Festivals
Christine Vachon at SXSW: “TV Has Already Left [Film] in the Dust” in Terms of Roles for Actresses
Legendary indie producer Christine Vachon celebrated the 20th anniversary of her production company Killer Films — now known as Killer Content — with a keynote at this year’s SXSW....
Amy Schumer at SXSW: “I Wanna Get [‘Feminism’] Tattooed on My Cl*t”
“I wanna get [the word ‘feminism’] tattooed on my cl*t,” Amy Schumer announced recently at SXSW, where she’s debuting the comedy “Trainwreck.” The raunchy rom com marks Schumer’s...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Jessica Edwards — ‘Mavis!’
Jessica Edwards has a broad background in the film industry as a director, producer and publicist. Her short film “Seltzer Works” screened at SXSW and many other festivals before airing on PBS....
Ava DuVernay’s SXSW Keynote: “I Have Had the F*cking Most Awesome Year”
“I’ve had the fucking most awesome year,” Ava DuVernay admitted in her keynote speech at this year’s SXSW festival. “I can’t even describe it.” The “Selma” director displayed...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Katie Cokinos — ‘I Dream Too Much’
Katie Cokinos has a history of supporting independent film, starting in Texas, where she was an administrator for SWAMP and Managing Director of the Austin Film Society. She’s made five short...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Zuzanna Solakiewicz — ’15 Corners of the World’
Zuzanna Solakiewicz graduated from the University of Warsaw before going on to study directing at the Sam Spiegel Film & TV School in Jerusalem. She has completed an internship at the Lodz Film...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Anna Sofie Hartmann — ‘Limbo’
Anna Sofie Hartmann was born in Denmark. She studied for a year at the European Film College in Aarhus. After moving to Berlin, she worked at the Studio Olafur Eliasson. In 2008 she began studying...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Hannah Fidell — ‘6 Years’
Hannah Fidellwrote and directed the feature film “A Teacher,” which premiered at Sundance 2013and went on to play such festivals as SXSW, where she won the Chicken & EggAward. In 2012, her...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Samantha Futerman — ‘Twinsters’
Samantha Futerman is a Korean American adoptee from New Jersey. She attended the Professional Performing Arts School in New York City and graduated from Boston University in 2009 with a BFA in...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Lina Mannheimer — ‘The Ceremony’
After obtaining a degree in film and art history from the University of Nebrija in Madrid, Lina Mannheimer embarked on a Master’s of Science program at the Stockholm School of Economics. She also...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Katharine Emmer — ‘Life in Color’
Katharine Emmer is a graduate of New York University, where she was the recipient of the Tisch Artistic Achievement Award. She has appeared on ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” and made her acting...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Sara Hirsh Bordo — ‘A Brave Heart’
“A Brave Heart” is Sara Hirsh Bordo’s film directorial debut. She has held senior roles at Paramount Pictures and MGM Studios as Co-Founder of NowLive and Producer of TEDxAustinWomen. In 2012,...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Ondi Timoner — ‘BRAND: A Second Coming’ and ‘The Last Mile’
Director and producer Ondi Timoner won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance twice — for “Dig!” (2004) about the collision of art and commerce through the story of two bands and “We Live in...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Shannon Sun-Higginson — ‘GTFO: Get The F#$% Out’
Shannon Sun-Higginson is a documentary filmmaker from New York City. In 2009, her first documentary short, “Hapa Perspectives,” aired on Current TV. She has worked as a Production Coordinator...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Rebecca Johnson — ‘Honeytrap’
Rebecca Johnson makes her feature-film debut with “Honeytrap” after a string of short-film successes, including the award-winning “Top Girl,” which played at more than 30 festivals...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Micah Magee — ‘Petting Zoo’
Micah Magee graduated from the University of Texas with a dual degree in Plan II Honors and Radio-Television-Film. In addition to making films, Magee worked as managing and programming director of...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Karyn Kusama — ‘The Invitation’
Karyn Kusama wrote and directed her first feature film, “Girlfight,” in 1999. The film won the Director’s Prize and shared the GrandJury Prize at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. It went on to...
Tribeca FF Announces Lineup for High-Profile Spotlight Screenings: Claudia Llosa, Leslye Headland
While women directors are well-represented in the international categories at the upcoming 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, they feature much less prominently in the high-profile Spotlight section. TFF...
Women Directors Well Represented in Tribeca Fest’s First Round of Announced Films
The lineups of two international categories at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival have been announced, and female directors are well represented in both competition lineups. Eight of the 12 World...
Working Together to Make Change: The Film Fatales Panel at the 2015 Athena Film Festival
On Friday, February 6th, the Film Fatales hosteda panel discussion called “Working Together to Make Change” at the Athena FilmFestival. The panel offered an introduction to the Film Fatales: an...
Watch: Jodie Foster’s Touching Tribute to Women Directors at the Athena Film Festival
Watch: Sundance’s Inspiring ‘She is a Best Director’ Celebrates Women
A new video released by the Sundance Film Festival makes a powerful case for the importance of female voices in film and television, including inspiring bits of wisdom from women spanning...
19% of SXSW Film Lineup Directed by Women
As we reported last week, a quarter of the films that will be in competition at SXSW 2015 (March 13–21) are directed by women. The percentage of women-helmed features being screened outside of...
Feminism at the Rotterdam Film Fest: Sex Tourists, Mad Scientists, Psychopath Kidnappers
The last week of January saw one of thebiggest international festivals, the Rotterdam Film Festival, dedicate theentirety of one of its program sections to feminism. An array of directorsfrom all...
Sundance 2015 Deals: Mora Stephens’s ‘Zipper’ and Louise Osmond’s ‘Dark Horse’
Two more Sundance favorites have found distribution deals. Mora Stephens’ thriller “Zipper” has found a home at Alchemy, which will release the film later this year. Starring Patrick Wilson...
SXSW Lineup Announced: 5 of 20 Films in Competition Directed By Women; DuVernay To Give Keynote
Few of South by Southwest 2015’s highest-profile films will be directed by women. The Austin festival, which will take place on March 13–21, will showcase only two narrative features in...
At Sundance 2015, Filmmakers Break The Silence Of Sexual Trauma
“What are these films telling us?” According to Sundance Senior Programmer Caroline Libresco,that’s what festival programmers asked when they realized they’dchosen five films about...
Sundance 2015 Winners: Kim Longinotto, Jennifer Phang, Alante Kavaite, Chai Vasarhelyi
Sundance 2015 proved to be an action-packed — and awards-heavy — time for female filmmakers. A number of female filmmakers, especially documentarians, left Park City with prizes from the...
Sundance Women Producers: Meet Sophia Lin — ‘Z for Zachariah’
Sophia Lin is a producer and production manager. Her previous credits include Camp X-Ray, Take Shelter, and Friends with Kids. Z for Zachariah premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival on January...
Sundance Women Producers: Meet Naomi Scott — ‘The Overnight’
Naomi Scott is a London-born writer and producer. Her previous credits include The Greatest Event in Television History, The Andy Milonakis Show, and Jimmy Kimmel Live! Scott produced The Overnight,...
Jane Fonda: “We Have to Shame the Studios for Being So Gender-Biased”
Only 7% of the top 250 films last year were directed by women, according to the latest Celluloid Ceiling Report from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State....
Watch: See How Important Female-Driven Films Are in Inspiring ‘What Athena Means to Me’ Video
The Athena Film Festival, which will host the world premiere of HBO Documentary Film’s Rosie O’Donnell: A Heartfelt Standup and honor Jodie Foster with the Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement...
Sundance 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...
Women In Film Awards $33,000 to Filmmakers in Sundance
More good news for female filmmakers at Sundance: Women In Film, Los Angeles awarded over $33,000 in cash and in kind-grants at “Unstoppable — The Road to Yes,” its 9th Annual Women in...
Sundance Women Producers: Meet Rebecca Green and Laura D. Smith — ‘I’ll See You in My Dreams’
Rebecca Green and Laura D. Smith have produced the feature film It Follows, written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, which premiered to rave reviews at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Jenni Olson — ‘The Royal Road’
Jenni Olsen is a pioneering filmmaker, journalist, curator and film historian. She is also one of the world’s leading experts on LGBT cinema history. In addition to The Royal Road, Olson has had...
Sundance Women Producers: Meet Susan Bedusa — ‘Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead’
Susan Bedusa is currently Senior Vice President of Production and Development at 4th Row Films, where she sets up development and distribution deals with various networks and studios. She also...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Sophie Deraspe — ‘The Amina Profile’
Sophie Deraspe fell into cinema through visual arts and literature. As both a director and a cinematographer, she worked mostly in documentary before directing her realism-bending first feature...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Marielle Heller — ‘The Diary of a Teenage Girl’
Marielle Heller is a writer, director, and actor. She was selected as a2012 Sundance Screenwriting Fellow and a 2012 Sundance Directing Fellow, and washonored with the Lynn Auerbach Screenwriting...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Kris Swanberg — ‘Unexpected’
Kris Swanberg began her film career at Southern Illinois University, where she studied documentary film production. Her first feature, It Was Great, But I Was Ready to Come Home, played in...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Jennifer Phang — ‘Advantageous’
Jennifer Phang is a San Francisco-based filmmaker with more than ten years of experience (Half-Life, Crazy Beats Strong Every Time, Glass Butterfly). The Berkeley-born daughter of Chinese-Malaysian...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Rania Attieh — ‘H.’
Rania Attieh & her H. co-director Daniel Garcia were named the 2015 Independent Spirit Awards’ “Someone to Watch.” Included among the “25 Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmakers...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Anna Boden — ‘Mississippi Grind’
The first feature from the filmmaking team of Ryan Fleck & Anna Boden was Half Nelson, which world-premiered at the Sundance Film Festival before going on to win numerous prizes. Half Nelson was...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Leslye Headland — ‘Sleeping with Other People’
Leslye Headland started her writing career in theater, with such plays as Bachelorette (Second Stage), Assistance (Playwrights Horizons), and the rest of the “Seven Deadly Plays” series (IAMA...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Louise Osmond — ‘Dark Horse’
Director Louise Osmond started her career at the UK network ITN in their news journalism graduate trainee program, covering stories in Europe and Africa before moving into documentaries. Her most...
16% of Berlinale 2015’s Films in Competition Directed by Women
Of the 19 films that will compete for the Golden and Silver Bears at the Berlin International Film Festival this year, only 3 will be directed by women, comprising a scanty 16% of the Berlinale’s...
Sundance 2015: The Films We Can’t Wait to See
As we reported back in December, ninewomen-directed narrative and documentary features (out of a total of 29premieres) will make their debuts at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. 36%, or more...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Ilinca Calugareanu — ‘Chuck Norris vs Communism’
Ilinca Călugăreanu is a freelance documentary filmmaker and editor based in London with a background in anthropology. As she describes herself, “I moved towards filmmaking whilst exploring the...
Two Weeks to Go Until the 2015 Athena Film Festival (New Poster)
There’s just two weeks left until the launch of the 5th annual Athena Film Festival, which will run at the Barnard College campus in Manhattan from February 5–8, 2015. This year, Jodie Foster...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Shari Springer Berman — ‘Ten Thousand Saints’
Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini are an Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning filmmaking team well recognized for their innovative body of work, which blends an affection for idiosyncratic,...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Anne Sewitsky — ‘Homesick’
Sundance winner Anne Sewitsky studied directing at the Norwegian Film School. She has directed several features and high-end television dramas. Homesick will be Sewitsky’s third feature, and the...