Features
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Åse Svenheim Drivenes — ‘Maiko: Dancing Child’
Åse Svenheim Drivenes is a Norwegian-born filmmaker who made herdirectorial debut with the documentary “Our Man in Kirkenes” (2010), which screened on NRK (Norway’s BBC) and YLE (Finland’s...
June 2015’s Noteworthy Women-Centric Crowdfunding Projects: ‘Sweetening the Pill,’ ‘Creased,’ ‘Faith’
A little help can go a long way when it comes to crowdfunding campaigns, and we’re here to spread the word about a few notable film projects trying to get their financial footing. While these...
Weekly Update for June 12: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Madame Bovary — Directed and Co-Written by Sophie Barthes (Also available on VOD) Set in Normandy, France, this is the classic story of Emma Bovary (Mia...
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Chai Vasarhelyi — ‘Incorruptible’
Elizabeth “Chai” Vasarhelyi’sfilms as a director include “Meru,” winner of the Audience Award for US Documentary at Sundance 2015; “Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love”...
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Renee Tajima-Peña — ‘No Más Bebés’
Renee Tajima-Peña is an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker whose directing credits include “Calavera Highway,” a road movie influenced by the novelist Juan Rulfo, about her husband Armando...
How LA Film Festival Achieved Diversity by “Looking for People Who Are Seeing the World Differently”
The 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival features one of the most diverse programming slates among major festivals, with 40% of features directed by women and almost 30% helmed by filmmakers of color (not...
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Anna Axster — ‘A Country Called Home’
As a writer, director and producer, Anna Axster has been making films and music videos for more than 10 years, many of which have screened in festivals around the world and been viewed more than...
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Negin Farsad — ‘3rd Street Blackout’
Negin Farsad is an Iranian-American comedienne andfilmmaker. In addition to being selected as a TEDFellow, Farsad was namedone of the 50 Funniest Women by the Huffington Post and one of Good...
Bedbugs, Blue Energy and Big Boo: “Orange is the New Black” is Back
Slight spoilers ahead for the first four episodes of Season 3. Previously on “OITNB”: Baddie Vee (Lorraine Toussaint) terrorized the population for most of Season 2 before getting bumped off by...
Guest Post: Viewing Hollywood’s Woman Problem as a Pressing Creative Opportunity
I’m excited these days. I’m excited because people in our business are finally talking about women in film in the most open and honest way I’ve seen in a longtime and that’s a very good...
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Daphne McWilliams — ‘In a Perfect World…’
Daphne McWilliams began her producing career by producing music videos for artists such as Blues Traveler, Notorious BIG and Queen Latifah. In 1995, she was hired to line produce the Academy...
‘Testament of Youth’ Should be a Slam-Dunk Case for Awards Consideration, So Why Isn’t It?
The war drama “Testament of Youth” opened in the US this past Friday, and I don’t understand why more people aren’t paying attention to it for the end-of-year awards race. Yes, I know it’s...
Why Pixar Whiz Pete Docter Decided to Enter a Young Girl’s Mind — and Turn Your Emotions Inside Out
Pixar has always invented memorable female characters, ranging from Jessie the cowgirl in “Toy Story 2” and Dory the forgetful fish in “Finding Nemo” to superhero Elastigirl in “The...
Human Rights Watch FF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Laura Nix — ‘The Yes Men Are Revolting’
Laura Nix is an independent filmmaker committed to exploringprovocative characters and subject matter. She directed the documentary “TheLight In Her Eyes,” about a Syrian Quran school for women,...
Human Rights Watch FF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Gini Reticker — ‘The Trials of Spring’
GiniReticker is the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning producer and director of “Pray the Devil Goes Back to Hell,” “Asylum,” and the celebrated PBS Series, “Women, War & Peace.” She...
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Emily Ting — ‘It’s Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong’
Emily Tingis a graduate of the film/TV program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Ting has directedseveral shorts that have screened at film festivals across the nation andbroadcast on cable...
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Marya Cohn — ‘The Girl in the Book’
Marya Cohn is the award-winning writer/directorof the feature film “The Girl in the Book,” starring Emily Van Camp and MichaelNyqvist. Her short film, “Developing,” starring Natalie Portman...
Human Rights Watch FF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Tamara Erde — ‘This Is My Land’
Tamara Erde is a French-Israeli filmmakerliving and working in Paris. She often deals in her work with politicaland social issues focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Her works mixesher...
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Delila Vallot — ‘Can You Dig This’
Delila Vallot isan actress, dancer and director, born and raised in Hollywood, California. Inher career, she has worked with some of the most well-known choreographersto date, including Vince...
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Maggie Kiley — ‘Caught’
Filmmaker and actress Maggie Kiley was one of eight directors selected for the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women and one of twenty accomplished filmmakers chosen for the...
Country Music and Cannes: Blaming Women for Sexism
At first glance,country music and the Cannes Film Festival couldn’t appear more culturallydifferent. And yet, recent events reveal that some high-profile individualsassociated with these...
June 2015’s New & Noteworthy Women-Created VOD & Webseries: Inclusive Gaming and Online Dating
This week’s female-centric VOD releases and noteworthy webseries are not to be missed. On the VOD front, we have two documentaries that have garnered some well-deserved buzz over the last few...
Weekly Update for June 5: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Spy — Pick of the Week Melissa McCarthy finally gets the star vehicle worthy of her in “Spy,” a jet-setting caper that hilariously deconstructs the...
Gender and Identity in the Wachowskis’ “Sense8” on Netflix
Ever since “The Matrix,” I’ve been hoping the Wachowskis (formerly the Wachowski brothers) would do something else really worthwhile. I’m not sure if the directing duo’s “Sense8” (on...
How The Lilly Awards Help Make Women’s Stories Matter
The recipients of this year’s Lilly Awards gathered onthe stage of Off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons Monday afternoon and remained thereas all the awards were presented, chatting, laughing,...
Quote of the Day: Simon Pegg Complains “Men Tend to Write Women as Their Fantasy”
Simon Pegg recently confessed something he said is likely to get him into trouble. “I think women write men better than men write women,” the actor contended. “Men tend to write women as...
Update!: 115 Films By and About Women of Color, and What We Can Learn From Them
The response was overwhelming after we posted the original list of 84Films By and About Women of Color, which came from a recent Twitterconversation led by director Ava DuVernay. Not only was the...
Study: How Much Older Are Male Leads in Romantic Films than Their Female Co-Stars?
Last week, Oscar-nominated actress Maggie Gyllenhaal revealed that, by Hollywood standards, she was “too old” to play the on-screen love interest of a 55-year-old man. She’s 37. Following...
June 2015 Film Preview
Summer brings more great news for those of us who long to see women-centric films in theaters.Many of the biggest and most anticipated films of the season are aboutwomen — and a fair portion...
Weekly Update for May 29: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Gemma Bovery — Co-Written and Directed by Anne Fontaine Life begins to imitate art in uncanny ways when earthy British beauty Gemma (Gemma Arterton) and her...
Review: Lifetime’s ‘Unreal’ is Real Good
Quote of the Day: George Clooney on Hollywood’s Pay Gap, the Under-Employment of Female Directors
George Clooney is weighing in on what have become two very hot topics in Hollywood: the pay disparity between male and female actors and the lack of opportunities for female directors. “One good...
A Gender Quake in the Film World
From my latest Forbes post on the sudden but momentous political progress women in film have made this month: “These last two weeks have been the most important moments in the fight for gender...
Inside Out 2015 Women Directors: Meet Na Torres — ‘Liz in September’
Na Torres is currently adirector/writer/producer who brings experience from all areas of filmmaking to her work. In 1985, Torres won the CannesFestival Camera d’Or, among twelve other...
Read: The ACLU’s Letter to the EEOC Citing Employment Discrimination Against Women Directors
Two weeks ago, the ACLU sent letters to three government agencies requesting an investigation into the gender-based discrimination against women directors in the film and TV industries. The...
Inside Out 2015 Women Directors: Meet Christina Zeidler — ‘Portrait of a Serial Monogamist’
Christina Zeidler is a film and video artist with over thirtytitles in distribution. Zeidler is one half of the Euro-electronica-pop-diva sensation “ina unt ina” and part of the high-conceptart...
Get Involved: A Call to Action about the Representation of Women at the Tony Awards
On June 7th, when girls across the country turnon the Tony Awards, what do you want them to see? This is the question we’re posing to the Tony AwardsManagement Committee and CBS in a petition...
Cannes’ Heelgate: What Women in Heels Really Think (CARTOON)
Liza Donnelly is a contract cartoonist and writer with The New Yorker Magazine, where she has been drawing cartoons about culture and politics for over thirty years. She is also a columnist and...
7 Queer Female Filmmakers to Watch for in 2015
In what is already shaping up to be an exciting year for lesbian features, with both “Carol” and “Freeheld” sporting high-profile casts and higher expectations, queer female filmmakers are...
First Kill, First Wave, First Love and First Unemployment Line: New Women-Centric VOD and Webseries
In both real life and fictional narratives, there is always a turning point in the story, a catalytic moment when everything begins to change. Whatever happens going forward can be traced back to...
Weekly Update for May 22: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Aloft — Directed and Written by Claudia Llosa As we follow a mother (Jennifer Connelly) and her son (Cillian Murphy), we delve into a past marred by an...
Inside Out 2015 Women Directors: Meet Barbara Hammer — ‘Welcome to This House, a Film on Elizabeth Bishop’
A highly prolific filmmakerand videographer, Barbara Hammer has directed over eighty films and videos in acareer that spans 40 years. She is considered a pioneer of queer cinema. Hammer made the...
84 Films By and About Women of Color, Courtesy of Ava DuVernay and the Good People of Twitter
If you were on Twitter recently, you might have seendirector Ava DuVernay’s clever call to social media to name films with “black,brown, native or Asian women leads” which were also directed...
Sexual Violence on “Outlander” vs. “Game of Thrones”
Quote of the Day: Gina Prince-Bythewood Supports ACLU Action, Declares “Talent Has No Gender”
Director Gina Prince-Bythewood (“Beyond the Lights,” “The Secret Life of Bees”) has released a statement voicing her support of the ACLU’s request for the government to investigate sexist...
Natalie Portman on the “Vanity” of Women’s Movies (Bonus: Watch a Clip from Her Directorial Debut)
“I had wanted to direct for as long as I can remember,” recalled Natalie Portman in a Cannes interview to promote her first film, “A Tale of Love and Darkness.” But the Oscar-winning was...
Cannes 2015 Women Directors: Meet Chloé Zhao — ‘Songs My Brothers Taught Me’
Chloé Zhao was raised in Beijing and England and is currently a MFA thesis student at New York University’s graduate film program. She was selected as a fellow at the 2012 Sundance Directors and...
May 2015’s Noteworthy Women-Centric Crowdfunding Projects
Last month, we at Women and Hollywood started a new feature spotlighting women-centric crowdfunding projects that we feel deserve attention and support. This month’s crowdfunding selections vary...
Oops! I Made a Feminist Manifesto: George Miller and “Mad Max”
It’s been three days since I saw “Mad Max: Fury Road” and I still can’t shut up about how phenomenal it was. I often think of this Onion article when attempting to reconcile my love of...
Weekly Update for May 15: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Mad Max: Fury Road — Women-Centric Pick of the Week This post-apocalyptic feminist action-adventure story features Charlize Theron in her most kick-ass role...
Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Ethan Hawke Speaks Out Against “Movie Business [Being] a Boys Club”
During a press tour for his latest film, Ethan Hawke spoke out against the “boys club” that runs Hollywood. Feminism appears to have little to do with the thriller “Good Kill,” but when...