Features
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Salima Koroma — ‘Bad Rap’
“Bad Rap” is Salima Koroma’s directorial debut. She’s a former video producer for Time Magazine, NowThis and Current TV. She is also a former hip-hop and K-pop news writer. Koroma is...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Amanda Micheli — ‘haveababy’
Amanda Micheli is an award-winning director and cinematographer. She earned an Oscar nomination for “La Corona,” which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival before airing on HBO. In 2004,...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Jenny Gage — ‘All This Panic’
Jenny Gage’s fine art work has appeared in gallery and museum shows throughout the world. Her commissioned work and portraits have been featured in publications including W, Vanity Fair and...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Katie Holmes — ‘All We Had’
Katie Holmes’ acting credits include “Touched With Fire,” “Woman in Gold,” “Ray Donovan,” “Batman Begins” and “Dawson’s Creek.” “All We Had” is her directorial...
Tribeca 2016 Preview: Films By and About Women to Catch At This Year’s Fest
The Tribeca Film Festival kicks off tomorrow. Only 33 percent of the films screening in the competition sections are directed by women. Still, the 15th edition of Tribeca features a significant...
Guest Post: Kaitlin McLaughlin On Rejecting ‘Likeable’ Female Characters for ‘Hostile Border’
“Hostile Border,” co-directed by Kaitlin McLoughlin, tells a story about a young undocumented woman (Veronica Sixtos) who is sent back to Mexico and gets involved with an charming drug smuggler...
10 Things We Learned About Karyn Kusama’s Tumultuous Career from Her BuzzFeed Profile
Filmmaker Karyn Kusama hit the scene at Sundance 2000 where she premiered her debut feature, “Girlfight,” before a crowd of thousands. The film, which starred a then-unknown Michelle Rodriguez...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Deborah S. Esquenazi — ‘Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four’
Deborah S. Esquenazi is an Austin-based documentary filmmaker, radio producer, instructor and journalist. Her work explores the intersections of mythology and justice, identity and power. Esquenazi...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Ingrid Jungermann — ‘Women Who Kill’
Ingrid Jungermann created the WGA-Nominated web series “F To 7th,” featuring Amy Sedaris, Michael Showalter and Gaby Hoffmann. A television version of “F To 7th” is currently in development,...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Kadri Kõusaar — ‘Mother’
Kadri Kõusaar is an Estonian novelist and film director. She has also worked as a radio DJ and television host, and has a universitydegree in Spanish language and literature. Kõusaar made her...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Leyla Bouzid — ‘As I Open My Eyes’
Leyla Bouzid is a Tunisian born and raised filmmaker. She studied French literature at the University of Paris and film directing at La Fémis. Her shorts “Soubresauts” (2011) and “Zakaria”...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Sara Taksler — ‘Tickling Giants’
A senior producer at “The Daily Show,” Sara Taksler has pitched stories and jokes, and researched footage for over a decade. Taksler directed and produced the feature documentary, “TWISTED: A...
Tribeca 2016 Women Directors: Meet Ellen Martinez and Steph Ching — ‘After Spring’
Ellen Martinez was the associate producer on “Tested,” a feature documentary about educational inequality in the NYC public school system. Steph Ching was the associate producer and additional...
Weekly Update for April 8: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week The Boss — Co-Written by Melissa McCarthy Melissa McCarthy headlines “The Boss” as a titan of industry who is sent to prison after she’s caught for...
Liz Garbus on Her Mother Son Doc ‘Nothing Left Unsaid: Gloria Vanderbilt & Anderson Cooper’
Liz Garbus’ films have been acclaimed worldwide and have garnered multiple Academy Award nominations and Emmy Award wins. Her previous film, “What Happened, Miss Simone?” was the Opening Night...
New Infographic Proves Hollywood Films Are Predominantly About Men
All too often, when female film fans assert that movies predominantly feature white men, we’re often challenged to “prove it.” Well now, thanks to researchers at Polygraph, we have more data...
Karyn Kusama on the Power of Grief and Denial in the Dinner Party from Hell, ‘The Invitation’
Karyn Kusama wrote and directed her first feature film, “Girlfight,” in 1999. The film won the Director’s Prize and shared the Grand Jury Prize at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, the Grand...
Lilibet Foster on ‘Spartacus’ Star Andy Whitfield’s Battle with Cancer in Doc ‘Be Here Now’
Lilibet Foster is an award-winning director, producer and writer of feature documentaries, television programs and integrated brand campaigns. She received an Oscar nomination for producing the...
A Highlander in Paris: ‘Outlander’ returns
“Outlander” is back on Saturday! This is great news, only slightly marred by the fact that the Season 2 is loosely based on Diana Gabaldon’s second book, which is — how do I break this to...
Gayle Kirschenbaum on Childhood Trauma and Forgiveness in ‘Look At Us Now, Mother!’
Gayle Kirschenbaum is an Emmy award-winning filmmaker, TV producer and personality. She is the producer and director of the documentary “My Nose,” based on Kirschenbaum’s experience with her...
Cross-Post: Let’s Make Female Directors More Visible
There’s this game that I play when I have trouble falling asleep: I start listing female film directors. I usually doze off when reaching number 20–25 — if my insomnia is particularly bad,...
Sarasota Film Fest 2016 Women Directors: Meet Deborah Kampmeier — ‘SPLit’
Deborah Kampmeier is an award-winning filmmaker and theater director. Kampmeier’s first feature film, “Virgin,” won several awards and was nominated for two 2004 Independent Spirit Awards. Her...
Weekly Update for April 1: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week No Home Movie (Documentary) — Written and Directed by Chantal Akerman “No Home Movie” is a portrait of director Chantal Akerman’s relationship with...
Humor Saves the Day (and the Marriage): ‘Catastrophe’ Returns
The wait is over: Season 2 of Amazon’s blissfully filthy-mouthed comedy “Catastrophe” premieres on Amazon Prime next Friday, and once again you will find yourself wishing it had three times as...
Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Paul Feig to Add Equity Clause to Future Film Contracts
Paul Feig continues to act as a much-needed champion for women in film. The “Ghostbusters” director and co-writer said that he would add an equity clause to his future film contracts that would...
April 2016 Film Preview
There are plenty of opportunities to catch a female-centric and/or women-directed film in April. The month kicks off with “God’s Not Dead 2,” starring Melissa Joan Hart. The former teen witch...
Guest Post: My Peek Under the Niqab — A Muslim Filmmaker’s Journey Breaking Her Own Stereotypes
In 2009, I quit my job as Gulf Correspondent for The Washington Post and decided to pursue filmmaking full-time. I had become a journalist to tell realistic stories about the Arab world, having...
Emmanuelle Bercot on Portraying the Juvenile Justice System in Cannes 2015 Opener ‘Standing Tall’
Multi-hyphenate Emmanuelle Bercot is one of the few French film talents able to seamlessly shift between acting, directing and writing. Much of her work has debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, from...
Announcing New Weekly Feature: Women Filmmaker Wednesdays
Women and Hollywood is always looking for engaging ways to celebrate women in the film industry and we’re incredibly excited to announce the launch of a brand new social media campaign. Because...
Why Imaginary Deaths Matter To Real-World Queer Women
While real-life terrors continue to abound for LGBT people, the question often arises why we should care about anything that happens in the make-believe world of entertainment. Who cares, the...
How Women of the Studio Era Took Control in ‘Independent Stardom’ Excerpt
First and foremost, I was motivated to write “Independent Stardom” by the talented women who are the subjects of my book, the female stars of Classic Hollywood in the 1930s. From a young age, I...
Weekly Update for March 25: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 — Written by Nia Vardalos Written by Academy Award-nominee Nia Vardalos, who stars alongside the entire returning cast of...
Women and POC Survive The Apocalypse: March 2016’s VOD and Web Series Picks
This month’s web series and VOD picks show the incredible range of content that women are contributing to the entertainment industry through alternative routes. For fans of dystopian series such...
Guest Post: Women of the West Offer New Perspectives on the American Stage
From John Wayne movies to the plays of Sam Shepard, the story of the American West has always been presented as a distinctly male experience. Cowboys and Indians, outlaws and frontiersman, ranchers...
Seeking Our Story: Personal Filmmaking with Allison Anders’ ‘Gas Food Lodging’
Allison Anders (b. 1954) began life in rural Kentucky. By age four her father abandoned the family and her mother packed up her five daughters to move to Los Angeles. After enduring abuse from a...
Listen: Women and Hollywood Podcast #26 — ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2’ Star and Writer Nia Vardalos
In 2002, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” opened on 108 screens, and thanks to major word-of-mouth buzz, went on to earn a domestic gross of $241 million. The film was made for $5 million. Fourteen...
Smile, Baby: How ‘The Catch’ Does Mireille Enos Wrong
I have a simple litmus test for female-centric shows and movies that almost never steers me wrong. It sounds petty, but it’s very revealing: Does the main character wear impractical footwear in...
20 Films By Women We Hope to See at Cannes
The Cannes Film Festival has been notoriously unkind to women. Between enforcing a ludicrous rule prohibiting women from wearing flats on the red carpet, to its usually low number of female...
Listen: Women and Hollywood Podcast #25 — ‘Consumed’ Star, Co-Writer and Producer Zoe Lister-Jones
Women and Hollywood spoke with the star, co-writer and producer of “Consumed,” Zoe Lister-Jones. The film addresses a hot topic — Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). Typically we see...
Weekly Update for March 18: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week The Divergent Series: Allegiant The third installment of the blockbuster Divergent series franchise, “Allegiant” takes Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo...
Quote of the Day: Melissa McCarthy Says ‘It’s Incredibly Important’ To Have More Women Directing
At a press conference for her upcoming comedy, “The Boss,” actress Melissa McCarthy emphasized the need for more female filmmakers in Hollywood. “I think it’s incredibly important,” she...
The Secret Lives of Women: March 2016’s Crowdfunding Picks
This month’s crowdfunding picks include a number of intriguing documentaries, plus two psychological thrillers. But what all these films have in common is their mission to bring to light the lives...
Fierce, Funny and Feminist: Nora Ephron in ‘Everything is Copy’
The new HBO documentary about the inimitable Nora Ephron is a lovely, wide-ranging portrait, with as many high-profile talking heads as you could possibly want (Meryl Streep analyzes her; Rob Reiner...
A Change of Culture Is Necessary for Hollywood Diversity Measures to Succeed
Yesterday, several prominent Asian-American Academy members, including Freida Lee Mock, Ang Lee, Sandra Oh and George Takei, sent a letter to the Academy’s Board of Governors protesting the...
‘Parisienne’ Director Danielle Arbid on Telling A Positive Story About a Foreigner Living in Paris
Danielle Arbid been directing films since 1997. Selected for numerous festivals in France and abroad (Cannes, New York Film Festival, San Francisco, Locarno, Pusan, Tokyo Filmex, etc.), her narrative...
SXSW 2016 Women Directors: Meet Stella Meghie — ‘Jean of the Joneses’
Stella Meghie has a blind script deal at Warner Brothers, a pilot in development with John Wells Productions, a comedy optioned by BET and a deal to pen a feature script for VH1. Meghie is a Tribeca...
SXSW 2016 Women Directors: Meet Anne Hamilton — ‘American Fable’
Anne Hamilton is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She got her start in the business as an intern on Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life.” Hamilton was selected to be one of eight women in the...
SXSW 2016 Women Directors: Meet Julia Hart — ‘Miss Stevens’
Julia Hart’s debut script “The Keeping Room” landed on the Black List and was made into a feature directed by Daniel Barber starring Brit Marling. She’s written for John Requa and Glenn...
Guest Post: Why Are People Concerned Directing Is “Too Much” for Women? We Can Handle It, Thanks
When I was a little girl my mother worked in an unheated factory five days a week and cleaned houses on weekends. Never once did anyone tell her, “Well, that’s too big a job for a woman.” Nor...
Guest Post: How the Female Directors in Film Fatales Are Tackling Hollywood’s Inclusion Problem
By now we have all heard the statistics. The film industry is facing a crisis of inclusion. According to research by the Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative at USC Annenberg, less than 20%...
Celebrate International Women’s Day With Films By and About Women
Happy International Women’s Day from the Women and Hollywood team. In honor of the occasion, we’ve asked our interns to highlight some of their favorite movies by and about women. They’ve...