Films
Weekly Update for September 23: Women Centric, Directed, and Written Films Playing Near You
“Queen of Katwe” Films About Women Opening This Week Queen of Katwe — Directed by Mira Nair For ten-year-old Phiona Mutesi (Madina Nalwanga) and her family, life in the impoverished slum...
“Generation Startup” Directors on Pushing Boundaries and Starting Companies
“Generation Startup” directors Cynthia Wade and Cheryl Miller Houser shared their thoughts on starting their own companies, why it’s important for young people to pursue their business dreams,...
AFI Fest to Celebrate Dorothy Dandridge, Ida Lupino, and Anna May Wong
The American Film Institute has announced that the 30th iteration of AFI Fest will spotlight Dorothy Dandridge, Ida Lupino, and Anna May Wong. Dandridge was the first African-American woman...
Elite Zexer’s “Sand Storm” is Israel’s Oscar Pick
Another women-directed feature is joining the Oscar race. Israel has chosen to submit “Sand Storm” to represent the country in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 2017 Academy Awards,...
Annie Howell and Lisa Robinson’s “Claire in Motion” Goes to Breaking Glass
Breaking Glass Pictures has acquired the North American rights to writer-director team Annie Howell and Lisa Robinson’s “Claire in Motion,” ScreenDaily reports. The film premiered at SXSW and...
Quote of the Day: “Selma” Star David Oyelowo On How He Supports Women Directors
“Selma” breakout David Oyelowo sat down with Variety to discuss his two upcoming projects, the chess underdog story “Queen of Katwe” and the interracial romance “A United Kingdom.” Both...
Rosemary Myers on Exploring the Dark Heart of the Teenage Mind in “Girl Asleep”
Rosemary Myers is the Artistic Director of Windmill Theatre, an award-winning national performing arts company based in Adelaide, South Australia. Her directing credits for Windmill include the...
Solution for Hollywood’s Woman Director Problem: Demand More from Agencies
Guest Post By Rachel Feldman It’s about time that gender equality for directors in Hollywood has become news. It’s taken decades of pushing this story uphill, but the film and television...
Sophie Goodhart on Guilt, Shame, and What Inspired “My Blind Brother”
Sophie Goodhart began her career in news and documentaries for UK television. “My Blind Brother” originated as a short. The short version of the film screened in competition at Cannes in 2003,...
Open Road Acquires Reese Witherspoon Comedy Directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer
Open Road Pictures has picked up the North American rights to “Home Again,” Hallie Meyers-Shyer’s directorial debut, Variety reports. The romantic comedy stars Reese Witherspoon. The story,...
Trailer Watch: “Hidden Figures” International Spot Shows More History
“I’m a negro woman, I’m not going to entertain the impossible,” says Janelle Monáe’s “Hidden Figures” character at the prospect of becoming an engineer. But as her colleague replies,...
Strong Women, Both Real and Fictional: September 2016’s Crowdfunding Picks
“Nasbandi” As the theme song to Netflix’s “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” says, “females are strong as hell.” This month’s crowdfunding picks highlight the strength and courage women...
Greece Submits Athina Rachel Tsangari’s “Chevalier” to the Oscars
The buddy comedy from hell may land a nomination at the Academy Awards. Greece’s submission for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2017 Oscars will be Athina Rachel Tsangari’s “Chevalier,”...
Two Women Directors Shortlisted for UK’s Biggest Film Bursary
The BFI and IWC Schaffhausen have revealed the shortlist of writers and/or directors competing for the inaugural IWC Filmmaker Bursary Award in Association with the BFI, and two of the four...
What Happens When Women Hit 40 in Hollywood
By now, we’re aware of the fact that Hollywood is ageist. As Women and Hollywood previously reported, a study released by the Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative at the University of...
Listen: Podcast with “The Dressmaker” Director Jocelyn Moorhouse and Producer Sue Maslin
Women and Hollywood spoke with the women behind “The Dressmaker,” a dark comedy starring Kate Winslet as a sophisticated couturier who returns to her middle-of-nowhere hometown to reconcile with...
Samuel Goldwyn Writing Awards Have All Male Finalists and Judges
In today’s edition of “Are you fucking kidding me?!?” the Samuel Goldwyn Writing Awards have whittled down their selection to five finalists, and, as far as we can tell, not only are they all...
Amanda Plummer Receives Oldenburg Fest’s Lifetime Achievement Award
Three-time Emmy-winner Amanda Plummer has received the Oldenburg International Film Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award. The actress accepted the honor on Friday September 16 at the German indie...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Kristina Kumrić — “Half A Man”
Kristina Kumrić has helmed several short fiction and documentary films. Her short documentary “Welcome to Igrane” won a special jury prize at the Vukovar Film Festival, and her short doc “i...
Women-Directed Films Dominate EFA Debut Film Nominees
Women directors are often shut out of awards conversations, nevermind nominations, but in a refreshing change of pace, female-directed films dominate the nominees for the European Film Awards’...
Felicity Jones to Receive BAFTA Britannia Award
Felicity Jones will be honored with BAFTA Los Angeles’ Britannia Award for British artist of the year, The Hollywood Reporter writes. The artist of the year award “pays tribute to a talented...
Karyn Kusama Books New Directing Job
Karyn Kusama has signed on to helm “Breed,” an upcoming horror film for Fox with a terrifying fertility-related premise. The project is based on a 2012 Chase Novak novel of the...
TIFF 2016 Deals: “The Bad Batch” and “Paris Can Wait” Find Homes
The Toronto International Film Festival wrapped up September 18, but the 41st edition of the fest continues to be a source of exciting film news. Both Ana Lily Amirpour’s follow-up to “A Girl...
Trailer Watch: “Amanda Knox” Trial Gets the Doc Treatment
The Amanda Knox case had the world on edge, with viewers glued to the news. Was this young woman a murderer? Or trapped in a backwards justice system that punishes women for being sexual? “Either...
Fall TV Preview: Series By and About Women to Check Out
“Queen Sugar” By Kate Gardner and Rachel Montpelier Fall is here, and with it comes the most wonderful time of the year for television buffs. Some new and returning series are great, others less...
Katherine Dieckmann’s “Strange Weather” is HIFF’s Southampton Opening Night Film
Katherine Dieckmann’s “Strange Weather” will be the Southampton Opening Night at the Hamptons International Film Festival, which runs from October 6–10 this year, Variety has...
“Bridget Jones’s Baby” Tops International Box Office
Bridget Jones had a big opening weekend in international markets, topping out at $29.4 million. As Deadline reports, “Bridget Jones’s Baby” debuted at number one in 24 overseas markets this...
Kristen Bell Takes on the Gender Wage Gap
Kristen Bell, star of “Veronica Mars,” “Frozen,” and the upcoming sitcom “The Good Place,” partook in The Huffington Post’s new comedy sketch series “Celebs Have Issues,” which...
Fox Searchlight Finalizing “A United Kingdom” Buy Out of TIFF
Fox Searchlight is in final negotiations to buy the North American rights to Amma Asante’s “A United Kingdom,” Variety reports. The film is based on the book “Color Bar” by Susan...
Can #FreeTheBid Lead to More Women Directing in Hollywood?
Back in July, we relayed some in-depth reporting done by Mashable that found that less than 9.7 percent of rostered directors on the AdAge Production Company A-List, from which ad agencies cull...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Miwa Nishikawa — “The Long Excuse”
Miwa Nishikawa debuted as a writer-director with “Wild Berries” in 2002, which among other awards took Best Screenplay at the 2004 Mainichi Film Concourse. Her second feature, “Sway” showed...
Weekly Update for September 16: Women Centric, Directed, and Written Films Playing Near You
“Bridget Jones’s Baby” Films About Women Opening This Week Bridget Jones’s Baby — Directed by Sharon Maguire; Co-Written by Helen Fielding and Emma Thompson After breaking up with...
Trailer Watch: Rebecca Hall Mesmerizes as a Depressed Newscaster in “Christine”
Christine is an on-air reporter who is “always on the lookout for a positive human interest story.” Her boss has another approach to the news: “If it bleeds, it leads.” This tension is one...
New Tool Can Count Female Characters Onscreen
You’ve probably noticed that TV series and films feature a disproportionate number of male characters. The dearth of women onscreen has been proven by study after study. Those studies, and the...
“Miss Stevens” Director Julia Hart on the Need for Telling Female Stories
Interview by Laura Berger 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...
AFI and 20th Century Fox Team Up To Boost Female Directors
At this point, through multitudinous pieces of research and multiple in-depth studies, it’s pretty clear that women are being shut out of directing jobs at the big studios. Now it’s time for the...
Renée Zellweger and Sharon Maguire Talk Reuniting for “Bridget Jones’s Baby”
After taking a break from both acting and directing, respectively, Renée Zellweger and Sharon Maguire are back together. Their relationship began in 2001 with “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” a movie...
Mill Valley Film Festival Will Honor Nicole Kidman and Julie Dash
The Mill Valley Film Festival announced the complete lineup for the 39th iteration of the fest, which will run from October 6–16 this year and includes tributes to Nicole Kidman and...
Quote of the Day: Rebecca Hall Says Marvel is “Paying for Their Mistakes”
Earlier this spring, “Iron Man 3” director Shane Black revealed why Rebecca Hall’s character was seriously underutilized in the film, and now Hall has spoken on the subject as well. As Women...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Kelly Fremon Craig — “The Edge of Seventeen”
Kelly Fremon Craig started out writing sketch comedy and spoken word poetry in college, then landed an internship in the film division of Immortal Entertainment, where she read her first film script...
Trailer Watch: “Moana” Takes to the Sea
It feels like we’ve been waiting forever for Disney’s “Moana,” and with this new, full-length trailer finally hitting, the reality is that she’s getting closer. “Moana,” Disney’s...
TIFF 2016 Deals: Films Starring Anne Hathaway, Cynthia Nixon, and More
A number of outlets are describing the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival as an unusually quiet and conservative year when it comes to film deals. Fortunately, not all movies are having...
Margot Robbie Signs First-Look Deal with Warner Bros.
Margot Robbie has signed a first-look deal with Warner Bros., The Hollywood Reporter writes. The deal will see Robbie developing and producing films through her LuckyChap Entertainment...
Trailer Watch: A Young Woman Disguises Herself to Play Sports in “Girl Unbound”
Erin Heidenreich’s documentary “Girl Unbound: The War To Be Her” tackles the story of a young Pakistani woman who lived as a boy for many years just to have the chance to play...
TCM Celebrates “Trailblazing Women” with Bette Midler, Jane Fonda, and More
It’s time to enjoy some herstory. Turner Classics Movies (TCM) is reteaming with Women in Film Los Angeles (WIF) for the second annual installment of the “Trailblaizing Women” series. The...
New Research Shows Hollywood Is Ageist
Hollywood has an age problem. This is an easily observable fact, but new research reveals just how bad the problem is. In a new study released by the Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative at...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Maya Zinshtein — “Forever Pure”
Maya Zinshtein is an Israeli filmmaker and journalist originally from Russia. She has worked as a producer of documentaries, including “Thieves by Law” (2010), and as an investigative...
Producer Effie Brown Named Keynote Speaker at 2016 Film Independent Forum
“Dear White People” producer Effie Brown is slated to deliver the Keynote address at the 12th annual Film Independent Forum, Shadow and Act reports. Film Independent is the the non-profit arts...
Storm Reid Lands Lead in Ava DuVernay’s “A Wrinkle in Time”
Ava DuVernay’s “A Wrinkle in Time” has found its young star. Storm Reid has landed the lead role of Meg Murry in the Disney adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s classic children’s book, The...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Katherine Dieckmann — “Strange Weather”
Katherine Dieckmann’s films include “Motherhood,” “Diggers,” and “A Good Baby.” She began her career as a journalist, writing for such publications as Rolling Stone, The Village Voice,...
Trailer Watch: Jessica Chastain Puts Up a Fight in “Miss Sloane”
The best Actress Oscar Race continues to heat up. If the new trailer for “Miss Sloane” is any indication, Jessica Chastain will be joining the running as well. “Miss Sloane,” according to...