News
Quote of the Day: Alexandre Desplat on Kathryn Bigelow “She’s a Master Director. She’s a Genius”
Academy Award nominated composer Alexandre Desplat who has scored Zero Dark Thirty spoke with Steve of Collider.com about another film he worked on Rise of the Guardians, and Desplat took the...
Interview with Rose Bosch — Director and Writer of La Rafle (The Round Up)
I loved the book Sarah’s Key (the movie not as much) but it revealed to me another story of the Holocaust and World War Two that I knew nothing about — the Vel’ de’ Hiv’ roundup of...
Trailer Watch: Side Effects — Starring Rooney Mara
Rooney Mara gets her lead post her Oscar nominated performance in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo in Side Effects, a thriller from Seven Soderberg. It looks a bit messy but one can never...
A New Role for Ashley Judd: U.S. Senator?
This election cycle may be over and in this day and age not a second passes until the next cycle begins. The speculation has begun that the always outspoken and intelligent Ashley Judd could be...
Celebrating Five Years of Women and Hollywood
I seem to always forget the anniversary of the site. I guess that’s good because that means I am busy and have a lot going on. But this year is a milestone — 5 YEARS! and I didn’t want to...
Watch This: Judi Dench on Skyfall
Skyfall, marks the 50th anniversary of the James Bond franchise and it revitalizes itself with a compelling storyline that puts major focus on Dench’s character M. When M’s past comes back to...
Cross Post: Sexism in Hollywood: Where Are the Women in Argo?
Ben Affleck’s Argo is shaping up to be this year’s biggest success story. With a near-win for the Audience Award at the Toronto Film Festival, stellar reviews across the board and an A+...
DOC NYC Opens Its Third Annual Festival
As readers of this site will know the documentary world is full of women. The folks running DOC NYC sure know that as their program is full of women directed films. (Also check out the poster.) The...
Guest Post: Coming Up Roses Or Bust…
“You’ll never get this made,” was the blunt and firm response from a well-regarded producer after reading my screenplay synopsis. The central theme of my film — a woman desperately...
Guest Post: Time For A Major Women’s Film Award Initiative?
As the awards season gets under way each year I look for the women who are nominated and most years I’m disappointed — the only award category where it is certain that a woman will be...
Guest Post: Why Make Babies When You Can Just Make Documentaries?
Being a woman, I was told since I was a teenager, “just wait, it’ll hit you — you’ll suddenly be overcome by the rash, ridiculous desire to have kids.” This was presented as a...
Women Director News Roundup: Nancy Savoca, Christine Jeffs and Sarah Siegal-Magness
Some new feature projects have recently been announced coming from Nancy Savoca, Christine Jeffs and the directorial debut of Precious producer Sarah Siegal-Magness. Nancy Savoca is attached to...
This Woman Is Too Fat for Hollywood?
I love Romola Garai. First, she’s a good actress. She’s just so excellent in The Hour which is written by Abi Morgan. Second, she knows that she needs to be in magazines and make appearances in...
Cross Post: Cloud Atlas Charts New Territory Between Women and Men With Halle Berry and Hugh Grant
I was belatedly watching “Cloud Atlas” at my local Cineplex, catching up on movies that I hadn’t seen because, thanks to Hurricane Sandy, I no longer had my Manhattan to upstate NY umbilical...
Mila Kunis to Executive Produce Feminist TV Drama for The CW
Mila Kunis will be executive producing a drama for The CW on feminism! The headline from the Hollywood Reporter “Mila Kunis to Exec Produce Women’s Lib Drama for CW” piqued our interest since...
Epic Meryl Streep and Judi Dench Showdown Follows after British Independent Film Awards Nominations
As awards season continues to heat up, the British Independent Film Awards just announced their nominees. While the women centric results from the European Film Awards were dire to say the least,...
Where are the Women Recipients of the American Society of Cinematography Outstanding Achievement Awards?
The American Society of Cinematographers announced the recipients of their 27th annual ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards. The awards will take place on February 10. No women were honored of the...
Closing Out The Political Season
We are so glad that the election is over and that Obama was re-elected. We will also have a record amount of female Senators — 20. That’s almost critical mass. Mazie Hirono (HI) will be the...
Trailer Watch: West of Memphis — Directed by Amy Berg
In 1994, three teenagers from Arkansas were convicted, despite lack of any physical evidence, of ritually murdering three 8 year old boys. Amy Berg’s acclaimed documentary West of Memphis takes a...
Guest Post: Into the Amazonian Jungle: Shooting in a Third World Country
Festival of Lights marked my departure from the documentary tradition for the first time in my professional career. I had always been attracted to the works of Margaret Mead and Mary Leaky, and...
Election Day Video: Kate Walsh on Why She’s Voting Obama
Kate Walsh, from Private Practice, tells her story about why she’s voting Obama. Make sure you go out and vote today.
2 Women Directed Animated Features on Oscar Shortlist
21 animated features have made it to the Oscar shortlist for best animated feature. Since over 16 films were submitted, a maximum of 5 films can be nominated. However, of these 21 animated...
Book Excerpt: Fanpire: The Twilight Saga and the Women Who Love It
From the Introduction: Welcome to the Twilight Zone As I sit attentively in the lecture “So Many Species, So Little Time: The Men of Twilight,” a teenage girl wearily plunks herself down beside...
The Disney Princesses Welcome a New Sister — Princess Leia
Start your day off with a little levity. We’re all going to need it. It’s kind of funny that Princess Leia our first example of a kick ass competent woman in sci-fi has joined the family of...
No Women Nominated for European Film Awards in Major Categories
Last week The European Film Awards announced their nominees for their annual awards. Michael Haneke’s Amour and Steve McQueen’s Shame picked up a majority of the nominations. But how did women...
Kathleen Kennedy Moves to Disney
Back in June we reported that Kathleen Kennedy had been named co-chair of LucasFilms. Word came last week that LucasFilm has now been bought by Disney for over $4 billion dollars, and Kennedy will...
Francis Lawrence to Direct the Rest of the Hunger Games Franchise
His first film of the franchise Catching Fire is not even completed, yet Mr. Lawrence seems to made the producers and the studio quite happy because he already has the job to direct the final two...
Listen to Barbara, Cher and Kathy Griffin Support Obama
One day more! Don’t forget to vote.
Women Are Not a Special Interest Group — Yes We Plan
A vote for Obama is a vote for Planned Parenthood and a vote for women.
Guest Post: Cinema Eye Honors 2013 Nominations
In her latest research, Independent Women: Behind-the-Scenes Representation on Festival Films (2011–2012), Martha Lauzen found that in selected film festivals 39% of documentary directors were...
Interview with Vamps Director Amy Heckerling
This was originally posted on April 9, 2012. Vamps is in theaters now. Amy Heckerling has made some serious classic films in her career namely Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless. She was in...
Watch This: Stella is 95 — Airing on PBS
The documentary, Stella is 95, is airing on PBS throughout November. Directed by Robin Baker Leacock, the documentary follows 95 year old Stella, a woman who doesn’t see her age as any impediment...
Political Video of the Day: Stockard Channing A is for: Always Remember
National treasure, Stockard Channing, recently did a video for the “A is For” campaign. With a group of women founders including Martha Plimpton, Lizz Winstead and Sarah Thyre, A is For brings...
Jodie Foster to Receive Cecil B. DeMille Award at Golden Globes
Adding more lady power to the evening, The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced that they will be honoring Jodie Foster with the Cecil B. DeMille award at this year’s Golden Globes. The...
Women Created and Centric TV News Roundup — November 1
With every roundup we do, we get more excited and hopeful for the upcoming crop of future TV shows by and about women. With projects from Jennifer Garner, Shonda Rhimes and Oprah — there is...
Political Video of the Day: Scarlett Johansson, Kerry Washington and Eva Longoria Are Voting Obama
In a video for MoveOn.org, actresses Scarlett Johansson, Kerry Washington and Eva Longoria give women some of the reasons why they should go vote for Obama in the upcoming...
Off Topic- The New New York City Normal Post Sandy
I just want to thank people for all their concern in the wake of Sandy. I am fine. I am lucky. My neighborhood escaped with relatively little damage. I went to bed on Monday night with my...
Trailer Watch: Breaking the Girls — Directed by Jamie Babbit
IFC recently aquired the rights to Breaking the Girls from Jamie Babbit best known for But I’m A Cheerleader The script is co-written by Go Fish writer, Guinevere Turner, and follows two college...
2012 Houston Cinema Arts Festival Focuses on Women Directors
The Houston Cinema Arts Society recently announced their lineup for the 2012 Houston Cinema Arts Festival. This year in honor of the 40th anniversary of Women Make Movies, the festival is...
Quote of the Day: I Wanted to Show People That Pregnancy is Not a Disability, And a Pregnant Lady Can Be in a Position of Power and Crazy Shit Won’t Happen — Diablo Cody
Diablo Cody just had her second child. She directed her first film Lamb of God while pregnant. She spoke with David Zax at Fast Company about the sexism in the media especially surrounding...
The Refreshing Honesty of Melissa Leo
I find Melissa Leo to be one of the most interesting actors around. Two years ago she got a lot of shit for creating her own “For Your Consideration” ads for her role in The Fighter when she...
TV Trailer Watch: The Carrie Diaries — Starring AnnaSophia Robb
The CW recently released the trailer for their prequel series to Sex and the City, The Carrie Diaries. The show follows Carrie Bradshaw (AnnaSophia Robb) in high school, right after she’s lost her...
Political Video of the Day: Women’s Voices: The Gender Gap Movie
In 1984, Jenny Rohrer directed Women’s Voices: The Gender Gap Movie to inform people about the gender gap as the election approached. With real life testimonials from women combined with visuals...
Guest Post: American Mary Sets Out to Modify the Way You Think About Women in Horror
In short, our film American Mary proclaims that she is the story of medical student Mary Mason who is growing increasingly broke and disenchanted by medical school and the surgeons she once admired....
Canada Establishing Rosalind Prize for Women Fiction Writers
During the Vancouver Writers Fest, frustration turned into creation. A panel of five women, including the founder of the U.K.’s Orange Prize for fiction, discussed the current state of women’s...
TIFF: Interview with Margarethe von Trotta and Barbara Sukowa — Director and Star of Hannah Arendt
Last, but not the bit least is a conversation with master director Margarethe von Trotta along with actress Barbara Sukowa who bring us the story of Hannah Arendt one of the first highly visible...
Hollywood Gets Political
With only eight days left before the upcoming Presidential election, more and more of our favorite actors, writers and directors are releasing content in support of Obama. We’ll continue to post...
Trailer Watch: Save The Date — Starring Lizzy Caplan and Alison Brie
Alison Brie and Lizzy Caplan star in Save the Date as sisters, Beth and Sarah, who are dealing with their own respective romantic entanglements. Sarah’s in a rebound relationship after rejecting...
Book Excerpt We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy: A Very Oral History
The first time I ever heard the statement “women aren’t funny” was while reading it in a Christopher Hitchens’s column in the January 2007 issue of Vanity Fair. At the time, I was more...
Watch This: The Michelle Obama Diaries — Produced by Issa Rae
We had previously written that Issa Rae was a woman in media to watch. She continues to produce content that proves that. Her latest is The Michelle Obama Diaries. Written by Lena Waithe and...
Interview with Julia Loktev — Writer and Director of The Loneliest Planet
Women and Hollywood: Where did you get the idea for this film? Julia Loktev: I was actually traveling in Georgia with my boyfriend at the time when I remembered this short story I had read by Tom...