Festivals
Valérie Donzelli Will Preside Over Critics’ Week Jury at Cannes
French director and actress Valérie Donzelli will preside over the Critics’ Week jury at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Donzelli’s own film, the autobiographical “Declaration of War,”...
Michelle Obama Addresses Female Empowerment and Education at SXSW Panel
On Wednesday, First Lady Michelle Obama spoke at a panel at SXSW where women’s empowerment was the main focus. Joined on stage by actress Sophia Bush (Chicago P.D.), songwriter Diane Warren and...
San Francisco Film Society Announces Films in Competition for Golden Gate Awards, 35% Female-Helmed
The San Francisco Film Society has announced the films in competition for the Narrative Feature and Documentary Feature Golden Gate Awards, which will be presented at the San Francisco International...
Jodie Foster’s ‘Money Monster’ to Screen at Cannes
It’s looking as though Jodie Foster’s “Money Monster” will make its world premiere at Cannes. The drama, starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney, hasn’t officially been confirmed as part...
Naomi Kawase to Head Cinefondation and Short Film Jury at Cannes
The youngest-ever winner of the Camera d’Or continues to make waves at the Cannes Film Festival. Naomi Kawase has been named as the president of both the Cinefondation section and Short Film...
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...
16 Emerging Filmmakers Sent to Cannes, Only 4 Are Women
16 emerging filmmakers are headed to Cannes Film Festival — but only a quarter of them are women. L’Atelier de la Cinéfondation will host the directors at the 2016 edition of the...
14 Women Directors Included in Second Half of Tribeca Fest’s Feature Film Lineup
The Tribeca Film Festival has announced the second half of its feature slate for 2016. This newly announced 55-film lineup is 25% female directed, with the work of 14 women directors being featured...
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...
Tribeca Film Festival Announces 2016 Competition Lineup That’s 33% Female-Helmed
The competition slate for the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival has been announced. The 15th edition of the New York-based festival features three competition sections: U.S. Narrative, International...
4 Women-Directed Gothenburg Film Fest Features to Put on Your Radar
This is the third of three dispatches from the 2016 Gothenburg International Film Festival. As the largest film festival in Scandinavia, the world’s leader in gender equality, the Gothenburg...
Full Frame to Honor Director/Cinematographer Kirsten Johnson With Award, Retrospective
Filmmaker Kirsten Johnson will be feted at the 2016 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Johnson will receive this year’s Tribute Award and have her 27-year career behind the camera showcased in...
Maggie Greenwald’s Interracial Romance ‘Sophie and the Rising Sun’ Secures Representation
Writer-director Maggie Greenwald’s “Sophie and the Rising Sun” will be represented by Entertainment One’s Seville International. The sales agent acquired the exclusive rights to all regions...
Dawn Porter’s Abortion Doc ‘Trapped’ Gets Distribution Deal
Dawn Porter’s “Trapped” has landed a distribution deal. Trilogy Films, Big Mouth Productions, Cedar Creek Productions and Chicken & Egg Pictures have announced a partnership with Ro*Co...
Paul Feig Named As the Recipient of the Inaugural Athena Leading Man Award at Athena Film Fest
Paul Feig has been named the recipient of the inaugural Athena Leading Man Award by the Athena Film Festival, an annual celebration of women and leadership. The “Ghostbusters” helmer is the first...
SXSW Announces Most of Its 2016 Lineup: Competition Sections Are 40% Female-Helmed
South by Southwest has announced the bulk of its 2016 lineup, and eight of twenty films in competition are female-helmed or co-helmed: That amounts to a not-at-all shabby 40%. In 2015, only 25% of...
Trailer Watch: Festival Hit ‘Mavis!’ Tells Story of Legendary Singer and Activist Mavis Staples
HBO has released a trailer for highly-anticipated documentary feature “Mavis!,” which chronicles the life and times of legendary gospel and soul singer Mavis Staples. The trailer opens with...
Trailer Watch: A Young Woman is Accused of Witchcraft in Sundance Winner ‘The Witch’
“The Witch” has been terrifying audiences and earning glowing reviews on the festival circuit since it premiered last year at Sundance — and took home the Directing Award in the U.S....
Sundance 2016 Women Directors: Meet Jessie Kahnweiler — ‘The Skinny’
Jessie Kahnweiler can’t afford therapy, so she makes films. Her work has been featured on CNN, TMZ, People, The Hollywood Reporter, New York Magazine, Mashable, Buzzfeed, Elle, The Daily Beast,...
Sundance 2016 Women Directors: Meet Anne Fontaine — ‘Agnus Dei’
Sundance 2016 Women Directors: Meet Anne Fontaine — “The Innocents” Anne Fontaine is an actress, screenwriter and director born in Luxembourg. Her film “Dry Cleaning” won Best...
Sundance 2016 Women Directors: Meet Bonni Cohen — ‘Audrie & Daisy’
Since co-founding Actual Films in 1998, Bonni Cohen has produced and directed an array of award-winning films, including “The Island President,” “Inside Guantanamo,” “The Rape of Europa”...
Sundance 2016 Women Directors: Meet Stephanie Soechtig — ‘Under the Gun’
Stephanie Soechtig is an award-winning writer, producer and documentary-film director. Her most recent film, “Fed Up,” premiered at Sundance and was acquired by Radius-TWC. It also received a...
Book Excerpt: The Future of Feminist Film
The following is excerpted from Sophie Mayer’s “Political Animals: The New Feminist Cinema,” published in December 2015. Just over a year ago, the 2014 European Film Awards might have thought...
Sundance 2016 Women Directors: Meet Dawn Porter — ‘Trapped’
Dawn Porter is an award-winning filmmaker whose 2013 documentary, “Gideon’s Army,” won the Sundance Film Festival Editing Award, the Tribeca All Access Creative Promise Award and was nominated...
Berlinale 2016’s Complete Competition Lineup Announced: Only 9% Directed By Women
The 2016 Berlin Film Festival has released its full competition lineup. Now that we can take stock of all the directors screening films in the festival’s most prominent category, we...
Athena Film Festival’s 2016 Lineup Released; Dawn Porter’s ‘Trapped’ Will Open Fest
Remember when "Room," "Carol" and "Brooklyn" were in the Oscar conversation?* This award season — like most award seasons — has been another chilly winter...
Mira Nair to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award at 2016 Athena Film Festival
Director Mira Nair will receive the 2016 Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement Award at the sixth annual Athena Film Festival next year. The cast and crew of “Suffragette” will be recognized with...
Sundance’s Shorts Program is 39% Female-Helmed
The short film programs at Sundance 2016 have been announced, and of the 72 shorts being screened across various subsections, 28 are directed or co-directed by women. That means that, overall, the...
Sundance Announces Its 2016 Premieres
Sundance has revealed the lineups for its narrative and nonfiction Premieres sections. Seventeen narrative films will be making their world premieres at Sundance next year. Only three (or 18% of the...
Sundance 2016 Competition Lineup Unveiled, Over 40% Directed by Women
Sundance has released the competition slate for the 2016 installment of the festival, and nearly half of the program is women-directed. Of the 54 films that have been announced in competition with a...
Chicken & Egg Pictures Launches New Diversity Initiative and Announces Inaugural Fellows
Chicken & Egg Pictures, longtime champion of women directors, has launched a new diversity fellows initiative and announced its first batch of participants. The organization will support seven...
DOC NYC 2015 Women Directors: Meet Sabrina Schmidt Gordon — ‘BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez’
Sabrina Schmidt Gordon is a documentary producer, editor and director from NYC. Her editing debut won an Emmy for WGBH (public broadcasting from Boston), and she has continued to distinguish herself...
DOC NYC 2015 Women Directors: Meet Shannon Post — ‘Circle of Poison’
Shannon Post is a filmmaker, sociologist and food and garden educator based in Brooklyn. “Circle of Poison” is her first film. Post is also the co-founder of Player Piano Productions, a company...
DOC NYC 2015 Women Directors: Meet Dyllan McGee — ‘MAKERS: Once and For All’
Dyllan McGee is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and the founder and executive producer of “MAKERS,” an Emmy Award-nominated series on women in space, Hollywood, politics, war, comedy and...
DOC NYC 2015 Women Directors: Meet Nicole N. Horanyi — ‘Motley’s Law’
Acclaimed Danish filmmaker Nicole N. Horanyi has screened her award-winning documentary films around the world. “Motley’s Law” is her most recent collaboration with leading European film...
DOC NYC 2015 Women Directors: Meet Holly Morris — ‘The Babushkas of Chernobyl’
Holly Morris has written and directed several documentaries that explore the lives of courageous women: politicos, activists and artists making change in their home cultures. “The Babushkas of...
DOC NYC 2015 Women Directors: Meet Amy Berg — ‘Janis: Little Girl Blue’
Amy Berg is a critically acclaimed, Emmy Award-winning and Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker. She was nominated for an Academy Award and a DGA Award (Outstanding Directorial Achievement in...
DOC NYC 2015 Women Directors: Meet Erika Frankel — ‘King Georges’
Erika Frankel most recently produced “The Home Team” (SXSW, AFI DOCS 2014), “Annie: It’s the Hard Knock Life” (PBS 2013) and “Frontrunners” (SXSW, Oscilloscope 2008; Sundance Channel...
DOC NYC 2015 Women Directors: Meet Juliet Jordan — ‘Miriam: Home Delivery’
Juliet Jordan is a British documentary filmmaker, currently based in New York City. She graduated from The National Film and Television School, Beaconsfield, Britain. She won the Royal...
DOC NYC 2015 Women Directors: Meet Nicole Groton — ‘The Melting Family’
Nicole Groton started her career as Creative Executive at Intuition Productions, where she developed and produced new projects and served as field producer. Groton has worked for the president at...
DOC NYC 2015 Women Directors: Meet Hillevi Loven — ‘Deep Run’
Hillevi Loven is a filmmaker, producer and still photographer based in Brooklyn. She is making her feature-film-directing debut with “Deep Run.” In collaboration with NYU anthropologist Natasha...
DOC NYC 2015 Women Directors: Meet Jennifer Redfearn — ‘Tocando la Luz (Touch the Light)’
Jennifer Redfearn is an Academy Award-nominated director and producer. She directed and produced “Sun Come Up,” nominated for an Academy Award and the IDA’s Pare Lorentz Award. Redfearn has...
DOC NYC 2015 Women Directors: Meet Meghan L. O’Hara — ‘The C Word’
As a producer, Meghan L. O’Hara’s credits include the award-winning features “Sicko,” “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Bowling For Columbine.” She began her career directing, writing and...
DOC NYC 2015 Women Directors: Meet Molly Bernstein — ‘An Art That Nature Makes: The Work of Rosamond Purcell’
Molly Bernstein was the director, producer and editor of “Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay,” about the great magician, actor and “scholar of the unusual.” She has...
‘Song of Lahore’ Co-Directer Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on Pakistan’s Rich Music Scene and Culture
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, the Oscar-winning co-director of 2012’s “Saving Face,” once again finds inspiration in her birth country, Pakistan, in “Song of Lahore.” This time around,...
DOC NYC 2015 Women Directors: Meet Sharon Shattuck — ‘From This Day Forward’
Sharon Shattuck is a filmmaker and animator. She is the co-creator of the New York Times Op-Docs series “Animated Life,” which illustrates historical moments of scientific discovery using...
DOC NYC 2015 Women Directors: Meet Darcy Dennett — ‘The Champions’
Darcy Dennett has worked in photography, film and television for nearly twenty years. “The Champions” is her first documentary. In 2013, Dennett produced a segment in Nigeria for Oprah...
Kim Longinotto on Her Long Career and the Role of (Lack of) Confidence in Her Filmmaking
For over thirty years, Kim Longinotto has made acclaimed documentaries that have won awards from BAFTA, the Sundance Film Festival and the San Francisco International Film Festival, among others....
DOC NYC 2015 Preview: Race-Car Drivers, Rock Gods and AIDS Activists
38% of the features screening at DOC NYC this year are directed or co-directed by women — 39 films of the 104 screening. The good and bad news is that there are simply too many films by female...
DOC NYC 2015 Women Directors: Meet Emily Abt — ‘Daddy Don’t Go’
Filmmaker Emily Abt was one of Variety Magazine’s “Top 10 Directors to Watch” and has produced and directed documentaries for PBS, OWN, MTV, Showtime and the Sundance Channel. Abt earned her...
DOC NYC 2015 Women Directors: Meet Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos — ‘Making a Murderer’
Laura Ricciardi is a filmmaker with a special interest in social justice. She earned a JD from New York Law School and an MFA in film from Columbia University School of the Arts. Her thesis film was...