Interviews
Interview: Callie Khouri on Female Likability and Nashville’s Upcoming Guest Stars
Nashville creator Callie Khouri first came into prominence as the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Thelma and Louise. She is also the director of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Mad Money....
Maria Friedman Talks Directing Merrily We Roll Along
Last summer when I was in London, I had the opportunity to see one of the most under-rated shows of Stephen Sondheim’s career, Merrily We Roll Along. It’s got some of his best songs, but as a...
The Crash Reel Director Lucy Walker on Snowboarding and Simone de Beauvoir
British director Lucy Walker is best-known for her Oscar-nominated film Waste Land, a profile of artist Vik Muniz’s work with Brazilian catadores, or workers who collect recyclables from...
Judy Blume and Lena Dunham on What It’s Like to be Pioneers in Sexual Frankness
Lena Dunham and Judy Blume interviewed each other for a book called Judy Blume and Lena Dunham in Conversation: Two Cultural Icons Discuss Writing, Feminism, Censorship, Sex, and a Sixth-Grade...
The Punk Singer Director Sini Anderson: “It’s Not Hard to be Drawn to Kathleen Hanna’s Story”
Sini Anderson has worked in film for over ten years as a producer, first assistant director, and creative consultant. The Punk Singer is Anderson’s first feature length documentary. She has served...
Black Nativity Director Kasi Lemmons Talks About Langston Hughes, Making a Musical
Kasi Lemmons adapts Langston Hughes’ musical retelling of the Nativity story in her new film Black Nativity, which features a superstar cast of Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, Jennifer Hudson,...
Saving Mr. Banks Producer Alison Owen on Making a Film About Disney with Disney
Alison Owen is one of the most successful independent producers working in the UK. Her incredibly diverse list of credits includes Elizabeth, Shaun of the Dead, Jane Eyre (2011), and, most recently,...
With Frozen, Director Jennifer Lee Breaks the Ice for Women Directors
It has taken 53 films, starting with 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, for theMagic Kingdom to reach this historic point. But Walt Disney Animation Studios hasfinally placed a woman in the...
Hunger Games Producer Nina Jacobson on Creating a Female-Centric Blockbuster
This weekend, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire became the highest-grossing November release ever with a box-office take of $161 million — $30 million over its production budget. Though star...
Ava DuVernay on Directing Tonight’s Scandal Episode
Middle of Nowhere director and Women and Hollywood hero Ava DuVernay helmed tonight’s episode of ABC’s Scandal. DuVernay spoke to us (by email) about her own Scandal fandom, Shonda Rhimes’...
Director Andrea Arnold On Her Next Film: “It’s Going to Involve Lots of Wild Kids, Rihanna and a Bear.”
Fish Tank and Wuthering Heights director AndreaArnold recently spent over a month in the U.S. as the first filmmaker-in-residence at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Her residency coincided...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Laura Checkoway
Journalist Laura Checkoway has penned revealing celebrity profiles and investigative features for numerous publications and is the former senior editor of Vibe magazine. Her acclaimed first book, My...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Cecilia Peck
Before Brave Miss World, Cecilia Peck most recently directed and produced, with Barbara Kopple, the feature-length documentary Shut Up & Sing, which chronicles the political backlash against and...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Vicki Vasilopoulos
Vicki Vasilopoulos is a Greek-American journalist whose articles have been published in The New York Times, Esquire, New Jersey Monthly and Time Out New York. She spent over a decade as Senior...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Lucy Kostelanetz
Filmmaker Lucy Kostelanetz premiered her first documentary feature Sonia in 2007 in film festivals around the world. Her previous work included two award-winning films for children, Rebeka Goes Down...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Gitte Peng
Gitte Peng is an education reform expert who served as Senior Education Policy Advisor in Mayor Bloomberg’s administration, developing and overseeing the City’s school reform policies and...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Therese Shechter
Therese Shechter deftly fuses personal narrative, interactive technologies and grassroots activism to chronicle 21st-century feminism, most recently as the writer and director of the documentary How...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Linda Hoaglund
Since 2007, Linda Hoaglund has produced three films and directed two relating to the Pacific War and postwar Japan. Born in Japan as the daughter of American missionary parents, she attended...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Sierra Pettengill and Jamila Wignot
Sierra Pettengill is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker. Town Hall is her directorial debut. She is the producer of Cutie and the Boxer (U.S. Documentary Directing Award, Sundance ’13) and the archival...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Dori Berinstein
Dori Berinstein is a Broadway producer and a director of feature-length documentaries about theater. Her Broadway producing credits include Carol Channing: Larger Than Life, Legally Blonde,...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Sarah McCarthy
Born in Sydney, Sarah McCarthy studied film in her native Australia. After graduating with first-class honours, she moved to London, where she worked in development for the BBC and RDF Media before...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Samantha Grant
Samantha Grant is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, and educator. In 2007, Sam was named a Carnegie/Knight fellow as part of the News 21 Initiative on the Future of Journalism and...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Beth B
Beth B produced, directed and edited Exposed. She also shot much of the film, and, with composer Jim Coleman, wrote several of the musical numbers. Beth B exploded onto the New York underground...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Merete Mueller
Merete Mueller is a writer and award-winning filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. With a background in fiction-writing and journalism, Merete has worked as the Managing Editor of elephant journal, a...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Suzan Beraza
Born in Jamaica and raised in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, social and environmental issues pervade Suzan’s work. Her films have appeared on National Public Television and on the...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Ky Dickens
Award-winning filmmaker Ky Dickens directed the documentary Fish Out of Water, which uses animation, LGBT narratives and historical analysis to deconstruct the seven Bible verses used to condemn...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Dawn Porter
DawnPorter is the founder of Trilogy Films and the director/producer of Gideon’s Army, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and aired on HBO. Before becoming a filmmaker, she was...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Stephanie Martin
Born in Sao Paulo and raised mostly in Buenos Aires, Stephanie discovered her passion for film while at Wellesley College where she studied French and Political Science. Following graduation,...
Sunlight Jr. and Sherrybaby Director Laurie Collyer Shines a Light on the Unseen America
Laurie Collyer is best known for writing and directing Sherrybaby, for which actress Maggie Gyllenhaal received a Golden Globe nomination. She also directed the documentary Nuyorican Dream (1999)....
AFI Women Directors: Meet Patrice Toye
Patrice Toye was born in 1967 and studied film in Brussels. She has made several short films, documentaries and television programs. In 1995, she wrote the feature Tin Soldier with the support of...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Karlyn Michelson
Karlyn Michelson is an Emmy Award-winning multimedia producer and video journalist. (AFI) Charlie Victor Romeo is playing AFI as part of the American Independents program. Women and Hollywood:...
Actresses Tackle a Difficult Subject in The Book Thief
Hereis a small fact: You are going to die. Witha first line like that in a novel, you know it’s going to be serious. Andimportant. The Book Thief,based on the book by Martin Zusak, opened...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Jillian Mayer
Jillian Mayer steeps her artistic practice in the verisimilitude of a generation that came of age in the 1980s. Her video works have premiered at galleries and museums internationally and at film...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Kasia Roslaniec
Kasia Roslaniec was born in Poland in 1980. She graduated from Warsaw Film School and also studied at the Wajda School. Her graduation film, Mall Girls, won Best Debut Director at the Polish Film...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Jenni Toivoniemi
Jenni Toivoniemi studied screenwriting in several international workshops, including Torino Film Lab’s Script & Pitch and Berlinale Talent Campus Script Station. She is about to complete her...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Katrin Gebbe
Katrin Gebbe attended the Utrecht Graduate School of Visual Arts and Design in the Netherlands and received her master’s degree in directing at the Hamburg Media School. Her short, Sores &...
Miranda Otto Talks About Playing Elizabeth Bishop in Reaching for the Moon
Reaching for the Moon tells the story of the explosive love affair between Pulitzer Prize winning poet Elizabeth Bishop (Mirnada Otto) and Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares (Gloria Pires) in...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Michelle Morgan
Michelle Morgan is sick of being just a screenwriter, even though she writes scripts for major studios. Most recently, her screenplay Imogene was brought to life by the talents of Kristen Wiig and...
“Fear Teaches Us A Lot About Ourselves” — An Interview with Ginger Snaps Writer Karen Walton
As we’ve explored in this month’s horror series, there’s a lot — both good and bad — to discuss when it comes to the intersection of horror, women and feminism. One movie that...
LFF Interview with Gabrielle Tana — Producer of Philomena and The Invisible Woman
Gabrielle Tana’s name made two notable appearances at the London Film Festival — through her New York-based shingle Magnolia Mae, she is the producer (with her partner Carolyn Marks...
October Horror Series Interview: Emily DiPrimio on Horror, Carver and Directing at 13 Years Old
At 13, Emily DiPrimio is well on her way to starting a career in the lady-sparse horror genre. She co-wrote and will co-direct, Carver, which just made its Kickstarter goal earlier this month. From...
LFF Interview with Flora Lau — Director of Bends
The title of Flora Lau’s debut feature film, Bends, refers to the winding river that separates Hong Kong from the Chinese mainland. The theme of the film is separation — the wealthy from the...
LFF Women Directors: Meet Chloe Ruthven
Chloe Ruthven’s first feature, Mario and Nini, followed two nine-year-old boys over five years, as she struggled to help them find alternatives toa life of crime. The film premiered at Sheffield...
LFF Interview with Destiny Ekaragha — Director of Gone Too Far!
Destiny Ekaragha’s debut feature film, Gone Too Far!, follows two incredibly well received short films, Tight Jeans and The Park, onto the screens of her local film festival, the BFI’s LFF. But...
LFF Women Directors: Meet Elina Psykou
Born in Athens, Greece in 1977, Elina Psykou studied Film Direction at Lykourgos Stavrakos Film School and Sociology at Panteion University, both in Athens. She continued her studies receiving her...
LFF Women Directors: Meet Chiemi Karasawa
Chiemi Karasawa founded Isotope Films in 2005 to develop and produce original content based on non-fiction material. Her award-winning work as a producerincludes Billy the Kid, The Betrayal, Tell...
“It Reaches the Level of Myth” — An Interview with Kimberly Peirce — Director of Carrie
Kimberly Peirce is taking a stab at reimagining one of the most iconic horror classics, Carrie, which arguably stars one of the best horror heroines in the genre. Hitting theaters on Friday,...
Interview with Diablo Cody — Director of Paradise
Diablo Cody’s directorial debut, Paradise, is out on October 18th, 2013 in Los Angeles and New York theaters. The story about a young Mormon girl named Lamb who survives a horrific plane crash and...
LFF Women Directors: Meet Cherien Dabis
Cherien Dabis is an award-winning Palestinian American filmmaker who received her M.F.A. in film from Columbia University. She wrote, directed, produced and edited several short films including Make...
LFF Women Directors: Meet Chika Anadu
Chika Anadu’s debut feature film, B For Boy, is in competition in the London Film Festival’s first feature section. Having delivered two ambitious and acclaimed short films on a similar subject,...
HIFF Women Directors: Meet Shana Betz
Shana Betz served as Executive Director for the MVPA, the premiere trade association for the music video industry, and executive produced the Director’s Cuts Film Festival, a cutting edge film...