Women Directors
Sophie Goodhart on Guilt, Shame, and What Inspired “My Blind Brother”
Sophie Goodhart began her career in news and documentaries for UK television. “My Blind Brother” originated as a short. The short version of the film screened in competition at Cannes in 2003,...
Trailer Watch: “Newtown” Doc Examines the Aftermath of Sandy Hook Tragedy
“I don’t think that any of us that were in there feel like anyone needs to know specifically what we saw,” says an interviewee in a newly released trailer for Kim A. Snyder’s “Newtown.”...
Open Road Acquires Reese Witherspoon Comedy Directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer
Open Road Pictures has picked up the North American rights to “Home Again,” Hallie Meyers-Shyer’s directorial debut, Variety reports. The romantic comedy stars Reese Witherspoon. The story,...
Strong Women, Both Real and Fictional: September 2016’s Crowdfunding Picks
“Nasbandi” As the theme song to Netflix’s “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” says, “females are strong as hell.” This month’s crowdfunding picks highlight the strength and courage women...
Greece Submits Athina Rachel Tsangari’s “Chevalier” to the Oscars
The buddy comedy from hell may land a nomination at the Academy Awards. Greece’s submission for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2017 Oscars will be Athina Rachel Tsangari’s “Chevalier,”...
Two Women Directors Shortlisted for UK’s Biggest Film Bursary
The BFI and IWC Schaffhausen have revealed the shortlist of writers and/or directors competing for the inaugural IWC Filmmaker Bursary Award in Association with the BFI, and two of the four...
Listen: Podcast with “The Dressmaker” Director Jocelyn Moorhouse and Producer Sue Maslin
Women and Hollywood spoke with the women behind “The Dressmaker,” a dark comedy starring Kate Winslet as a sophisticated couturier who returns to her middle-of-nowhere hometown to reconcile with...
“Better Things” Renewed for Season 2
“Better Things” is coming back for a second season, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. FX has renewed the comedy after airing only two episodes of the series. The show was created by...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Kristina Kumrić — “Half A Man”
Kristina Kumrić has helmed several short fiction and documentary films. Her short documentary “Welcome to Igrane” won a special jury prize at the Vukovar Film Festival, and her short doc “i...
Women-Directed Films Dominate EFA Debut Film Nominees
Women directors are often shut out of awards conversations, nevermind nominations, but in a refreshing change of pace, female-directed films dominate the nominees for the European Film Awards’...
Karyn Kusama Books New Directing Job
Karyn Kusama has signed on to helm “Breed,” an upcoming horror film for Fox with a terrifying fertility-related premise. The project is based on a 2012 Chase Novak novel of the...
TIFF 2016 Deals: “The Bad Batch” and “Paris Can Wait” Find Homes
The Toronto International Film Festival wrapped up September 18, but the 41st edition of the fest continues to be a source of exciting film news. Both Ana Lily Amirpour’s follow-up to “A Girl...
Katherine Dieckmann’s “Strange Weather” is HIFF’s Southampton Opening Night Film
Katherine Dieckmann’s “Strange Weather” will be the Southampton Opening Night at the Hamptons International Film Festival, which runs from October 6–10 this year, Variety has...
Pam Fryman Directs Her 500th Episode of TV
Pam Fryman is in the midst of directing her 500th episode of television. According to Deadline, Fryman now ranks among the directors with the highest number of small-screen credits to their name....
“Bridget Jones’s Baby” Tops International Box Office
Bridget Jones had a big opening weekend in international markets, topping out at $29.4 million. As Deadline reports, “Bridget Jones’s Baby” debuted at number one in 24 overseas markets this...
2016 Emmys Roundup: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Sarah Paulson, Jill Soloway, and More
Sarah Paulson: ABC Last night’s Emmy’s ceremony was a wonderfully refreshing change of pace from #OscarsSoWhite and #OscarsSoMale. Julia Louis-Dreyfus made history at the 68th installment of the...
Fox Searchlight Finalizing “A United Kingdom” Buy Out of TIFF
Fox Searchlight is in final negotiations to buy the North American rights to Amma Asante’s “A United Kingdom,” Variety reports. The film is based on the book “Color Bar” by Susan...
Can #FreeTheBid Lead to More Women Directing in Hollywood?
Back in July, we relayed some in-depth reporting done by Mashable that found that less than 9.7 percent of rostered directors on the AdAge Production Company A-List, from which ad agencies cull...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Miwa Nishikawa — “The Long Excuse”
Miwa Nishikawa debuted as a writer-director with “Wild Berries” in 2002, which among other awards took Best Screenplay at the 2004 Mainichi Film Concourse. Her second feature, “Sway” showed...
Weekly Update for September 16: Women Centric, Directed, and Written Films Playing Near You
“Bridget Jones’s Baby” Films About Women Opening This Week Bridget Jones’s Baby — Directed by Sharon Maguire; Co-Written by Helen Fielding and Emma Thompson After breaking up with...
“Miss Stevens” Director Julia Hart on the Need for Telling Female Stories
Interview by Laura Berger Julia Hart’s debut script “The Keeping Room” landed on the Black List and was made into a feature directed by Daniel Barber starring Brit Marling. She’s written...
AFI and 20th Century Fox Team Up To Boost Female Directors
At this point, through multitudinous pieces of research and multiple in-depth studies, it’s pretty clear that women are being shut out of directing jobs at the big studios. Now it’s time for the...
Renée Zellweger and Sharon Maguire Talk Reuniting for “Bridget Jones’s Baby”
After taking a break from both acting and directing, respectively, Renée Zellweger and Sharon Maguire are back together. Their relationship began in 2001 with “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” a movie...
Mill Valley Film Festival Will Honor Nicole Kidman and Julie Dash
The Mill Valley Film Festival announced the complete lineup for the 39th iteration of the fest, which will run from October 6–16 this year and includes tributes to Nicole Kidman and...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Alanis Obomsawin — “We Can’t Make the Same Mistake Twice”
Alanis Obomsawin’s directing credits include “70 Years of Resistance,” “Rocks at Whiskey Trench,” “Is the Crown at War with Us?,” “Hi-Ho Mistahey!,” and “Trick or Treaty?” In...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Kelly Fremon Craig — “The Edge of Seventeen”
Kelly Fremon Craig started out writing sketch comedy and spoken word poetry in college, then landed an internship in the film division of Immortal Entertainment, where she read her first film script...
Trailer Watch: A Young Woman Disguises Herself to Play Sports in “Girl Unbound”
Erin Heidenreich’s documentary “Girl Unbound: The War To Be Her” tackles the story of a young Pakistani woman who lived as a boy for many years just to have the chance to play...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Maya Zinshtein — “Forever Pure”
Maya Zinshtein is an Israeli filmmaker and journalist originally from Russia. She has worked as a producer of documentaries, including “Thieves by Law” (2010), and as an investigative...
Storm Reid Lands Lead in Ava DuVernay’s “A Wrinkle in Time”
Ava DuVernay’s “A Wrinkle in Time” has found its young star. Storm Reid has landed the lead role of Meg Murry in the Disney adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s classic children’s book, The...
DGA Report Names Best and Worst Shows for Hiring Diverse Directors
The Directors Guild of America (DGA) has released its 2015–16 Diversity Report. The study analyzes the ethnicity and gender of directors hired to helm episodic television series across broadcast,...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Katherine Dieckmann — “Strange Weather”
Katherine Dieckmann’s films include “Motherhood,” “Diggers,” and “A Good Baby.” She began her career as a journalist, writing for such publications as Rolling Stone, The Village Voice,...
Shamim Sarif’s “Despite the Falling Snow” Gets U.S. Distribution
Shamim Sarif’s Cold War thriller “Despite The Falling Snow” has been picked up by ET Pictures for a U.S. release, Screen Daily reports. The film is described as a “romance-thriller about a...
New TV Research Reveals Gender Inequality On-Screen and Off
While television is widely considered a more female-friendly medium than film, new research from Dr. Martha Lauzen demonstrates that the small-screen isn’t nearly as progressive when it comes to...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Katell Quillévéré — “Heal the Living”
Katell Quillévéré was born in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Her films include the shorts “À bras les corps,” “L’Imprudence,” and “L’Échappée,” and the features “Un poison violent”...
Pietra Brettkelly’s “A Flickering Truth” Will Represent New Zealand at the Oscars
Film lovers and supporters of female directors will be excited about this one: New Zealand has chosen “A Flickering Truth” as their contender for the Academy Awards in the foreign-language...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Raja Amari — “Foreign Body”
Raja Amari’s previous features include “Satin Rouge” and “Buried Secrets.” She was born in Tunis and completed a Master’s degree in French literature at the University of Tunis, and...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Bronwen Hughes — “The Journey is the Destination”
Bronwen Hughes is a Canadian-British film director based in New York and Hollywood. “The Journey is the Destination” is her fourth feature film. Hughes’ previous films include “Forces of...
“Transparent” Creator Jill Soloway Talks the Female Gaze at TIFF
Jill Soloway, one of our favorite artists and creator of hit series “Transparent” and the new comedy “I Love Dick,” hit up the Toronto International Film Festival to give a master class on...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Erin Heidenreich — “Girl Unbound”
Director-writer-producer of documentaries, short films, and branded content, Erin Heidenreich’s voice has been shaped by the cultures she has immersed herself in across the globe. Set in the...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Elite Zexer — “Sand Storm”
Interview by Eboni Boykin and Laura Berger Elite Zexer’s previous short films are “Take Note,” which won the Best Fiction Film Award at the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival, and...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Robin Swicord — “Wakefield”
Robin Swicord made her feature directorial debut with “The Jane Austen Book Club,” which she also penned the screenplay for. Her other screenwriting credits include “Memoirs of a Geisha,”...
TIFF 2016: Oscar-Worthy Performances, Nudity, and Other Highlights
“American Honey” The Toronto International Film Festival’s program is stacked. While our TIFF preview collected highlights from the slate, there were literally dozens of worthy...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Emmanuelle Bercot — “150 Milligrams”
Emmanuelle Bercot’s previous directing credits include “Clément,” “Backstage,” “On My Way,” and “Standing Tall.” Bercot’s films have earned her many awards and honors,...
Katie Holmes’ Feature Directorial Debut Gets Distribution
Katie Holmes’ feature directorial debut has found a home. Gravitas Ventures has acquired the North American rights to “All We Had,” Holmes’ mother-daughter drama that premiered at the...
Quote of the Day: Natalie Portman Calls for More of the “Female Gaze”
In a 25 year career and with 45 acting credits, Natalie Portman had never worked with a female director. Last year, Portman became one herself with her directorial debut “A Tale of Love and...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors : Meet Sofia Exarchou — “Park”
Sofia Exarchou was born in Athens. She has been working as an assistant director in feature films and commercials since 2004. She has written and directed two short films, “Distance” and...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet María José Cuevas — “Beauties of the Night”
María José Cuevas’ practice draws from her experience in documentary, experimental video, design, and photography. She has collaborated on a variety of diverse cultural projects, which have...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet Sarah Adina Smith — “Buster’s Mal Heart”
Sarah Adina Smith’s first feature, “The Midnight Swim,” won six top prizes on the festival circuit, including the breakthrough audience award from AFI FEST. Smith was the only female director...
TIFF 2016 Women Directors: Meet April Mullen — “Below Her Mouth”
April Mullen’s previous features include “88,” an action thriller, and “Dead Before Dawn 3D,” which confirmed Mullen as the youngest person and first female to direct a live action...
Weekly Update for September 9: Women Centric, Directed, and Written Films Playing Near You
“As I Open My Eyes” Films About Women Opening This Week As I Open My Eyes — Directed by Leyla Bouzid; Written by Leyla Bouzid and Marie-Sophie Chambon (Opens in NY; Opens in LA September...
Viola Davis and Quvenzhané Wallis Join Claire McCarthy’s “Personal History Of Rachel Dupree”
Two Oscar nominees are joining forces for Claire McCarthy’s period drama “The Personal History Of Rachel Dupree.” Viola Davis and Quvenzhané Wallis have signed on, with Davis playing the...