Festivals
Cannes Adds Six More Films to Lineup, None Directed by Women
Thierry Fremaux may have generated some positive headlines with a Jane Campion-led female-majority competition jury and the prominence of jury presidents Andrea Arnold and Rebecca Zlowtowski at...
Jane Campion-Led 2014 Cannes Jury is Majority Female
Five women will sit on the nine-person Cannes jury, which means there will be 2.5 women jurors for every woman director in competition. As we reported earlier this month, only two of the 18...
Sundance’s Keri Putnam Shares What She’s Learned from the Women Filmmakers Initiative
As the Executive Director of the Sundance Institute, Keri Putnam oversees all of the organization’s programs, including the Women Filmmakers Initiative and its associatedresearch. Prior to taking...
Tribeca Women Directors: Meet Sheila Canavan (Compared to What: The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank)
Sheila Canavan makes her directorial debut with Compared to What: The Improbable Journey ofBarney Frank. Canavan grew up in Boston and met Frank as a youngcollege student, when they were both...
Zero Motivation Director Talya Lavie Wins Top Prize at Tribeca
Director Talya Lavie’s Zero Motivation won the Tribeca Film Festival’s top prize yesterday. Lavie described her feature debut as “a comi-tragic glimpse into Israeli military society” in an...
Tribeca Women Directors: Meet Gillian Greene (Murder of a Cat)
The daughter of veteran actor Lorne Greene,Gillian Greene grew up in Los Angeles on the sets of her father’s televisionshows. She attended USC and NYU before moving back to Los Angeles to...
Tribeca Women Directors: Meet Courteney Cox (Just Before I Go)
Actress Courteney Cox, best known for her Emmy Award-winning comedy Friends and for her Golden Globe-nominated role in Cougar Town, segues behind the camera to make her feature-film directorial...
Cannes Roundup: Few Women Directors at Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week
As we’ve come to expect from Cannes, far too few women will be represented at the French festival — again. Among the 19 features selected by delegate general Edouard Waintrop for...
Tribeca Women Directors: Meet Louise Ni Fhiannachta (Rubai)
Irishdirector Louise Ni Fhiannachta’s love affair with storytelling started whenshe discovered she could entertain her family at the age offour and a half. It wasn’t long beforeshe was...
Tribeca Women Directors: Meet Susanna Fogel (Life Partners)
Susanna Fogel began writing and directing short films as a teenager, premiering her first two, “For Real” and “Words of Wisdom,” at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1995 and 1997....
Tribeca Women Directors: Meet Garrett Bradley (Below Dreams)
Garrett Bradley was born in New York City and now lives and works in New Orleans, Louisiana. The recipient of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Award, the Lynn Weston Fellowship, the Motion...
Cannes 2014 Lineup Revealed; Only Two Women Directors in the Main Competition
For whatever reason, the Cannes Film Festival — perhaps because of its grandeur, glamorous red carpet, and press attention — has become the crux around which global conversations about...
Tribeca Women Directors: Meet Linda G. Mills (Of Many)
Linda G. Mills is the inaugural Lisa Ellen Goldberg professor at New York University and co-Chair of the Advisory Board of the Of Many Institute with Chelsea Clinton (who produced “Of Many”)....
Rebecca Zlowtowski to Head Two Cannes Juries During Critics’ Week
After the much-welcome announcements earlier this year that Jane Campion would head this year’s Cannes jury and that Andrea Arnold would preside over Critics Week, more good news has come out...
Tribeca Women Directors: Meet Sofia Norlin (Broken Hill Blues)
Born in Njurunda in Sweden in 1974, Sofia Norlin studied film in Stockholm and Paris, where she now lives and works as a theater and film director. Her 2005 film Les Courants screened at numerous...
Tribeca Women Directors: Meet Talya Lavie (Zero Motivation)
Talya Lavie is a director, screenwriter, and comics artist. She studied animation at the Bezalel Art Academy and graduated with merit from the Sam Spiegel Film School in Jerusalem. She has also...
Cannes Workshop to Focus on Women Directors and Screenwriters
The European Audiovisual Observatory, a EU organization that compiles statistical and analytical data on film and television, will devote its upcoming workshop at Cannes to women in the film...
Women and Hollywood on the Road in London and Stockholm
Women and Hollywood (meaning me) is about to embark to Europe for several public appearances that I wanted to make sure any of our readers in those countries know about. If you are at any of these...
Dorothy Arzner to Receive Career Retrospective
Here’s the good news: Pioneering director Dorothy Arzner (1897–1979) — was one of the first woman directors to have a career in Hollywood making films. She was the first female member of...
Andrea Arnold to Head Cannes Critics Week Jury
British director Andrea Arnold has been named the head of the five-person jury at Cannes Critics Week. A showcase of 20 films (with 7 in competition), Critics Weeks is devoted to discovering new...
Review of Freida Mock’s Anita: The Story of a Hero
The following review was originally published as part of Women and Hollywood’s Sundance 2013 coverage. When I was a young woman just starting my career, I encountered sexual harrassment like so...
Interview with Freida Mock, Director of Anita
I was able to see the new documentary Anita at Sundance 2013. Here are my thoughts. The film opened the 2013 Human Rights Watch Film Festival in NYC and opens this week in NY and LA. The following...
Rated SR for Socially Relevant: The Birth of a New NYC Film Festival
The inaugural edition ofRated SR Socially Relevant Film Festival New York (March 14–20 at New York’sQuad Cinema) assembles 55 films from 18 countries, offering an uplifting,enlightening, and...
New York Indian Film Festival to Salute Gurinder Chadha
On the 20th anniversary of Bhaji on the Beach, her BAFTA-nominated dramedy about a group of South Asian women who take a day trip to the British seashore, Indian-British director Gurinder Chadha...
Trailer Watch: Catherine Deneuve in On My Way
After opening the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema film festival (March 6–16), the Catherine Deneuve vehicle On My Way will be released on March 14. Directed by Emmanuelle Bercot, On My Way is a...
Women-Directed Films Win Top Prizes at SXSW
Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers’ hipster comedy Fort Tilden and Margaret Brown’s Gulf-spill documentary The Great Invisible took home the top prizes at SXSW this year. In an interview...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Sarah-Violet Bliss
Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers are filmmakers based in Brooklyn who met at NYU Graduate Film school. They have each written and directed award-winning short films that have screened at...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Doris Dorrie
Doris Dorrie has made more than 30 feature films since 1976 to become one of the most famous filmmakers in her native Germany. Her films include Bliss, How to Cook Your Life, Naked, and Am I...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Iva Radivojevic
Iva Radivojevic is a NYC-based filmmaker who explores themes of identity, migration and immigrants. Her films have screened at various venues, including Rotterdam, HotDocs, PBS, Documentary Channel...
26% of SFIFF Films in Competition Directed by Women
Though the 2014 San Francisco International Film Festival’s (April 24-May 8) full lineup won’t be announced until April 1, SFIFF organizers have announced the films competing in the narrative...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Sandy McLeod
Sandy McLeod is an acclaimed independent filmmaker, having directed numerous music videos and short films in her 25-year career. Her short documentary “Asylum” was nominated for an Academy Award...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Leah Meyerhoff
In making her feature debut, director Leah Meyerhoff went back home — literally. I Believe in Unicorns was partly filmed in the house Meyerhoff grew up and where her mother still lives, since...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Diana Whitten
Dutch physician Rebecca Gomperts made waves in 1999 when she announced that she would provide abortions on international waters to women living in countries like Ireland and Poland. When her...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Catherine Gund
Elizabeth Streb is not just a choreographer; she is an extreme action architect. Documentarian Catherine Gund’s Born to Fly traces the evolution of Streb’s movement philosophy — she pushes...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Kitty Green
Kitty Green’s short films have screened at film festivals internationally. After graduating film school, Green worked for ABC in Australia producing content for national broadcast. Green spent the...
Tribeca FF Announces 10 More Women-Directed Films
The Tribeca Film Festival (April 16–27) announced the second half of its 2014 line-up yesterday, and there are some big names among the ten female-helmed selections. Kelly Reichardt’s fifth film...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Amy C. Elliott
Documentary filmmaker Amy C. Elliott is drawn to America’s weirdness. Her 2010 feature debut, World’s Largest, profiled small towns that built grandiose roadside attractions. Her newest work,...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Margaret Brown
Alabama native Margaret Brown is a Peabody Award-winning director whose last documentary feature, The Order of Myths, received the Truer Than Fiction Award at the 2009 Independent Spirit Awards and...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Liz Tuccillo
You may not have heard of Liz Tuccillo, but you’ve definitely heard of her work. Tuccillo’s first credited script was “The Post-It Always Sticks Twice” episode of Sex and the City, a...
First Half of 2014 Tribeca Line-Up Announced; Women-Directed Films Make Up 25%
The Tribeca Film Festival (April 16–27) announced the first half of its 2014 line-up earlier this week, and women’s representation at the festival could both be better and worse. Among the...
Unifrance Exec Spotlights French and American Women Directors
If you see any French films this year, you’ll have Isabelle Giordano to thank for that. Since June 2013, Giordano has been the General Director of Unifrance Films, the government agency that...
NYU’s Fusion FF: Celebrating Women in Film, Television, & New Media
Women behind the camera are rarelyacknowledged in the film industry. As a reader of Women and Hollywood, you already know this. In fact, weall know the sad statistics generated by the recent...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Sandrine Orabona
Sandrine Orabona has worked professionally for over two decades as a director, producer, editor and shooter to enhance her storytelling skills in the non-fiction genre. She is the co-director of the...
Women and Girls Lead Launches Online Film Fest #SheDocs for Women’s History Month
In celebration of March and Women’s History month, Women and Girls Lead has partnered up with Eileen Fisher to roll out the second annual #SheDocs, an online film festival featuring twelve...
Berlinale Women Directors: Meet Feo Aladag
Writer-director Feo Aladag’s In Between Worlds was one of four German films to compete for the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale. The Vienna-born filmmaker has been a European director to...
SXSW’s New Gamechanger Award to Help Fund Women-Directed Films
Men and women may enter film school at the same rate these days, but 90–95% of the directing jobs in Hollywood still go to male filmmakers. Gamechanger Films is one of the many players trying to...
A Third of New Directors/New Films FF Lineup Directed by Women
Nine emerging female helmers will have their works featured at the 43rd New Directors/New Films at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. Women-directed films...
Five Women Directors Win at Berlinale
Representing five countries on three continents, a quintet of female filmmakers won honors at the 2014 Berlinale but none in the main competition section. Australian Sophie Hyde took home the...
Berlinale Women Directors: Meet Anna Kazejak
The difficult transition to adulthood is a topic Polish writer-director Anna Kazejak has addressed repeatedly in her work. Kazejak made her feature debut in Ode to Joy, a triptych film co-directed...
Berlin Women Directors: Meet Sudabeh Mortezai
German-born Sudabeh Mortezai grew up in Tehran and Vienna. Her film debut was the documentary Children of the Prophet, a look at Iranian mourning rituals for Imam Hossein, the Prophet Mohammad’s...
Berlinale Women Directors: Meet Celina Murga
Argentine director Celina Murga was thrust into the international film scene when she was chosen by Martin Scorsese to participate in the Rolex Mentor and Protege Arts Initiative several years ago....