Women Directors
Ava DuVernay Signs On To Direct Disney’s ‘A Wrinkle in Time’
“Selma” director Ava DuVernay will helm Disney’s “A Wrinkle in Time,” an adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s beloved and bestselling 1963 fantasy novel of the same name. “Frozen”...
Groundbreaking New Research Concludes “Hollywood Still Functions As A Straight, White, Boy’s Club”
With #OscarsSoWhite — and male — just under a week away, USC Annenberg’s Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative has released a groundbreaking new study offering a harsh, ugly...
Watch: Critics and Cinephiles Pick Top 20 Films Directed by Women for Fandor Video Essay
Critic and filmmaker Scout Tafoya asked over 50 film writers and cinephiles to name their ten favorite women-directed films. The resulting Fandor video essay counting down the resulting top 20 is a...
Amazon Orders Jill Soloway Pilot ‘I Love Dick’
If you loved Jill Soloway’s forays into academia on “Transparent” (including her on-screen stint as an over-the-top women’s studies lecturer in Season 1), you’re in luck: the...
Guest Post: How I Met the Subject of My Doc (Which Was Nominated for an Oscar 8 Years Later)
Trailer Watch: Mirjana Karanovic Questions What It Means to Be ‘A Good Wife’ in Post-War Serbia
A trailer has been released for Serbian actress Mirjana Karanovic’s directorial debut, “A Good Wife.” Karanovic (“Grbavica”), who co-wrote the script, stars as Milena, a homemaker living in...
Study: Only 21% of European Films Directed by Women
A new study has found that only one in five European films is directed by a woman, while 84% of public-funding resources go to male-directed films. Those are two of thedire statistics that emerge...
Trailer Watch: Tension and Dread Are the Main Courses in Karyn Kusama’s ‘The Invitation’
A man (Logan Marshall-Green) fears that his estranged ex-wife and her new husband have invited him to their home for suspicious reasons in Karyn Kusama’s “The Invitation.” The newly released...
Apply to Get Your Web Series Made With the Support of Issa Rae and Project Greenlight Digital
Issa Rae and Project Greenlight Digital Studios are partnering up to showcase the visions of underrepresented writers. The New Normal Writing Contest is now accepting pitches for an anthologyweb...
Sofia Coppola to Direct Opera in Rome
Back in December Sofia Coppola made her musical directorial debut with the Netflix special “A Very Murray Christmas.” Now the Oscar winner is taking on another music-centric endeavor: directing...
Anne Fontaine’s Sundance Drama About Pregnant Nuns Picked Up By Music Box Films
Music Box Films has acquired all U.S. rights for writer-director Anne Fontaine’s latest offering, “The Innocents.” The drama premiered at Sundance last month under the title “Agnus Dei.”...
Study: Number of Female Protagonists On Screen Improved in 2015 — But Not By Much
Today sees the release of the It’s A Man’s (Celluloid) World report for 2015, the annual study which examines the portrayal of female characters featured in the top 100 domestic grossing films of...
Maris Curran’s ‘Five Nights in Maine’ Starring Dianne Wiest Gets a Distribution Deal
Worldwide distribution rights for writer-director Maris Curran’s “Five Nights in Maine” have been acquired by FilmRise. The drama stars “Selma” breakout David Oyelowo as a young widower...
Ava DuVernay Circling Sci-Fi Starring Lupita Nyong’o and Jennifer Lee-Scripted ‘A Wrinkle in Time’
Ava DuVernay is in seriously high demand. The “Selma” director is reportedly currently being courted to direct not one but two high-profile features. Deadline reports that DuVernay is expected...
Maggie Greenwald’s Interracial Romance ‘Sophie and the Rising Sun’ Secures Representation
Writer-director Maggie Greenwald’s “Sophie and the Rising Sun” will be represented by Entertainment One’s Seville International. The sales agent acquired the exclusive rights to all regions...
National Theatre Commits to Gender Equality
The National Theatre in London has set a target of achieving a 50/50 gender balance among its directors and living writers by 2021. The plans were revealed by the prominent British venue’s current...
Guest Post: Hollywood Is Not Solely To Blame For Lack Of Diversity — Critics Are, Too
Lately, due to the #OscarsSoWhite,#OscarsSoMale and #AltOscarParty campaigns, a lot of attention is being paid to how The Academy, and Hollywood in a more general sense, fails to reward women and...
Trailer Watch: A Single Mom Falls for a Provincial “Hick” in Julie Delpy’s ‘Lolo’
“How can you think I’d be interested in two hot 20-year-old blondes?” asks Violette’s new beau, Jean-René, when she finds him asleep between a pair of them in the trailer for Julie...
Ava DuVernay’s Array Acquires Amanda Marsalis’s Romantic Drama ‘Echo Park’
Array — the film collective founded by director Ava DuVernay dedicated to the amplification of films by people of color and women — has announced indie film “Echo Park” as its...
Jessica Chastain to Star in Susanna White’s Native American Period Drama ‘Woman Walks Ahead’
Jessica Chastain is in talks to star in “Woman Walks Ahead,” Susanna White’s upcoming Native American period drama set in the 19th century. Chastain, a longtime advocate for diversity in the...
SXSW Announces Most of Its 2016 Lineup: Competition Sections Are 40% Female-Helmed
South by Southwest has announced the bulk of its 2016 lineup, and eight of twenty films in competition are female-helmed or co-helmed: That amounts to a not-at-all shabby 40%. In 2015, only 25% of...
Mary Harron to Direct Manson-Followers Movie ‘The Family’
Mary Harron has signed on to helm “The Family,” a portrait of Charles Manson’s female followers in prison after the Tate-LaBianca murder trials. Harron will collaborate once more with her...
Kathryn Bigelow Announces Next Film: Drama About 1967 Detroit Riots
More than three years after the release of her last film (“Zero Dark Thirty”), Kathryn Bigelow has finally announced her next project. The first and only woman filmmaker to ever win the Best...
Varda On Demand: Two Newly Restored Films from Legendary Feminist Filmmaker to Stream
Two newly restored films from the doyen of feminist filmmaking are set for VOD release. Agnès Varda made the relatively neglected “Jane B. By Agnès V.” and “Kung-Fu Master!” in 1988, with...
Kelly Reichardt Retrospective to Tour Europe
After her latest feature, “Certain Women,” gained unanimously rapturous reviews out of Sundance, Kelly Reichardt will have her filmography travel Europe in a career-long retrospective. The...
Chloe Zhao’s ‘Songs My Brothers Taught Me’ Lands Distribution Deal With Kino Lorber
Writer-director Chloe Zhao’s festival gem “Songs My Brothers Taught Me” has been acquired by Kino Lorber. Made with a largely unprofessional Lakota Native American cast, the drama focuses on...
Vicky Zhao to Direct Animated Feature Adaptation of Iconic TV Series ‘My Fair Princess’
Vicky Zhao, one of China’s most popular actresses, will return behind the camera to helm a feature-film version of “My Fair Princess,” the TV show that launched her to stardom. The animated...
Docu-Series About Hollywood’s Gender Inequality to Air on Epix
Gender inequality has persisted in Hollywood since the early days of the silver screen, but it’s only in recent years that the mainstream media has devoted much attention to sexism on screen and...
Sundance 2016 Women Directors: Meet Anne Fontaine — ‘Agnus Dei’
Sundance 2016 Women Directors: Meet Anne Fontaine — “The Innocents” Anne Fontaine is an actress, screenwriter and director born in Luxembourg. Her film “Dry Cleaning” won Best...
‘Homeland’s’ Lesli Linka Glatter to Direct Navy SEAL Series ‘Six’
Veteran TV director Lesli Linka Glatter (“Homeland,” “Mad Men,” “The Leftovers,” “The Walking Dead”) will helm the first two episodes of and executive produce the military drama...
Finding Inspiration at Sundance 2016
So I’ve been a bit logistically challenged here at Sundance, meaning that I have missed a films and been shut out of others. That’s the way it goes here. You have to surrender to it. But the one...
Eurimages Launches Woman Director Prize
Eurimages is introducing a new award to recognize superlative female filmmakers. Valued at 30,000 euros (over $32,000), the prize will launch at an upcoming film festival yet to be announced. The...
The Most Epic Feminist Moments of 2015
2015 marked a gender quake in the film and TV worlds. The conversation surrounding women in Hollywood — both those working onscreen and behind the scenes — is in a very different place...
Sam Taylor-Johnson in Talks to Helm Black List Script ‘Chappaquiddick’ About Ted Kennedy
“Fifty Shades of Grey” director Sam Taylor-Johnson appears close to booking her next project. Taylor-Johnson will be ditching Christian Grey’s red room in favor of Martha’s Vineyard with...
Guest Post: Closing the Confidence Gap One Female Hero at a Time
Last year, while working on the edit of my film “Bleeding Heart,” I heard the phrase “the confidence gap” for the first time. The confidence gap seemingly explains why women haven’t broken...
Kathryn Bigelow Developing HBO Drama About Jihadi Recruitment in the U.S.
Kathryn Bigelow has finally announced a substantial project since “Zero Dark Thirty.” The first female filmmaker to win an Oscar for Best Director is currently developing a drama for HBO....
Jessica Chastain Publishes Essay on the Value of Women-Directed Films
“I want to make sure I’m contributing to creating diversity in the industry,” wrote Jessica Chastain in a guest feature for The Hollywood Reporter yesterday. Chastain has a long and inspiring...
Inaugural DGA Diversity Report: Women Make Up Only 6.4% of Film Directors
The DGA’s inaugural Feature Film Diversity Report confirms what we already knew: the employment numbers for women directors are deplorably low. The DGA crunched the numbers for the 376 features...
Trailer Watch: Working-Class Pals Breed a Racehorse in Sundance Winner ‘Dark Horse’
Louise Osmond’s “Dark Horse” has a new trailer, and this is an underdog story you won’t want to miss. The documentary, which won the World Cinema Documentary Award at Sundance, focuses on a...
Ava DuVernay Barbie Goes on Sale Today
Great news just in time for the holiday season — the Ava DuVernay Barbie is available for purchase starting today. Mattel first introduced the doll back in April as part of its “Sheroes”...
Barbra Streisand’s First Directorial Project in 20 Years Will Be Catherine the Great Biopic
One of Hollywood’s most prominent women filmmakers is attached to direct a biopic about one of history’s most powerful women rulers. Barbra Streisand has announced that she’ll helm a movie...
Sundance 2016 Competition Lineup Unveiled, Over 40% Directed by Women
Sundance has released the competition slate for the 2016 installment of the festival, and nearly half of the program is women-directed. Of the 54 films that have been announced in competition with a...
Deepa Mehta Honored by Toronto Critics, to Bestow $50,000 to Fellow Filmmaker
Indian-Canadian director Deepa Meehta has been named the recipient of the Technicolor Clyde Gilmour Award by the Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA). Mehta will receive $50,000, which she will...
Moving the Needle on Hollywood’s Gender Disparity: 4 Solutions
Under media pressure and the threat of possible government intervention, Hollywood seems to finally be taking its female-protagonist and woman-director problems more seriously. Forty-four industry...
‘Motley’s Law,’ About an American Lawyer’s Fight for Afghan Human Rights, to Air on Al Jazeera Am
Nicole N. Horanyi’s “Motley’s Law,” a documentary profile of human rights lawyer Kimberley Motley, has found a new home at Al Jazeera America (AJAM). The winner of the Grand Jury Prize at...
Carol Morley Wins 2015 Wellcome Trust Screenwriting Fellowship
Carol Morley has been named the 2015 Wellcome Trust Screenwriting Fellowship recipient. Best known as the writer-director of the 2014 fainting-epidemic drama “The Falling,” Morley also penned...
Spirit Award Nods Announced: ‘Carol,’ ‘Tangerine,’ ‘Diary of a Teenage Girl’ and More
The nominations for the Film Independent Spirit Awards are in, and while the indie film world — including its own awards circuit — is slightly more hospitable to female filmmakers than...
Jennifer Cho Suhr to Write/Direct Estranged Korean-American Sisters Tale ‘You & Me Both’
Jennifer Cho Suhr will make her directorial debut with “You & Me Both,” a road-trip movie about two estranged Korean-American sisters in search of their birth mother. After the death of their...
Leena Yadav’s ‘Parched’ Wins Stockholm Impact Award Recognizing “Headstrong Filmmakers”
Writer-director Leena Yadav’s “Parched,” about four rural Indian women fighting against sexist traditions, has received the inaugural Stockholm Impact Award. Granted by the Stockholm...
Mainstreaming the Conversation About Discrimination Against Women Directors
The New York Times has written about Hollywood sexism before. Last year, we saw a three-part series from ManohlaDargis on the institutional discrimination against women directors in the industry. But...
‘Wonder Woman’ Movie Begins Filming
The most anticipated female superhero movie has begun production. Over the weekend, star Gal Gadot tweeted the picture above with the caption “Almost 75 years in the making… #WonderWoman is...