News
Marion Cotillard to Star in French Auteur Nicole Garcia’s Next Film
Marion Cotillard has signed on to star in French auteur Nicole Garcia’s next film. Mal de Pierres, literally translated to “Evil Stones,” will be a big-screen adaptation of Milena Agus novel...
Welcome Interns Kelcie Mattson and Alice Thorpe
I just wanted to take a moment and welcome the Women and Hollywood summer interns, Kelcie Mattson and Alice Thorp. Inkoo and I are very excited that they are on board. Here’s a little bit about...
Comedy Central Renews Inside Amy Schumer, Greenlights Two More Female-Led Comedies
Sometime in the last year, Comedy Central became the friendliest place for feminist comedy on the small screen. First came Inside Amy Schumer in the spring of 2013, a crass, honest, and of course...
After Tiller Director Lana Wilson to Helm Doc About Suicide in Japan
After tackling late-term abortions in After Tiller, documentarian Lana Wilson will delve into an equally difficult and complex subject in her next project: suicide. Wilson’s follow-up to Tiller,...
Shonda Rhimes’ Dartmouth Commencement Speech: “Dreamers Often End Up Living in the Basements of Relatives”
This past Sunday, Shonda Rhimes doled out some tough love — and shared a few great anecdotes — at the commencement ceremony at Dartmouth University, her alma mater. Her overall message...
LAFF Women Directors: Meet Kimberly Levin (Runoff)
Kimberly Levin is an award-winning filmmaker and former biochemist. Her short film Between Baronovsksy premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival and went on to play festivals in the US...
Yaya DaCosta Alafia to Play Whitney Houston in Lifetime Biopic
If you watched the third (and best) season of America’s Next Top Model, you’ve probably also been following runner-up Yaya DaCosta Alafia’s subsequent acting career with some interest. Alafia,...
Jennifer Lawrence to Team Up Again with David O. Russell
After working together on Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, Jennifer Lawrence and director David O. Russell will collaborate again on a film currently titled Joy. The 23-year-old actress...
Why Young Women Are the Hottest Box Office Demographic
From my latest Forbes post on Hollywood’s curious negligence of young women as a box-office demographic: This weekend proves that women are actually a more reliable audience [than young men]. As I...
Audra McDonald Sets Two Records at the 2014 Tony Awards
Theater legend Audra McDonald set two records at the Tonys last night by becoming the first performer to win all four acting categories and receiving the highest number of acting prizes in the...
Trailer Watch: Chloe Grace Moretz Wavers Between Life and Death in New If I Stay Trailer
Life-or-death situations are rarely as literal as the one teenage Mia (Chloe Grace Moretz) faces: Should she live or die? A new trailer has been released for the big-screen adaptation of Gayle...
Guest Post: What We Can Learn About Women in Hollywood from Amma Asante’s Belle
Have you seen the extraordinary new film Belle? Amma Asante’s latest project is not just a great work, but a testament tothe equal ability of women to direct great films. In fact, Belle...
Lauren Faust to Direct Animated Comedy About Medusa
After Maleficent made $170 million in international ticket sales in its opening weekend, it was almost inevitable that studio execs would sit around in their offices on Monday morning thinking of...
Updated: Lupita Nyong’o Options Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Trans-Atlantic Love Story Americanah
Update: Since this post was published, Lupita Nyong’o was (finally) cast in the next Star Wars movie and Brad Pitt’s production company, Plan B, joined D2 Productions. and Potboiler Productions...
Crosspost: The Fault in Our Stars: Our Love Affair with Romance and Feminism
Pain demands to be felt. So goes one of the wise lines from John Green’s bestselling novel The Fault in Our Stars. The line is prominently featured in the movie of the same title — and...
Obvious Child Director Gillian Robespierre: “We Don’t Make Abortion Funny. We Make a Character Funny.”
Obvious Child is the kind of movie that helped me remember why I love movies. I was laughing my ass off even before the credits, and that’s when I knew I was in for a treat. In this tightly...
Eimear McBride’s First Novel Wins Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction
It took debut novelist Eimear McBride many years to get her first book published after writing it in six months, but since then, it’s been much smoother sailing. Since A Girl is a Half-formed...
Lupita Nyong’o is Going to a Galaxy Far, Far Away
Earlier this week, it was announced that Lupita Nyong’o will be joining the cast of Star Wars: Episode VII. This is big news one of Hollywood’s biggest fantasy epics, which has been told...
Celine Sciamma’s Black Parisian Drama Girlhood Finds Distribution
Just a few weeks after its screening at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight, Celine Sciamma’s third film, Girlhood, has been picked up for American distribution (it has also sold throughout...
Trailer Watch: Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen Stop Being ‘Very Good Girls’
Following on the heels of Elizabeth Olsen’s Godzilla and Dakota Fanning’s Night Moves is the directorial debut of veteran screenwriter Naomi Foner. Very Good Girls, also penned by Foner, stars...
Guest Post: Creating My Film Footprint: The Importance of Women on Both Sides of the Camera
As far back as I can remember, I have always hada deep passion for movies, which probably derives from my fascination with thehuman character. The ability that film offers to travelwith a character...
In Praise of “Go Fuck Y’Self” Women: Lori Petty in Orange is the New Black
Orange is the New Black is back Friday, all 13 episodes of the second season will be miraculously available at 12:01 AM on Netflix. And what a return it is. I’ve only seen the first episode, and...
30% of Films at Karlovy Vary Festival Directed by Women
The 49th Karlovy Vary Film Festival, which will take place on July 4–12 in Carlsbad, the Czech Republic, will showcase ten women-directed films (from a total of 34). Female representation at the...
Star Wars Announces Lupita Nyong’o and Gwendoline Christie’s Additions to the Cast, But Why Did They Wait?
Last week, I deplored the fact that the only casting confirmation we’d heard about Lupita Nyong’o’s post-Oscar career was a voiceover gig in The Jungle Book. I was thrilled to be proven wrong...
Women Writers Fight Against Lupus (Bonus Book Excerpt from Jane Espenson)
Seventeen women writers from TV shows as diverse as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones, Family Guy, and Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD have grouped together to...
Women in Film-LA to Honor the Leaders of Its PSA Program
For the last 20 years, Women in Film has given its members the opportunity to hone their skills while giving back to the community through its Public Service Announcement Production Program. Each...
Maleficent Soars to the Top of the Box Office with $170 Mil in Global Ticket Sales
After a four-year absence from the big screen, Angelina Jolie crushed the competition and delivered the highest opening weekend of her career with Maleficent. Disney’s retelling of Sleeping...
Guest Post: How to Carry the Collaborative Spirit into the Realm of Distribution
Last summer, filmmakers David Lowery, Destin Cretton, AdamWingard and Joe Swanberg discovered that all of their movies were hittingtheaters and VOD on or around the same date. In this competitive...
Guest Post: Telling a Female Story with a (Nearly) All-Female Crew
“There is a special place inhell for women who don’t help other women.” — Madeleine Albright And even more so when itcomes to making movies. My first feature film, Emoticon 😉, tells...
Women and Hollywood is Hosting an LA Meet Up on June 13
I’m coming to LA and am going to host a meet up where we can all hang out, chat, network and make some trouble on June 13. Details: June 13 7pm to at least 9. Le Zinque in Venice — 600...
Maleficent Writer Linda Woolverton on Adapting Fairy Tales for a New Generation
Morethan a decade before Frozen’s Jennifer Lee became thefirst woman to direct a Walt Disney Animation Studios feature and Brave’s Brenda Chapman became thefirst female director of a Pixar film,...
Quote of the Day: Dakota Fanning
Former child-actor prodigy Dakota Fanning has gone from starring in films to critiquing them. The current NYU student, who’s a women’s studies major with an emphasis on studying “the portrayal...
Trailer Watch: Quvenzhane Wallis Anoints Herself Robin to Jamie Foxx’s Batman in New Annie Spot
Though he just starred as a villain in the new Spider-Man sequel, Jamie Foxx styles himself as a hero — namely, Batman — in the new Annie trailer. “This city needs me,” declares his...
Night Moves Director Kelly Reichardt On How Her “Action Film” Is About People, Not Politics
After gaining notice for Wendy and Lucy and Meek’s Cutoff, her small but critically acclaimed collaborations with actress Michelle Williams, director Kelly Reichardt has made the...
Pixar to Release Its Second Movie With a Female Protagonist Next Year
On the heels of Disney’s Frozen becoming the fifth highest-grossing film of all time comes news of Pixar’s next girl-centric movie. Inside Out, which will only be the second Pixar release with a...
Guest Post: The Film Fatales Inspire DIY Chapters
On Tuesday night, afull house of Independent Filmmaker Project members gathered at the Made in NY Media Center in downtownBrooklyn to meet the Film Fatales face-to-face. Earlier this month,...
The Other Women of Mad Men
In a recent Facebook discussion about the awful events of last weekend, and whether or not our sexist cultural landscape was to blame, I was reminded by a brilliant, feminist playwright friend of...
Trailer Watch: Robin Wright Animates Herself in The Congress
Actresses of a certain age will take any number of drastic measures to stop the march of time, but few are probably brave enough to undergo the extreme procedure Robin Wright volunteers for in The...
Nia Vardalos Prepping My Big Fat Greek Wedding Sequel
No success story better exemplifies Hollywood’s inability to cater to female tastes than Nia Vardalos’ sleeper hit My Big Fat Wedding, a romantic comedy written by and starring a then-chubby...
Killer FIlms and Glass Elevator Merge
Two production companies known for their friendliness to female-centric and women-driven projects have announced a merger. Christine Vachon and Pam Koffler’s Killer Films — the outfit...
Cross-Post: 5 Takeaways from the Sundance Institute’s Women in Film Financing Intensive
The following was originally published at Sundance.org. Money may not be the root of all evil, but it’s certainly a root cause of one: holding back women filmmakers. Financing was the most...
Mansplaining Away Hollywood Misogyny
This weekend, Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday took a much needed look at the correlation between Hollywood and violence. This is not the first time a critic has taken on the correlation between...
Director Alice Rohrwacher on Her Cannes Grand Prix-Winning Film The Wonders
Italian director Alice Rohrwacher took home the Cannes Grand Prix, the festival’s silver medal, this weekend. Her sophomore debut, Le Meraviglie (The Wonders), centers on a German-Italian family,...
The Normal Heart and the Erasing of Women
The Normal Heart, Larry Kramer’s critically acclaimed play that was adapted for television in a film produced by HBO, is a dramatic archive of feeling about the profound atrocities of the AIDS...
Cannes Film Festival Wrap Up — Why Gender Matters
Here’s my latest piece on Forbes: This past weekend while we were all barbecuing and relaxing here in the states, the 67th Cannes Film Festival concluded. Not surprisingly, the festival continued...
Want a Princess Leia Action Figure? Sorry, Disney Doesn’t Sell Them
One of the implicit promises of the sale of the Star Wars franchise to Disney was that its universe would become more inclusive. Big Mouse is a genius at merchandising, after all, and movies have to...
Trailer Watch: Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart in Clouds of Sils Maria
A tangle of jealousy, co-dependency and desire draws together Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, and Chloe Grace Moretz in French director Olivier Assayas’ Palme d’Or contender Clouds of...
TV: Angela Bassett to Direct Lifetime Movie About Whitney Houston
Lifetime has greenlit a movie about Whitney Houston, with the late singer’s Waiting to Exhale co-star Angela Bassett to direct. Whitney Houston will focus on the R&B diva’s troubled...
Quote of the Day: Shonda Rhimes Says No to Nice
Though she couldn’t attend the 39th annual Gracie Awards, Shonda Rhimes shared her sentiments on why Scandal, honored at the gala for Best Drama, is such a game-changing force. Actress Bellamy...
Female Filmmakers Win 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Prize at Cannes Student Competition
Female directors swept the Cinefondation, the student competition at Cannes. Annie Silverstein’s Kickstarter-funded “Skunk” won top honors. The University of Texas at Austin student will...
Emma Thompson on Her “Militant Feminist” Stand-Up Comedy Years
Emma Thompson is her usual, delightfully candid self in a new interview with Vanity Fair. Promoting The Love Punch — her new gray-haired, 99-percenters’ comedy with Pierce Brosnan, in which...