Features
Julie Klausner’s a Master of the Poison Pen With ‘Difficult People’
The Women of Color Heroes We Both Need and Deserve
This summer has been a pretty big one for nerd culture so far. Nerd Christmas came and went with this year’s San Diego Comic-Con”: “Ant-Man” premiered; the trailers for “Superman v....
Weekly Update for July 31: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Jenny’s Wedding — Written and Directed by Mary Agnes Donoghue When Jenny Farell (Katherine Heigl) decides to marry the love of her life, Kitty (Alexis...
Seeking Our Story: Directing the Summer Blockbuster: Mimi Leder’s DEEP IMPACT
Seeking Our Story iscelebrating the summer with Mimi Leder’s blockbuster “Deep Impact.” Leder (b. 1952) grew up in New York City witha mother, Etyl Leder, who played classical piano, and a...
Embracing the Female Gaze
WhenI started writing Women and Hollywood almost eight years ago, the two thingsthat shaped my feminist consciousness were Molly Haskell’s “From Reverence to Rape: TheTreatment of Women in the...
With ‘Another Period,’ Comedy Central Is Officially All About the Ladies
August 2015 Film Preview
Get ready: August will see the releases of a number of female-driven narratives. Furiosa may have driven out of the box office into the sunset — meaning “Mad Max: Fury Road” is now on...
Sex-Trafficking Survivors, Pauline Kael and Boxers in Burqas: July 2015’s Crowdfunding Projects
Women have plenty to fight for, and in our picks for this week’s women-centric crowdfunding projects, we see women in battle — for freedom, against sex trafficking, for their right to know...
‘Le Dep’ Director Sonia Bonspille Boileau on the Need for Better Representations of Indigenous Women
Two Canadian First Nation women — a director from theKanesatake Mohawk tribe and an actress from the Uashat mak Mani-Utenam community — teamed up recently to make one of the first-ever...
2015 Awards Season Preview: Meryl vs. Sandra vs. Cate vs. Julianne vs. Jessica?
Sandra Bullock’s “Our Brand is Crisis,” a drama about US political strategists scheming to re-elect an unpopular Bolivian president, has just been added to the awards season calendar with a...
Weekly Update for July 24: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Unexpected — Directed by Kris Swanberg; Written by Megan Mercier and Kris Swanberg Rarely do we see stories about pregnancy represented onscreen. Rarer...
Guest Post: Why You Should Consider Embracing the Punk Rock Ethos by Editing Your Doc Yourself
Jessica Yu. Ondi Timoner. Naomi Kawase. What do these names all have in common? Yes, they’re all successful female documentarians. But theyhave something else in common. Something you may not...
The Groundbreaking Gyno-Humor of Amazon’s Realistic Rom Com ‘Catastrophe’
“Catastrophe,” the Amazon sitcom by Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney about a bi-continental couple dealing with an accidental pregnancy resulting from a casual hookup, has been called “the best...
Kris Swanberg Talks ‘Unexpected’: Female Collabs and Complicated Female Protagonists
Rarely do we see stories about pregnancy represented onscreen. Rarer still are depictions where mothers-to-be have seriously conflicted feelings about the imminent arrival of their bundles of...
“Mad If I Don’t, Mad If I Do”: Amandla Stenberg and Nicki Minaj’s Uphill Battle to Be Heard
If you work hard to keep all things Kardashian out of your mind, you may have missed the recent online kerfuffle between Kylie Jenner and “Hunger Games” actress Amandla Stenberg. Last week,...
The Hustle and Homesickness of Being an Artist of Color: July’s Web Series and VOD Picks
It’s hard to make it in the city, not least in the world of entertainment. Our two July picks for web series both feature strugglingartists trying to succeed. The Spurlock sisters’ satirical...
Guest Post: Midwives Finally Get the Spotlight They Deserve in ‘The Mama Sherpas’
After having myfirst child, I always got a lump in my throat when noting that my son was bornvia cesarean birth. Whether rational or irrational, I felt a sense of failure that my body couldn’t do...
The Art of Discovery: Jane Anderson discusses ‘Packed in a Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson’
Jane Anderson is an award winning playwright, screenwriter and director. As well as being nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Dramatic Series for her work on the second season of...
Weekly Update for July 17: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Trainwreck — Written by Amy Schumer It’s Amy Schumer’s time. The woman is everywhere, mostly in a good way. She’s brash, funny, feminist and riding...
How Girl Power Made This Year’s Comic-Con the Best in Recent Memory
Comic-Concarried me away this year — sometimes quite literally. As I exited Hall H on Sunday and was swept into a direction I didn’t mean to go by a wave ofthousands, I thought about my...
Guest Post: Directing Young Men as a Female Filmmaker
A few years ago, if you had told me that myfirst feature would follow three ten-year-old boys growing up in Palo Alto in1985, I probably wouldn’t have believed you — especially since one is...
Weekly Update for July 10: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Tangerine It’s Christmas Eve in Tinseltown, and Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) is back on the block. Upon hearing that her pimp boyfriend hasn’t been...
Guest Post: The Challenges of Making Docs About Women and Why It’s So Crucial to Overcome Them
When I began work on “In The Game” almost six years ago, I assumed that in terms of funding and distribution it would be like shooting into an open goal. It was a film that was going to look at...
Guest Post: How ‘Mad Women’ Helped Me Appreciate My Female Perspective as A Cinematographer
Since I started my cinematography career, I am often asked “what it means to be a woman cinematographer.” After rephrasing the question as “what it means to be a cinematographer” I simply...
Why Do Sitcoms Keeping It Real Offend You?
Theother night, at a bar I was far too tired to be at, I was talking to a writerfriend (of a friend) about the ever-talked about problem of diversity inHollywood. You see, bar conversations in...
Pride, Protest and Questioning Convention: Crowdfunding Campaigns
In a media-centric society where women’svoices are often drowned by a deluge of mainstream, male-dominated narratives,it is all too easy for any alternative story to slip underneath our radar. The...
Guest Post: So, Where Are The Women Onscreen?
The topic of women’s representation on the silver screen — as in: it’s terrible — is having a moment this year. A big one. Everyone seems to be talking about it, like Maggie...
Quote of the Day: Sandra Bullock Condemns Open Hunting Season on Women
People magazine recently named Sandra Bullock the World’s Most Beautiful Woman in 2015, and “The Blind Side” actress has used the press surrounding this announcement and her upcoming role in...
Katniss Everdeen, Art Heroines and Geek Fashion: Women and Hollywood’s 2015 Comic-Con Preview
Comic-Con is an unavoidable beast, and I use the word “beast” with great affection. Even if you’re not especially into geek-flavored pop culture, the convention is almost certainly on your...
Weekly Update for July 3: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening Amy (Documentary) Despite just two albums to her name, Amy Winehouse is one of the biggest music icons in British history. With a voice oft described as a combination of...
July 2015’s New & Noteworthy Women-Created VOD/Webseries: Black Actresses, Desperate Delivery Girls
Both of our VOD picks of the week happen to skew dramatic, focusing on the importance of relationships, be it with your community or your family. Filmmaker Monika Truet’s coming-of-age story “Of...
Amy Schumer and the Freedom to Be an A — hole
July 2015’s New & Noteworthy Women-Created VOD/Webseries: Black Actresses, Desperate Delivery Girls
Both of our VOD picks of the week happen to skew dramatic, focusing on the importance of relationships, be it with your community or your family. Filmmaker Monika Truet’s coming-of-age...
Guest Post: Making Films for and About Canadian Native Women — And Competing at Karlovy Vary FF
SoniaBonspille Boileau is the first female director ofCanadian native origins (Mohawk) to have her debut feature premiere at a majorinternational festival. “Le Dep” premieres this Saturday, July...
July 2015 Film Preview
July brings us heat waves and hyped films, with reboots of big action franchises (“Terminator: Genisys”), projects that are predicted to bring a star on the cusp to full-blown supernova status...
More of June 2015’s Noteworthy Women-Centric Crowdfunding Projects: Black Beauty, Life After Death
This week’s featured women-centric crowdfunding projects may differ in style, message, and tone, but each one focuses on the self. Whether it’s finding the person you are or leaving behind the...
Weekly Update for June 26: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week A Little Chaos — Co-Written by Alison Deegan A drama following Sabine (Kate Winslet), a strong-willed and talented landscape designer who is chosen to build...
Ten Lesbian Films for Pride Month That Show How Far We’ve Come
We’ve come a long way, baby. As celebrations continue across the country for LGBT Pride Month (especially after the Supreme Court decision making gay marriage legal in all fifty states), it’s a...
Guest Post: It Starts With a Pronoun
On June 23, my documentary, “A Self-Made Man,” aired onAmerica Reframed. After a successful festival run, this was its broadcast premiere. I used to get quite nervous when I had to speak about...
‘Runoff’ Director Kimberly Levin on Shooting on a Working Farm and Collecting Cow and Hog Sounds
Kimberly Levin makes her feature directorial debut with “Runoff,” a drama about a desperate woman forced to make choices when she isn’t even sure what the right thing to do would be. The...
Quote of the Day: Julie Taymor on Why Awards Matter for Women
Julie Taymor, the first woman to win a Tony for directing a musical, recently spoke out about the invaluable effect that women winning awards can have. When The Stage asked Taymor if female...
Weekly Update for June 19: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Inside Out (Pick of the Week) Pixar’s latest film is nothing short of brilliant. Taking place within the colorful labyrinth of an 11-year-old girl’s brain,...
Acting, Writing, Directing: Regina Taylor on What Motivates Her
This past year, whileappearing on USA Network’s “Dig” as Ambassador Riddell, I’ve beenre-mounting a play, “stop.reset.,” that I first wrote and directed for the Signature Theatre Company...
Why This Season of ‘Game of Thrones’ Will Be My Last
Spoilers for the show’s finale follow. I really thought I had said all I had to say about “Game of Thrones,” which concluded on Sunday with a finale that killed off one of the few likable...
1700 People Have Signed the ACLU Petition. Have You?
Less than a month ago, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) launched a petition with the hopes of gaining more support and momentum in the struggle to end the industry’s gender-biased hiring...
New and Noteworthy VOD Films and Webseries: May 2015: Soul Singers and Sex Workers
The turbulent stories of two iconic black musicians rise to the top of this month’s VOD picks, albeit in different forms. “Bessie,” the HBO biopic starring Queen Latifah, earned rave reviews...
Listen: Melissa Silverstein, Nicole Kidman, Others Discuss Gender Inequality in Hollywood on NPR
“That a movie with a female protagonist can be a big hit is no surprise, but for those who want to see more gender parity in Hollywood, the opportunities for women to make and star in blockbusters...
Sexism in Theatre Infographic: Women Fill 9% of Sound Jobs, Underrepresented in Most Design Fields
In our Spring 2015 theatre preview, Shoshana Greenberg wrote that “Broadwaycan be a disheartening place for women. Too few are represented as writers anddirectors, and women’s stories don’t...
Crosspost: In Hollywood’s King’s Guard, Women Directors Are All Brienne of Tarth
The following is cross-posted from Lexi Alexander’s blog with permission of the author. It has been slightly edited from the original. “All my life, men like you’ve sneered at me, and all my...
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Lyn Goldfarb — ‘Bridging the Divide: Tom Bradley and the Politics of Race’
Lyn Goldfarb is an Academy Award-nominated andaward-winning filmmaker specializing in historical and social-issuedocumentaries for PBS and major cable. Her series and documentaries include “The...
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Kaitlin McLaughlin — ‘Pocha (Manifest Destiny)’
Kaitlin McLaughlin is an award-winning writer/director. Her debut feature, “Pocha (Manifest Destiny),” will premiere at the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival. She wrote and co-directed the indie...