Interviews
EIFF 2019 Women Directors: Meet Greta Bellamacina – “Hurt By Paradise”
Greta Bellamacina is an actress, filmmaker, and poet. She was born in London and made her acting debut in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” at the age of thirteen. She trained at The...
“Wild Rose” Screenwriter Nicole Taylor on Country Music & Crafting Mother-Daughter Stories
Screenwriter Nicole Taylor hails from Glasgow, where her new film “Wild Rose” takes place. A huge fan of country music, her film, directed by Tom Harper, is about a burgeoning country singer...
EIFF 2019 Women Directors: Meet Ruth Platt – “The Black Forest”
Ruth Platt co-created a theater company which was nominated twice for Time Out Critics Choice runs. Her short film featuring Maxine Peake, “The Heart Fails Without Warning.” was selected...
New Georges Founder Susan Bernfield Talks Empowering Women in Theater
When Susan Bernfield was starting out as an actress in 1992, she realized there were not a lot of roles being written for her, or for women in general. She couldn’t even find plays by women at the...
Tony Nominee Lilli Cooper on the Evolution of Her Character in Broadway’s “Tootsie”
Shortly after receiving the script, actress Lilli Cooper fell in love with Broadway’s “Tootsie.” For one thing, as a woman of color, she was auditioning for the role of Julie Nichols, the...
Sundance London 2019 Women Directors: Meet Alison Klayman – “The Brink”
Alison Klayman’s directorial debut, “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry,” won a U.S. Documentary Special Jury Prize for Spirit of Defiance at Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for the...
Inside Out 2019 Directors: Meet Neelu Bhuman – “Transfinite”
Neelu Bhuman was born in the South Indian small town of Madanapalle. As an independent artist filmmaker, they explore social and political themes as they play out in close relations. Their films...
Inside Out 2019 Women Directors: Meet Almerinda Travassos – “Dykes in the Streets”
Almerinda Travassos was born in Portugal and is now based in Canada. Her work primarily explores issues of history, memory, and family within the context of the Portuguese-born, Lesbian identity....
Cannes: “Bull” Director Annie Silverstein on Rodeo Culture and the Realities of On-Set Childcare
Interview by Becca Harrison Annie Silverstein won the Cinéfondation jury prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival for “Skunk,” a short about a 14-year-old girl whose pit bull is stolen by...
Jill Magid on Exploring Art, Accessibility, and Legacy in “The Proposal”
Jill Magid is an artist, writer, and filmmaker whose work includes performance art and large and small-scale installations. She has been commissioned to make work for the Whitney Museum of American...
Cannes 2019 Women Directors: Meet Alice Furtado – “Sick, Sick, Sick”
Alice Furtado is a Brazilian filmmaker and editor. She worked as an editor on Eduardo Williams’“El auge del humano,” and Tiago Mata Machado’s “Os sonâmbulos.” She directed the short film...
Cannes 2019 Women Directors: Meet Maryam Touzani – “Adam”
Maryam Touzani is a director, screenwriter, and actress. Her first short film, 2012’s “When They Slept,” was selected by a number of prestigious international festivals and received...
Cannes 2019 Women Directors: Meet Sofía Quirós – “Ceniza Negra”
Sofía Quirós is a director and writer. Her short film “Selva” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival Critic’s Week in 2017. Since then, it has screened in more than 40 cities around the world...
Cannes 2019 Women Directors: Meet Shahrbanoo Sadat – “The Orphanage”
Shahrbanoo Sadat is an Afghan writer and director based in Kabul. Her first feature film, “Wolf and Sheep,” was developed with the Cannes Cinéfondation Residence in 2010. Twenty years old at the...
“GLOW” Costume Designer Beth Morgan on Expressing Empowerment Through Clothing
If you’re a fan of “GLOW,” you know that the clothing plays a very big role in the series. Based on the 1980s wrestling TV series “Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling,” the...
Cannes 2019 Women Directors: Meet Danielle Lessovitz – “Port Authority”
Danielle Lessovitz is a New York-based writer and director in film and advertising. Her most recent screenwriting effort, “Mobile Homes,” which she co-wrote with Vladimir de Fontenay,...
Cannes 2019 Women Directors: Meet Melina León – “Song Without a Name”
Melina León is a Peruvian director based in Lima and New York. Her short film “El paraíso de Lili,” translated as “Lili’s Paradise,” premiered at the New York Film...
Set Designer Laura Jellinek on “Oklahoma!” and Her Tony Nomination
If you take a look at Laura Jellinek’s current list of projects, you’ll wonder how she does it all. The Tony Award and Drama Desk nominee recently designed the sets for Broadway’s...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Heddy Honigmann – “Buddy”
Heddy Honigmann is a director and writer who is best known for “Forever,” “The Underground Orchestra,” and “Metal and Melancholy.” “Buddy” premiered at...
Newport Beach Film Festival Women Directors: Meet Stephanie Turner – “Justine”
Stephanie Turner is an actress, writer, and director. Her acting credits include “First Man,” “Monster-in-Law,” and “Surrogate.” She is developing a television...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Laurence Mathieu-Leger – “Willie”
Laurence Mathieu-Leger is an award-winning filmmaker, editor, and producer. She specializes in documentary projects and has done work for The Guardian, Reuters, La Presse, Cosmo, and the United...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Rama Rau – “The Daughter Tree”
Rama Rau is a writer-director. Rau’s debut fiction feature, “Honey Bee,” won the EDA Best Film Award at the Whistler Film Festival. Her film “League of Exotique Dancers”...
Glenda Jackson on Playing King Lear and Modern Dramatists’ Disinterest in Women’s Stories
Glenda Jackson has worked extensively in film, television, and theater, and served in the British Parliament. She’s nabbed two Oscars (“Women in Love” and “A Touch of Class”), two...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Baljit Sangra – “Because We Are Girls”
Baljit Sangra uses documentary and factual entertainment to explore social and cross-cultural issues. A three-time Leo Award nominee, Sangra’s films have premiered at festivals around the world....
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Pachi Bustos – “Haydee and the Flying Fish”
Pachi Bustos is a journalist and documentary filmmaker. She has worked as a director, writer, and researcher for prestigious Chilean television programs and nationally and internationally renowned...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Tülin Özdemir – “Red Moon”
Tülin Özdemir’s work asks the question, “Who is today’s modern woman?” The filmmaker made her first short documentary, “Our Wedding,” in 2008 and expanded on its...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Phyllis Ellis – “Toxic Beauty”
Phyllis Ellis is a creator, writer, director, producer, and performer in factual and scripted television and film. She was honored at the 2013 Canadian Screen Awards with the prestigious Donald...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Jola Dylewska – “Marek Edelman… and There Was Love in the Ghetto”
Jola Dylewska is a Polish writer, director, and cinematographer. She has worked as a cinematographer on over 25 projects. She won Best Cinematography at the 2012 Polish Film Awards for her work on...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Claudia Sparrow – “Maxima”
Claudia Sparrow was born and raised in Lima, Peru. Her first feature, “I Remember You,” won best dramatic feature film at the Downtown Film Festival Los Angeles and was released...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Emily Gan – “Cavebirds”
Emily Gan is a Chinese-Canadian photographer, filmmaker, and video artist born and based in Montréal. Gan has travelled across Canada, the US, India, and Malaysia working on various independent...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Aude Leroux-Lévesque – “A Place of Tide and Time”
Aude Leroux-Lévesque is a Montreal-based documentary filmmaker. Her first documentary, “Call me Salma,” aired on Arte, EBS Korea, Direct 8, and played in numerous international film...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Danielle Sturk – “El Toro”
Danielle Sturk is a bilingual multi-disciplinary artist. Sturk’s films have screened at over 30 film festivals, and have been broadcast on most major Canadian English and French networks, such...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Nance Ackerman, Ariella Pahlke, and Teresa MacInnes – “Conviction”
Nance Ackerman is a documentary photographer, filmmaker, and multimedia artist. Her films have won awards for direction and cinematography. Her credits include “Cottonland,” “Four...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Marcela Arteaga – “The Guardian of Memory”
Marcela Arteaga is a Mexican writer and director. Her 2003 documentary “Remembrance” was screened at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, the Festival des Films du Monde, and Hot Docs,...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Shannon Walsh – “Illusions of Control”
Shannon Walsh has written and directed four award-winning feature documentaries, as well as multiple shorts and 360 VR projects. Her work has been released theatrically in Canada, the UK, and South...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Megan Wennberg – “Drag Kids”
Megan Wennberg is a writer and director based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. She works in both documentary and fiction, and her work has screened at festivals around the world and been broadcast on CBC,...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Cindy Meehl – “The Dog Doc”
Cindy Meehl is a director and executive producer of documentary feature films. Her documentary feature “Buck” premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Tal Granit – “Flawless”
Tal Granit’s credits include “The Farewell Party,” which won the audience award at the Venice Film Festival and was distributed worldwide, “Summer Vacation,” which...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Nicole Schafer – “Buddha in Africa”
Nicole Schafer is a South African director. She produced award-winning stories for the Reuters pan-African magazine show “Africa Journal.” Her thesis film from the University of Cape...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Pailin Wedel – “Hope Frozen”
Pailin Wedel is a Thai-American journalist and filmmaker who grew up in Asia. She has regularly produced documentary programs for Al Jazeera English, namely for its current events program “101...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Bora Kim – “House of Hummingbird”
Bora Kim is a Korean filmmaker with an MFA in film directing from Columbia. Her debut feature, “House of Hummingbird,” won the Grand Prix for Best Feature Film at the 69th Berlin International...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Sherry Hormann – “A Regular Woman”
Sherry Hormann is a German-American writer and director. Her directorial debut, “Silent Shadow,” won the Bavarian Film Award for Best Young Direction, the Film Award in Silver for Outstanding...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Ani Simon-Kennedy – “The Short History of the Long Road”
Ani Simon-Kennedy is a feature film, documentary, and commercial director. Her first feature, “Days of Gray,” played at top festivals around the world with an original live score by...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia – “Leftover Women”
Shosh Shlam is a director and producer. She has directed several documentaries, including “Last Journey into Silence,” “Good Garbage,” and “Web Junkie.” Hilla...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Karen Stokkendal Poulsen – “On the Inside of a Military Dictatorship”
Karen Stokkendal Poulsen is a writer and director with a background in foreign affairs and political science. Her 2014 documentary “The Agreement” was nominated for Best Nordic Documentary at the...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni – “Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind”
Martha Kehoe is a writer, producer, and director who has worked on and created award-winning documentaries, series, and specials in multiple genres. Her early career focused on music, as she...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Jeanie Finlay – “Seahorse”
Jeanie Finlay is British documentary filmmaker. Her films tell small and intimate stories to international audiences, whether inviting them behind the scenes of Teesside’s last record shop...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Lara Jean Gallagher – “Clementine”
Lara Jean Gallagher is a writer and director. Her shorts and music videos have screened at SXSW, Palm Springs Shortfest, Mill Valley, Portland International, DC Shorts, as well as online via...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Yu Gu – “A Woman’s Work: The NFL’s Cheerleader Problem”
Yu Gu is a filmmaker and visual artist born in Chongqing, China and raised in Vancouver, Canada. Her previous credits include hybrid documentary “A Moth in Spring” and feature documentary...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Michela Occhipinti – “Flesh Out”
Michela Occhipinti is an Italian director and producer. She traveled throughout South America to film and produce “Viva la Pepa! (Give Us Back the Constitution)” in 2003 and later filmed a “Sei...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Marwa Zein – “Khartoum Offside”
Marwa Zein is a Sudanese film director and producer. Her graduation project, “A game,” was an official selection of more than 30 international festivals worldwide and was translated into five...