Women Directors
Teyonah Parris in Talks for Christine Swanson’s “Buffalo Soldier Girl”
Teyonah Parris of “Dear White People,” “Chi-Raq,” and AMC’s “Mad Men” is reportedly in talks to star in “Buffalo Soldier Girl” for filmmaker Christine Swanson, according to...
Glamour Starts The Girl Project with “Get Schooled” Docu-Series
Glamour Magazine has begun an initiative called The Girl Project to highlight obstacles facing the 50 million girls worldwide who are fighting for an education. As part of the project, Glamour sent...
Louise Osmond on the Village That Inspired Her Underdog Doc “Dark Horse”
Director Louise Osmond started her career at the UK network ITN in their news journalism graduate trainee program, covering stories in Europe and Africa before moving into documentaries. Her most...
DGA Members Vote For Best-Directed Films and Include Only One Woman
The Directors Guild of America is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year, and it’s doing so by essentially forgetting that female directors even exist. The DGA polled its members asking what...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Marcie Hume — “Magicians: Life in the Impossible”
Marcie Hume began her documentary career in factual television in London. She has produced and directed a range of series for the BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic, and Discovery Channel. Along...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Rama Thiaw — “The Revolution Won’t Be Televised”
Rama Thiaw is a writer, director, and producer at Boul Falle Images, a Senegalese film production company. Mauritanian and Senegalese, she grew up between Senegal and Europe. She has previously...
Directors UK Research: “Systemic Bias Against Women Directors”
In one week most of the worldwide film industry will be in Cannes celebrating the “best in cinema.” There will be monumental press attention paid to these movies and these directors. While we...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Helena Třeštíková— “Mallory”
Helena Třeštíková has directed forty films since graduating from Prague’s FAMU film school in 1974. Recently, Trestikova’s works have been the subject of retrospectives at several major...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Hélène Choquette — “A Dog’s Life”
Hélène Choquette has been dedicating herself to making documentaries on social and political issues since she made her debut as a camerawoman and photographer in 2001. She co-directed the...
Kristen Stewart, Gabourey Sidibe to Make Directorial Debuts, America Ferrera to Produce with…
Kristen Stewart, Gabourey Sidibe to Make Directorial Debuts, America Ferrera to Produce with Refinery29 Kristen Stewart: Gage Skidmore/Wiki Commons Digital lifestyle company Refinery29 returned to...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Catalina Mesa — “Infinite Flight of Days”
Catalina Mesa grew up in Colombia. She went to Boston College and graduated with a degree in Management & Communications. She then worked in New York in a production company. From there she...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Laura Dunn— “The Seer”
Laura Dunn started making documentaries in response to her undergraduate experience at Yale University. Through a chronicle of labor strikes on campus, “The Subtext of a Yale Education” examines...
“Supergirl” Co-Creator and “Empire” Showrunner Call For Change at Alliance of Women Directors…
“Supergirl” Co-Creator and “Empire” Showrunner Call For Change at Alliance of Women Directors Awards The dismal status of female directors in television was a hot topic at the Alliance of...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Hollie Fifer — “The Opposition”
Hollie Fifer’s documentaries are inspired by true life stories that are too bizarre and courageous to believe. Her first documentary was commissioned by Australian Volunteers International,...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Beth Murphy — “What Tomorrow Brings”
Beth Murphy is founder of Boston-based Principle Pictures and Director of GroundTruth Films. Her work as producer, director, journalist, writer, and photographer is focused on human rights,...
May 2016 Film Preview
“Gayby Baby” There’s an array of choices to support female-centric and/or women-directed films in May. The month kicks off with “Gayby Baby,” a documentary that explores the increased...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Trisha Ziff — “The Man Who Saw Too Much”
Trisha Ziff’s feature documentary credits include “Chevolution” and “The Mexican Suitcase.” Ziff’s “Pirate Copy; Pirate Stories” is a collection of three shorts following a road trip...
Trailer Watch: “Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story)” Sparks Sexual Awakening
Eva Husson titled her directorial debut “Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story),” but it’s evident from the trailer here that what she’s talking about is a teenage version of love. No less fraught...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Zaynê Akyol— “Gulîstan, Land of Roses”
Zaynê Akyol is an award-winning filmmaker of Kurdish origin who was born in Turkey and raised in Quebec. Akyol won the René Malo Chair/National Film Board of Canada award for most promising...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Heidi Brandenburg — “When Two Worlds Collide”
Heidi Brandenburg co-founded Yachaywasi Films to explore social and environmental issues and challenge audiences to rethink preconceptions. Born in Paraguay and raised in Peru and Germany, she now...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Katja Gauriloff — “Kaisa’s Enchanted Forest”
Katja Gauriloff was born in Inari, Finland and is part of Lapland’s indigenous Sami Skolt tribe. Today she is a film director and co-owner of the Oktober Production Company. Her previous...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Anjali Nayar — “Gun Runners”
Anjali Nayar’s award-winning filmmaking and journalism work has explored myriad topics, ranging from climate change to political activism to pop culture. In her fractionally fictional documentary,...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors — Meet Monika Grassl — “Girls Don’t Fly”
Monika Grassl was born in in Vienna, Austria. In 2006 she wrote an analysis about Austrian documentary filmmaking for the Vienna Film Fund. She also created monthly portraits about unusual people...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Francesca Scalisi— “Half-Life in Fukushima”
Francesca Scalisi is an Italian director and editor. She is a co-founder of “Dok Mobile,” a film production company based in Switzerland. In 2015, she directed and produced the short film,...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Alethea Arnaquq-Baril — “Angry Inuk”
Alethea Arnaquq-Baril is an Inuit filmmaker from the Canadian Arctic, where her production company, Unikkaat Studios, is based. For her award-winning APTN documentary “Tunniit: Retracing the Lines...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Susanne Regina Meures — “Raving Iran”
Susanne Regina Meures was born in west Germany. She studied photography and art history at The Courtauld in London and film at the Zurich University of the Arts. She worked for numerous print...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Nicole Ma — “Putuparri & the Rainmakers”
Nicole Ma is an award-winning director and producer of new media, for Yiwarra Kuju: Canning Stock Route Project, and the inaugural exhibitions for the National Museum of Australia. Ma’s work...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Tal Barda — “The Wonderful Kingdom of Papa Alaev”
Tal Barda is a graduate of Tel Aviv University’s Film and Television Department. She is also a graduate of Le Mirail University in France. Her directing and producing credits include “A...
Weekly Update for April 29: Women Centric, Directed, and Written Films Playing Near You
“The Wait” Films About Women Opening This Week Viktoria — Written and Directed by Maya Vitkova (Opens in NYC) Maya Vitkova’s debut feature “Viktoria,” follows three generations of...
Penélope Cruz to Star in Toni Kalem’s “Layover”
Penélope Cruz is set to hit the road in Toni Kalem’s “Layover.” The Oscar-winner will play a traveling saleswoman who, according to the release, goes “on the lam from her life.” Claire...
Julie Dash’s Landmark Film “Daughters of the Dust” Restored for Re-release
Cohen Media Group has announced that their branch Cohen Film Collection has acquired rights to and will release a new restoration of Julie Dash’s landmark film “Daughters of the Dust.” They...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Tiffany Hsiung — “The Apology”
Tiffany Hsiung is an award-winning filmmaker based in Toronto. Since 2009, Hsiung has been documenting the lives of survivors of military sexual slavery during World War II; for the past six years,...
“Viktoria” Director Maya Viktova on the Difficult Journey To Make Her Directorial Debut
Maya Viktova is a writer-director and producer. In 2008, she executive produced Kamen Kalev’s debut feature “Eastern Plays,” which premiered at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2009 and...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Christy Garland — “Cheer Up”
Before moving to documentary filmmaking, Christy Garland directed several award-winning dramatic and comedic shorts, while working in the film industry as an assistant director. The Canadian...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Min Sook Lee — “Migrant Dreams”
Award-winning filmmaker Min Sook Lee has a diverse and prolific portfolio of multimedia work. Lee has directed numerous critically acclaimed social documentaries, including “My Toxic Baby,”...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Aude Leroux-Lévesque — “Living with Giants”
In 2009, Aude Leroux-Lévesque moved to Bangladesh to co-direct her first documentary, “Call Me Salma.” The film aired on Direct 8, ARTE, EBS Korea, and screened at over a dozen film festivals....
Friends, Family, and Strange Creatures: May 2016’s Crowdfunding Picks
“No Man’s Land” This month’s crowdfunding picks feature nuanced works by women directors looking to tell stories that don’t get told often enough. These picks examine family relationships,...
Nzingha Stewart To Write and Direct “The 10th Date” for Lifetime
According to Deadline, Lifetime is preparing a two-hour movie called “The 10th Date,” which could serve as a backdoor pilot for a series. The project will be written and directed by Nzingha...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Maria Arlamowsky — “Future Baby”
Maria Arlamowsky lives and works in Vienna, Austria. She studied at the University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna, the Film Academy, and Donau University in Krems. (Press materials) “Future...
Women In Film Los Angeles Now Accepting Grant Applications
Female filmmakers, are you ready for some cash? Women In Film Los Angeles has begun accepting applications for their 2016 Finishing Fund grants. The entry period opened yesterday and WIF will be...
LA Film Festival Unveils 2016 Lineup with 43% Women Directors
“Paint it Black”: LA Film Festival The LA Film Festival has revealed the lineup for its 2016 edition. Women directors are very well represented in the 22nd annual fest— take note, Cannes. The...
Lesli Linka Glatter Will Receive AFI’s Alumni Medal
Director Lesli Linka Glatter will be honored with the 2016 Franklin J. Schaffner Alumni Medal, the American Film Institute has announced in a release. The award, AFI notes, “recognizes the...
Disney’s Upcoming Slate Includes Few Female Directors
Like 20th Century Fox before them, Disney recently released a line-up of films with few female directors in sight. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney has staked out prime release dates for...
Karlovy Vary Film Festival to Feature Mexican Female Directors
“Amazing Cat Fish”: Karlovy Vary Film Festival The Karlovy Vary Film Festival, which runs from July 1–9 this summer, has announced this year’s fest will include a special segment focusing on...
Hot Docs 2016 Women Directors: Meet Eva Orner — “Chasing Asylum”
Academy and Emmy Award winner Eva Orner is an Australian filmmaker based in Los Angeles. According to her bio, Orner wrote, directed, and produced the feature documentary “The Network,” set...
Women-Directed Tribeca Audience Award Winners: “The Return” and “Children of the Mountain”
The Audience Awards for the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival have been announced. Women helmed two of the four features to honored at the 15th edition of the fest. Taking home the top prize in the...
Trailer Watch: The King and the President Cross Paths in Liza Johnson’s ‘Elvis & Nixon’
It takes a lot of chutzpah to send the President of the United States a letter that reads, “I can and will do more good if I am made a Federal Agent at large” — especially when such a...
Marielle Heller To Helm Feature Film Adaptation of HBO Gay Rights Doc
Marielle Heller’s star continues to rise. The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that the “Diary of a Teenage Girl” helmer will write and direct a feature film adaptation of “The Case Against...
Trailer Watch: The King and the President Cross Paths in Liza Johnson’s “Elvis & Nixon”
It takes a lot of chutzpah to send the President of the United States a letter that reads, “I can and will do more good if I am made a Federal Agent at large” — especially when such a...
Lifetime Announces Female-Centric Programming Development Slate
Lifetime continues to impress with its commitment to creating and distributing content by and about women. The network has announced a new programming slate and a new multi-platform initiative with...
Marielle Heller To Helm Feature Film Adaptation of HBO Gay Rights Doc
Marielle Heller’s star continues to rise. The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that the “Diary of a Teenage Girl” helmer will write and direct a feature film adaptation of “The Case Against...