Adult Life Skills’
Rachel Tunnard is a writer, director and editor. She is a BAFTA “Brit to Watch” and was named as one of the “Creative England 50” in 2015. Her short film “Emotional Fusebox” was...
Pamela Romanowsky on the Past and the Mysteries of Our Minds in ‘The Adderall Diaries’
Pamela Romanowsky is a Brooklyn-based writer and director. She is an alumnus of The Sundance Institute’s Screenwriting, Directing, and Composition & Sound labs and the Creative Producing...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Deb Shoval — ‘AWOL’
Deb Shoval was raised by her Israeli father and American mother in a Pennsylvania coal town, where she now runs an organic vegetable farm. Shoval’s short film “AWOL” premiered at Sundance...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Alma Har’el — ‘LoveTrue’
Alma Har’el is a music video and film director, best known for her documentary “Bombay Beach,” which took the top prize at Tribeca Film Festival in 2011, received a nomination for a 2011...
‘Orphan Black’ Returns, Looks Back
“Orphan Black,” the BBC’s endlessly twisty clone thriller, kicks off its new season tonight (if your memory’s hazy, you can get up to speed here). Thankfully, the show seems to have found a...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Lydia Tenaglia — ‘Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent’
Lydia Tenaglia is co-founder and executive producer of ZeroPoint Zero Production, Inc. (ZPZ), creators of the Emmy- and Peabody- Award winningseries, “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown” and...
Meryl Goldsmith On Fighting a Medical Standard in ‘The Syndrome’
Meryl Goldsmith is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker who got her bachelor’s degree in Film and Video from the University of Michigan. Goldsmith teamed up with an investigative journalist on her...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Sonia Kennebeck — ‘National Bird’
Sonia Kennebeck is an independent documentary filmmaker and investigative journalist who has worked for CNN and German public television’s highest-rated and longest-running current affairs...
What Women Do For Love: April 2016’s Crowdfunding Picks
This month’s crowdfunding picks are centered on the importance of love in the lives of women. Whether romantic or familial, love is the impetus driving the female protagonists in this month’s...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Dana Flor — ‘Check It’
Dana Flor wrote anddirected the Emmy award-winning documentary “Latinos in Beisbol,” and theEmmy-nominated documentary “Cesar Chavez” for NBC. Flor wrote and producedthe two-hour special...
‘Confirmation’ Proves Why Anita Hill Still Matters
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Ester Gould — ‘Strike a Pose’
Ester Gould has been directing her own documentaries for Dutch public broadcasters since 2005. Her first feature-length documentary, “Shout,” jointly directed with Sabine Lubbe Bakker and shot...