Women Directors
Hot Docs 2017 Women Directors: Meet Tasha Hubbard — “Birth of a Family”
Tasha Hubbard is an award-winning filmmaker and an assistant professor at the University of Saskatchewan. Her previous documentary, “Two Worlds Collide,” won a Gemini and a Golden Sheaf Award in...
Hot Docs 2017 Women Directors: Meet Vaishali Sinha — “Ask the Sexpert”
Vaishali Sinha co-directed and produced the feature documentary “Made in India,” which focused on the personal stories behind the phenomenon of outsourcing surrogate mothers to India. The...
Weekly Update for April 28: Women Centric, Directed, and Written Films Playing Near You
“Below Her Mouth” Films About Women Opening This Week The Circle When Mae (Emma Watson) is hired to work for the world’s largest and most powerful tech and social media company, she sees it...
New “Little Women” Film in the Works from Clare Niederpruem
Jo March would be so pleased. A new adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s coming-of-age classic “Little Women” is in the works and a woman director is at the helm. According to Deadline,...
Hot Docs 2017 Women Directors: Meet Karin Jurschick — “Playing God”
Karin Jurschick is the co-founder of the International Women’s Film Festival in Cologne, Germany. Her award-winning films include “On the Rail of Evil,” “Chernobyl and its Consequences,”...
Women Directors Dominate Tribeca’s Top Awards
Female filmmakers left a major impression on Tribeca jurors. The fest runs until Sunday, April 30, but presented awards for its 16th edition on Thursday. Women-directed films were named U.S. Best...
Teaser Watch: Diana, Princess of Themyscira Becomes Diana Prince in “Wonder Woman”
June 2 can’t come soon enough. We’re counting down the days until Patty Jenkins’ “Wonder Woman” hits theaters. In the meantime, a new TV promo for the Gal Gadot-led film has aired, and the...
Hot Docs 2017 Women Directors: Meet Kalina Bertin — “Manic”
“Manic” is Kalina Bertin’s first feature. It will premiere at the 2017 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on April 30. W&H: Describe the film for us in your...
Lena Khan’s “The Tiger Hunter” Picked Up by Shout! Factory
Lena Khan’s feature directorial debut has secured distribution. Deadline reports that Shout! Factory has acquired all of the North American rights to “The Tiger Hunter,” a timely comedy about...
Bethany Ashton Wolf’s “Forever My Girl” Acquired by Roadside
“Forever My Girl” has found a home. Variety writes that Roadside Attractions has acquired domestic distribution rights to Bethany Ashton Wolf’s romance about high school sweethearts, missed...
Only Five of Disney’s Slated Films Through 2021 Are Directed by Women
Disney has unveiled the premiere dates for its upcoming films from next Friday’s “Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2” through the end of 2021. Per Variety, none of the remaining 2017 films are...
Hot Docs 2017 Women Directors: Meet Stacey Tenenbaum — “Shiners”
Stacey Tenenbaum is an award-winning creative producer and director who started her career in factual television 18 years ago. In 2014 Tenenbaum founded H2L Productions, a Montreal-based boutique...
May 2017 Film Preview
“Snatched” Women directors are set to dominate screens this May. Everything from luxurious Paris vacations to time travel to narratives about grief and regret are represented in this month’s...
Hot Docs 2017 Women Directors: Meet Ann Shin — “My Enemy, My Brother”
Ann Shin’s cross-platform project “The Defector” won Best Documentary and Best Documentary Director at the 2014 Canadian Screen Awards. The short version of “My Enemy, My Brother” was...
Hot Docs 2017 Preview: A Flamenco Legend, Female Inmates, and Domestic Violence
“A Better Man” Hot Docs kicks off today. Given that the Toronto fest is among the world’s biggest documentary festivals, it’s unsurprising that this year’s expansive program has something...
“Lipstick Under My Burkha” Set for Release in India After Censorship Threat
“Lipstick Under My Burkha” will screen in India after all. Per The Hollywood Reporter, India’s Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) overruled the Censor Board’s initial decision to...
Hot Docs 2017 Women Directors: Meet Ashley Sabin — “Do Donkeys Act?”
Ashley Sabin’s documentaries have screened internationally in festivals and on television worldwide. Her vast body of work includes four recent “animal ethnography” films based in the world...
Help Us Build Resources
We are working to build some new resources on Women and Hollywood. We’re creating a list of all the databases that are out there for hiring women (The Director List, illuminatrix, etc.) We are...
Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi’s Chavela Vargas Doc Acquired by Music Box Films
Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi’s award-winning Chavela Vargas documentary has found a home. Music Box Films has acquired the U.S. rights to “Chavela” and is planning a theatrical release for...
Cannes 2017: Join Women and Hollywood and Other Organizers Supporting Female Filmmakers
This year at the Cannes Film Festival, Women and Hollywood will once again be hosting a networking meeting with influencers who advocate for female filmmakers. Join us May 22 at the Scandinavian...
“The Secret Life of Bees” Being Made into Musical
“The Secret Life of Bees” is coming to the stage — again. The New York Times reports that a musical adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd’s 2001 novel — which was previously adapted into a...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Ellen Goldfarb— “Dare to be Different”
Ellen Goldfarb has produced and directed many projects. “Dare to Be Different” is her first feature film. “Dare to Be Different” will premiere at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival on...
Margot Robbie to Portray Queen Elizabeth I in Josie Rourke’s “Mary Queen of Scots”
Margot Robbie is swapping her Harley Quinn pigtails for Queen Elizabeth I’s crown. The Hollywood Reporter writes that the “Suicide Squad” actress will play Queen Elizabeth in Josie Rourke’s...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Perri Peltz — “Warning: This Drug May Kill You”
Perri Peltz is a documentary filmmaker, journalist, and public health advocate whose latest film is the HBO documentary “Risky Drinking.” Peltz’s previous directing credits include...
Trailer Watch: Teens on the Autism Spectrum Make a Splash in “Swim Team”
“When I’m swimming, I feel normal. It feels amazing,” says one of the characters in a newly released trailer for Lara Stolman’s “Swim Team.” The award-winning documentary follows the...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Kimberly Senior — “Chris Gethard’s Career Suicide”
Kimberly Senior has had an extensive directorial career both on and off-Broadway. Her productions have garnered dozens of awards and nominations across the country, and she most recently earned the...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Sarah Adina Smith — “Buster’s Mal Heart”
Sarah Adina Smith’s first feature, “The Midnight Swim,” won six awards on the festival circuit, including the audience award from AFI FEST. She wrote and directed “Mother’s Day,” a...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Trish Adlesic and Geeta Gandbhir — “I Am Evidence”
“I Am Evidence” will premiere at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival on April 24. Trish Adlesic is an Oscar and Emmy nominated documentary producer for her work on “Gasland” and “Gasland Part...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Alexandra Dean — “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story”
Alexandra Dean is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and producer. She produced news-magazine documentaries for PBS before becoming a series and documentary producer at Bloomberg television, producing...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Elvira Lind — “Bobbi Jene”
Elvira Lind has shot and directed documentaries of various lengths for TV, cinema, and the web on four different continents. Her first feature documentary, “Songs for Alexis,” competed at IDFA...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Sophie Brooks — “The Boy Downstairs”
Sophie Brooks’ first short film, “Malcolm,” won second place at NYU’s New Visions and Voices Festival. Her subsequent film, “Maple Leaves,” premiered at The Palm Springs International...
Women on the Verge: Crowdfunding Picks
“Beast” Everyone has moments of desperation, moments when you are sure nothing in life will ever be quite right again. The women at the center of this months crowdfunding picks bring these...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Julia Solomonoff — “Nobody’s Watching”
Julia Solomonoff is an Argentine director based in New York City. As both a director and producer, she has played a key role in the revitalization of Latin American cinema and her films have been...
Weekly Update for April 21: Women Centric, Directed, and Written Films Playing Near You
“Unforgettable” Films About Women Opening This Week Unforgettable — Directed by Denise Di Novi; Co-Written by Christina Hodson Katherine Heigl stars as Tessa Connover, who is barely coping...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Laurie Simmons — “My Art”
Laurie Simmons is an internationally recognized artist. Her work is included in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Whitney Museum, among...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Anna Chai and Nari Kye — “WASTED! The Story of Food Waste”
Anna Chai is an Emmy Award-winning director and producer known for her work on the James Beard Award-winning series “The Mind of a Chef” and “The Layover.” Nari Kye is an Emmy Award-winning...
Cannes 2017: Women Directors Represent 42% of Critics’ Week Main Competition
The 2017 lineup for Cannes’ Critics’ Week sidebar has been announced. Three of the main competition’s seven films — about 42 percent — are women-helmed. Only one film screened in...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Smriti Mundhra and Sarita Khurana— “A Suitable Girl”
Smriti Mundhra has been working in the film and television industry for over ten years. With partner Ben Rekhi, she produced “Bomb the System,” a 2004 Independent Spirit Award nominee for Best...
Trailer Watch: Laurie Simmons Revisits Hollywood’s Past in “My Art”
A trailer has landed for “My Art,” Laurie Simmons’ feature directorial debut. The spot for the drama kicks off with a scene all-too-familiar to those who have chosen to pursue a career in the...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Sandy Chronopoulos — “House of Z”
Sandy Chronopoulos is a documentary filmmaker and television producer living in Toronto, Canada. “House of Z” is her feature directorial debut. She is the Supervising Producer of Lifestyle &...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Katie Green and Carlye Rubin — “The Family I Had”
Katie Green and Carlye Rubin made their directorial debut with “The (Dead Mothers) Club,” which broadcast on HBO in 2014. The documentary centers on three women who lost their mothers during...
Trailer Watch: Bryan Cranston Hides from His Family in Robin Swicord’s “Wakefield”
“Suburban life. So much is the same week after week. Who hasn’t had the impulse to put their life on hold for a moment? Just vanish completely,” says Howard Wakefield (Bryan Cranston) in the...
Anne Hathaway Talks Internalized Misogyny and Working with Lone Scherfig
Anne Hathaway is an outspoken advocate of gender equality in Hollywood and beyond. The Oscar winner is a global goodwill ambassador for UN Women, the UN agency working towards gender equality and...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Kate Brooks — “The Last Animals”
Kate Brooks is an American photojournalist who has chronicled conflict and human rights issues for nearly two decades. Her introspective collection of essays and photographs, “In the Light of...
Trailer Watch: Nicole Kidman Gets an Unwanted Guest in Sofia Coppola’s “The Beguiled”
“You’re a most unwelcome visitor,” Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman) informs the wounded John McBurney (Colin Farrell) in a new trailer for Sofia Coppola’s “The Beguiled.” “And we do...
Cannes 2017: Directors’ Fortnight Lineup Is 35% Women-Directed
Cannes has announced its 2017 Director’s Fortnight lineup, and seven of 20 films screening are helmed by women, amounting to 35 percent of the slate. This is a dramatic improvement from last year,...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Quinn Shephard — “Blame”
As an actress, Quinn Shephard is best known for Paul Feig’s “Unaccompanied Minors and “Hostages” on CBS. Her upcoming films include “Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl” and Desiree Akhavan’s...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Elina Psykou — “Son of Sofia”
Elina Psykou’s first feature, “The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas,” won the Works in Progress Award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2012 and premiered at the Berlinale...
Trailer Watch: Two Women Grieve and Rage in Amber Tamblyn’s “Paint It Black”
In the newly released trailer for Amber Tamblyn’s “Paint It Black,” Josie (Alia Shawkat, “Search Party”) gets the phone call that everyone fears. “Has there been any individual you know...
Tribeca 2017 Women Directors: Meet Sierra Pettengill — “The Reagan Show”
Sierra Pettengill is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker. “Town Hall,” her directorial debut (co-directed by Jamila Wignot), broadcast nationally on PBS in 2014. She produced the Academy Award-nominated...
Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck to Direct “Captain Marvel”
We finally know who’s going to helm “Captain Marvel.” After months of speculation and rumors, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have been announced as the directors of the highly anticipated Marvel...