News
Leslie Bennetts to Write Joan Rivers Biography
In the days since her death, Joan Rivers has been publicly eulogized by friends and protégés like Kathy Bates, Louis C.K., and Howard Stern. Now the trailblazing comedienne is set to receive a...
Book Excerpt: How Nicole Holofcener Got Her Debut Feature, ‘Walking and Talking,’ Made
The following is an excerpt from independent film producer Ted Hope’s new book Hope for Film, which was published August 5, 2014. Nicole Holofcener alwaysmade it clear to me that she would not...
Fort Bliss Director Claudia Myers on Women in the Military and the Difficulties of Balancing Motherhood and Film
There are many films about the harrowing experiences of war, but not nearly enough about women soldiers — especially women with families. Returning home after serving her tour in Afghanistan...
Women Created Only 20% of TV Shows Last Season
The current narrative in the media zeitgeist is that TV is so much better for women than film. Well, it might seem so on the surface, because you see more women on our TV screens, but when you drill...
Hong Kong and Latvia Submit Films by Women Directors for Foreign-Language Oscar Consideration
Two works from female filmmakers have been chosen as their countries’ selections for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Hong Kong has submitted Ann Hui’s The Golden Era as its pick. The...
Katniss Everdeen Tries to Save the World in Mockingjay Part 1 Trailer
There’s no denying that I am excited for the Mockingjay film. After this past summer where we saw so few females onscreen, and so few in strong roles, I am psyched for the next installment of the...
DGA Women’s Steering Committee to Celebrate 35th Anniversary on September 20
Since its founding in 1979, the DGA’s Women’s Steering Committee has called attention to the limited opportunities female filmmakers faced — and continue to face — in the film...
Guest Post: ‘Srugim’ Brings Orthodox Jewish Women’s Feminist Struggles to the Small Screen
The Israeli series Srugim, which ran from 2008 to 2011, was a watershed moment for how women areportrayed on Israeli television. The show raised the bar particularly with its sympathetic depiction...
Katie Holmes and Stacy Title to Direct First and Fourth Feature, Respectively
Two women have signed on to helm new projects in the past week. Actress Katie Holmes made the surprise announcement that she’ll be heading behind the camera to make her directorial debut. Holmes...
Angela Kinsey to Co-Write and Star in Female Buddy Comedy
The truly challenging thing after a breakup isn’t staying friends with your ex. It’s making friends with your ex’s new lover. But what if it wasn’t so hard? That’s the premise that Angela...
Trailer Watch: Julianne Moore and Mia Wasikowska Grasp at the Hollywood Dream in ‘Maps to the Stars’
One of the buzziest films to come out of Cannes, Maps to the Stars, has released a trailer. David Cronenberg’s showbiz satire stars Julianne Moore (who won the best actress award at Cannes) as...
Caitlin Moran’s Autobiographical Sitcom Gets Season Order
Fans of Caitlin Moran, stories about sisters, economic diversity on TV, and humor in general now have cause to rejoice. Raised by Wolves, written by the author of the best-selling laugh-out-loud...
Trailer Watch: Dakota Fanning is a Rebellious Victorian Teen Bride in ‘Effie Gray’
The annulment of the marriage between prominent art critic John Ruskin and his much younger wife Effie Gray was a scandal in Victorian England, not least because Gray contended that their five-year...
Rose McGowan Brings Female Film Heroines to LA Theater
Actress Rose McGowan has big plans for the next stage of her career as a filmmaker. Her first step? An Oscar. Back in January, McGowan’s directorial debut, the 17-minute short Dawn, played at...
The Big O: Post-Toronto, the Oscar Picture Clears — and It Isn’t a Pretty One for Actresses
We were so spoiled. Last year, there was a rich variety of performances to celebrate in the lead-actress Oscar category. The choices were so abundant, in fact, that admirable efforts like Emma...
Infographic: Women Directed 10% of Independent Features Between 2009–2013
Earlier this summer, we published an infographic highlighting the awful truth that less than 5% of studio movies in the past five years were directed by women. Now we’ve taken a look at the...
Elisabeth Moss to Star in Broadway Revival of Wendy Wasserstein’s ‘Heidi Chronicles’
It’s hard to think of another actress with a better career than Elisabeth Moss does today. She was utterly fantastic in Jane Campion’s Sundance miniseries Top of the Lake, steals every scene...
Guest Post: Honeymoon, Bloody Unicorns and Spumoni
If you’ve been in an intimate relationship, you’ve had that moment — that awful moment — where the person you’ve been sharing your bed with suddenly seems like a stranger. It was...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Megha Ramaswamy — ‘Newborns’
MeghaRamaswamy is a Mumbai-based screenwriter and director. She wrote the screenplayfor the feature film Shaitan, and wroteand directed the fictional short Bunny. (TIFF official site) Her 8-minute...
Trailer Watch: Jennifer Lawrence is No Ordinary Wife in Susanne Bier’s ‘Serena’
Jennifer Lawrence gets a different type of role in the long awaited Serena, directed by the Oscar-winning Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier. The depression era film follows the strong-willed wife...
Hilary Swank to Receive Award from Hamptons Film Festival
Hilary Swank will be presented with Variety‘s Creative Impact in Acting Award at the Hamptons Film Festival (October 9–13) this fall. The two-time Oscar winner will also participate in a master...
The Renaissance Of Reese Witherspoon
From my latest Forbes post on the imminent “Reese-surgence” via Oscar hopefuls like Gone Girl, The Good Lie, and Wild: Witherspoon could be looking at multiple Oscar nominations, both as an...
Guest Post: Living With and Making Films About Dementia
Let’s be completely honest. Professional women are still expected to be faultless and competitive, make it look effortless, and downplay the demands of family and life outside of work. But every...
Trailer Watch: Claire Danes is a “Soldier in a War” and a New Mom in ‘Homeland’ Season 4
When Homeland killed off Brody and fired Saul from the CIA in the third season’s finale, it pushed the restart button on the show. The new trailer for Season 4 hints at what’s next: Carrie is...
Reese Witherspoon, Viola Davis, and Jane Fonda Among Variety’s Power of Women Honorees
A quintet of Hollywood power players and luminaries will be recognized for their philanthropic efforts on October 10. Variety’s 6th annual Power of Women luncheon will name Reese Witherspoon,...
Fall TV Preview Part 2: Shonda, Selfies, and Sick Kids
Last week’s look at some of the fall shows created by women was far from comprehensive. As a commenter pointed out, I did not include the much-anticipated How to Get Away with Murder, from Scandal...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Ruba Nadda — ‘October Gale’
Ruba Nadda is a Montreal-born, Toronto-based filmmaker. She attended York University and the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. She has written and directed several feature films, including Sabah...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Atsuko Hirayanagi — ‘Oh Lucy!’
Atsuko Hirayanagi wasborn in Nagano and raised in Chiba, Japan. She is a recent graduate of NYUTisch School of The Arts, Asia, with an MFA in Film Production. Her short films have played at numerous...
Trailer Watch: Jennifer Lopez is Stalked by ‘The Boy Next Door’
Jennifer Lopez returns to the thriller genre in The Boy Next Door, a lascivious guilty pleasure about obsession and control. Lopez plays a teacher and single mother who has a one-night stand with...
Halle Berry’s Production Company Gets Pilot Deal
With two episodes left in the debut season of her CBS sci-fi mystery series Extant, Halle Berry has signaling that she is taking another step in making television her new medium. Berry’s...
Helen Hunt’s Sophomore Directing Effort Finds Distribution
Helen Hunt continues to make starring roles for herself. As with her feature directorial debut (Then She Found Me), Hunt helmed and stars in her sophomore effort, Ride. The surf comedy has just been...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Kasia Nalewajka — ‘Pineapple Calamari’
Kasia Nalewajka attended the National Film and Television School in London. She wrote and directed the animated short film Sacculina Carcini (2014), and co-wrote and directed the animated shorts...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Isabel Coixet — ‘Learning to Drive’
Isabel Coixet was born in Barcelona.Since her debut feature, Too Oldto Die Young (1989), she has directedThings I Never Told You (1996), My LifeWithout Me (2003), The Secret Life of Words...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Sophie Barthes — ‘Madame Bovary’
A Columbia University graduate, Sophie Barthes was born in France and grew up in the Middle East and South America. Barthes has just completed an English adaptation of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame...
Is Hillary Clinton Fall’s Biggest TV Star?
America has never been readier for a female president, which may be why there are two new shows about women politicos this fall. The NY Times argues that CBS’s Madam Secretary and NBC’s State...
Susanne Bier to Lead Zurich Film Festival Jury
Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier is set to serve as President of the International Feature Film Jury at the Zurich International Film Festival (September 25-October 5). Bier, who won the Best...
‘Awkward’ Creator Lauren Iungerich Sells ‘Couch Detective’ to ABC
Awkward creator Lauren Iungerich has secured a put-pilot commitment from ABC for her new comedic murder-mystery series Couch Detective. Iungerich has teamed up with producer Jerry Bruckheimer on the...
Todd Haynes to Direct Reese Witherspoon as Peggy Lee
The Peggy Lee biopic that Reese Witherspoon has championed since 2010 has finally found a new director in Todd Haynes. After securing the rights to Lee’s story in 2010, Witherspoon had approached...
Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette Are Best Friends in Catherine Hardwicke’s ‘Miss You Already’
Drew Barrymore replaces Rachel Weisz as Toni Collette’s best friend in Catherine Hardwicke’s upcoming dramedy Miss You Already. Morwenna Banks’ script finds two lifelong friends being pulled...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Yassmina Karajah — ‘Light’
Yassmina Karajah was born in Amman, Jordan, and is a graduate of the Bristol Law School. She studies film production at the University of British Columbia. In Light (2014), her directorial debut, a...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Marie-Ève Juste — ‘The Sands’
Based in Montreal, Marie-Ève Juste worked at the Cinémathèque Québécoise between 2003 and 2007, where she first got familiar with cinema history and practice. In 2011, she co-directed her first...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Elizabeth Lazebnik — ‘Liompa’
Elizabeth Lazebnik is quickly becoming a recognized name in the Canadian film industry. Her shorts have previously played at TIFF, the Montreal World Film Festival and received awards from WWSFF,...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Grazia Tricarico — ‘Persefone’
Grazia Tricarico attended the University of Milan and the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. She has directed the short films Brightbox (2009), L’arte marziale (2010), Michele nella...
Mary-Louise Parker to Play Writer Mary Karr in New Showtimes Series
Unlike its distant rival HBO, Showtime has struggled for years to capture prestige for its original programming. The other premium cable network recently accomplished just that with the...
TIFF Women DIrectors: Meet Shonali Bose — ‘Margarita, With a Straw’
Shonali Bose was raised in Calcutta, Mumbai, and Delhi. She received her BA from Delhi University and her MA from Columbia before earning her MFA at UCLA film school. She made her feature debut as...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Tamara Erde — ‘This is My Land’
Tamara Erde was born in Tel Aviv. She studied at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem and Le Fresnoy in France. In her first feature film, This is My Land, Erde visits six independently run Israeli and...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Lindsay MacKay — ‘Wet Bum’
Lindsay MacKay is the writer-director of WetBum, her debut feature film, which was named a Top 10 Finalist in theprestigious Zoetrope Screenwriting Competition. She is a graduate of theDirecting...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Linnea Saasen — ‘Meet Me in Montenegro’
Linnea Saasen was born and raised north of the Arctic Circle in Harstad,Norway. She moved to Oslo to study art before settling in Berlin, where sheworked as a contemporary dancer and performance...
TIFF 14 First Thoughts — The Appetizer Before the Meal
I’ve been on the ground here in Toronto for three days. This is my fourth year, and it’s the first time that the first couple of days didn’t feel like I was going out of my mind. There are a...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Suha Arraf — ‘Villa Touma’
Suha Arraf was born in the Palestinian village of Melyia, near Lebanon. She began her filmmaking career as a documentary producer. Her latest work, Women of Hamas (2010), received 13 awards at...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Marte Vold — ‘Out of Nature’
Marte Vold (b. 1978 in Tromsø, Norway) studied film at Nordland Art andFilm School, attended the National Art Academy in Oslo, and then graduated fromthe Norwegian Film School in 2005. Between 2002...