Women Directors
36% of 2015 Sundance Competition Films Directed by Women
In recent years, the Sundance Film Festival has come further than many other events of its kind in representing female directors. Sundance 2015 appears to be shaping up to its reputation as...
Atlanta Film Festival Announces Its First Ten Selections, All Directed by Women
The Atlanta Film Festival has chosen six narrative features and four documentaries — all directed by women — as its initial ten selections. ATLFF Director of Programming Kristy Breneman...
Chicken & Egg Pictures Gives $330,000 in Grants to 18 Women-Directed Projects
In anticipation of its 10-year anniversary next year, Chicken & Egg Pictures has chosen 18 documentaries to receive $330,000 in funding. Fourteen new films were selected as part of the 2014 Open...
Crosspost: These Are the Most Employed Women in the UK Film Industry
The following post originally appeared on Stephen Follows’ website and is published here with permission of the author. Last week, I looked at the most employed people in the UK film industry....
Amy Berg Partnering With Nate Parker for Doc About the “Black Male Crisis”
IDFA Women Directors: Meet Hella de Jonge — ‘Don’t Lose Heart’
Sculptor and writer Hella de Jonge has published two books about her youth and her family: Los van de wereld (Apart from the World) and Spring (Jump). (Press materials) Don’t Lose Heart will play...
‘Selma,’ ‘Obvious Child,’ ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night’ Receive Multiple Spirit Awards Nominations
Five women-directed films — Ava DuVernay’s Selma, Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child, Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Eliza Hittman’s It Felt Like Love, and Anja...
It’s Official: Michelle MacLaren Will Direct Wonder Woman
After weeks of rumors, we now have official confirmation that Michelle MacLaren will develop and direct the Wonder Woman movie, which is scheduled for release in Summer 2017. This is great news on a...
IDFA Women Directors: Meet Lia Jaspers — ‘Match Me!’
Munich-born Lia Jaspers is the director of the documentaries Tar Dakar (2005), You Drive Me Crazy (2012), and Match Me! (2014). She lives and works as a freelance author and writer in Munich. Match...
IDFA Women Directors: Meet Gina Leibrecht — ‘How to Smell a Rose’
The Power and Vision of Ava DuVernay
If you read Women and Hollywood regularly, you know that I am a gigantic fan of Ava DuVernay. I have been since her first movie, 2010’s I Will Follow, came out. She was one of the first people I...
‘Monster’ Director Patty Jenkins Announces First Film Project in Over Ten Years
Patty Jenkins has announced her first feature-directing project since 2003’s Monster, which garnered Charlize Theron the Best Actress Oscar, as well as its equivalents from the Golden Globes and...
Trailer Watch: Jessica Chastain Seduces and Bullies in Liv Ullmann’s ‘Miss Julie’
We are introduced to Miss Julie through the eyes of John, her father’s valet, who describes her as “elegant” and “magnificent” and praises her “waist and neck.” Her first lines of...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Michele Josue — ‘Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine’
Michele Josueis a filmmaker born to Filipino immigrant parents and raised in Maryland. Aftergraduating from Emerson College, Michele relocated to Los Angeles and worked asa short-form video editor...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Jilann Spitzmiller — ‘Still Dreaming’
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Kirsten D’Andrea Hollander — ‘Us, Naked: Trixie and Monkey’
Kirsten D’Andrea Hollander is a full-time professor at the MarylandInstitute College of Art (MICA), where she teaches in Foundation; Film andVideo; and Community Arts. She has received numerous...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Olga Lvoff — ‘When People Die They Sing Songs’
Olga Lvoff received an MFA in Social Documentary from the School of Visual Arts in 2013. She has worked as an independent film director since 2009. Her recent short documentary film, Two Travelers,...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Meghan O’Hara — ‘In Country’
Meghan O’Hara is a San Francisco-based filmmaker and educator. She is a 2014 Fellow of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and was named one of the 10 Filmmakers to Watch in 2014 by...
Listen: Women and Hollywood Podcast #3: Paula van der Oest
https://medium.com/media/28afcdfd7c62207aea33d655999ac93e/href
Women in Film Announces Nine Finishing Fund Recipients
The Women In Film Foundation has announced the nine female directors and producers who will receive finishing funds this year. In its 29th year, the fund will provide cash grants and in-kind...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Rachel Lears — ‘The Hand That Feeds’
RachelLears’ most recent feature documentary, TheHand That Feeds, co-directed with Robin Blotnick, won the audience awardfor best feature at Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2014, Best of...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Stephanie Wang-Breal — ‘Tough Love’
Stephanie Wang-Breal has been producing and directing commercials, television shows, anddocumentaries for the past 10 years. Tough Love is Wang-Breal’s second feature-length documentary. The film...
DOC NYC Directors: Meet Andrea B. Scott — ‘Florence, Arizona’
Andrea B. Scott is a Brooklyn-based documentary filmmaker, editor, and writer. She was an editor and an associate producer on A Place at the Table, directed by Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush,...
Guest Post: Preserving the Excitement of 1990s’ Independent Filmmaking
From 1991–2002, I wrote regularly about American independentand foreign films for Tower Records’ Pulse! magazine. I did interviews with filmmakers when their movies were releasedtheatrically and...
Trailer Watch: Martin Luther King, Jr. is a Man, Not a Monument, in Ava DuVernay’s ‘Selma’
“I always knew that MLK was badass, but he’s been homogenized to a speech and a statue,” said director Ava DuVernay at an Urbanworld Film Festival sneak-peek event for Selma a few months ago....
Four Women-Directed Animated Features Land on Oscar Shortlist
Next year’s February 22 ceremony is still far away, but here’s one thing that’s already crystallized about the Oscars’ animation race: There are no female frontrunners this year (like most...
Fox Announces Its Women Directors Initiative Fellows
Our sincerest congrats to the 20 accomplished female filmmakers who have been chosen to participate in the Fox Global Directors Initiative, a new multi-year program by the studio to develop the...
EXCLUSIVE: ShortsHD Celebrates Women Filmmakers with ‘100 Films By Her’ Month
ShortsHD, a high-definition cable network dedicated to short movies, will celebrate women directors this month with a 100 Films By Her special. Programming will consist of works from established and...
Women Directors — Speak Out Now About Sexism in the Industry
This is a post for all women directors (whether you are a DGA member or not) of feature films, episodic TV shows, commercials, shorts, experimentals etc. Have you been refused directing jobs despite...
Guest Post: Advice for Execs, Agency Owners, and Filmmakers Dealing with Agents Who “Don’t Do Women Directors”
So this happened this week: And I was not at all surprised. But I want to offer somesolutions. Because really, what’s the point of complaining about anything ifyou’re not going to try to solve...
Trailer Watch: Israeli Military Comedy ‘Zero Motivation’ Finds Humor in the Trenches
LA Agent to Producer: “I Don’t Do Women Directors”
Yesterday, my Twitter timeline exploded with the following tweet from French producer Charles Gillibert: While infuriating, sexist, and unjust, this sentiment really does not surprise me. Here’s...
‘Hysteria’ Filmmaker Tanya Wexler to Direct Keanu Reeves in Sci-Fi Thriller
Here’s a new female filmmaker about to make it big: Tanya Wexler, who directed Maggie Gyllenhaal in the 2011 vibrator-themed period rom com Hysteria. Wexler will have the opportunity to tackle a...
Trailer Watch: Ana Lily Amirpour’s Iranian Vampire Western ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night’
We’ve been hearing raves about A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night since its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival back in January. And now first-time filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour, who was nominated...
Canadian Recommendations For Achieving Gender Equity
Dear American readers: Your neighbors to the north are producing lots of original television and film content besides Degrassi and Atom Egoyan movies. Also, we — — much like you — are...
Guest Post: Doc Director Edet Belzberg: “If You Find a Good Enough Story, It’s Impossible to Quit”
Young women often ask me what my greatest challengeis when making a film. It is hard to choose just one. I’m very instinctual in my work. I followstories and characters that hit me on a gut...
Disney’s Giving Us Another Female Protagonist, But ‘Moana’ Will Be Written and Directed by Dudes
Walt Disney Animation Studios has finally released some information about Moana, an animated adventure set in the South Pacific expected to arrive in late-2016. The film will focus on its titular...
Book Excerpt: The Psychology of Fear in Ida Lupino’s ‘The Hitch-Hiker’
Ida Lupino was the first mainstream American female filmmaker to make movies within the Hollywood system since thebeginning of film censorship in the 1930s. She is often cited by feministfilm...
43% of 2014 DOC NYC Features Directed by Women, But Where Are the Films About Women?
It’s generally not hard to find female-directed features at documentary film festivals, since women filmmakers face less obstacles in the nonfiction world. This year’s DOC NYC Film Festival...
Trailer Watch: Olympic Runner and WWII P.O.W. Louis Zamperini Perseveres in Angelina Jolie’s ‘Unbroken’
We finally have a trailer for Unbroken, Angelina Jolie’s highly anticipated follow-up to her directorial debut, In The Land of Blood and Honey. Awards buzz has circulated around Unbroken since its...
Crosspost: Number of Women Directors of Shorts at London Film Festival Doubles From Last Year
The following is crossposted with the permission of the author. It was originally published here. Last year, I posted this analysis of the huge underrepresentation of women among directors of short...
LFF Women Directors: Lynette Wallworth — ‘Tender’
Lynette Wallworth is an Australianartist/filmmaker whose immersive video installations and film works reflect onthe connections between people and the natural world and explore fragile states of...
Dear WB, Consider Hiring These Women Writers and Directors for Your Wonder Woman Movie
Yesterday, Warner Brothers did what studios do these days: announce superhero movies and spin-offs. This announcement was a little different than the usual proceedings, though, because among the 15...
Jane Campion’s ‘Top of the Lake’ to Return for Season 2
Top of the Lake was one of the most notable breakthroughs in television of the last five years, a masterwork of tone, suspense, and cinematography that upended the routinely sexist murder-mystery...
LFF Women Directors: Rebecca Johnson — ‘Honeytrap’
Layla (Jessica Sula) is 15 and has been living in Trinidad. Returned to her estranged mother in London, she is faced with settling into a new home and a new city with a fresh set of rules and codes....
Woodstock Film Festival Women Directors: Jenna Ricker — ‘The American Side’
There’s three sides to every story. The truth, the lie, and the American Side. Following a mysterious suicide at Niagara Falls, a low-rent detective unravels a conspiracy to build a revolutionary...
Athena Film Festival: Igniting Conversation and Sparking Ideas — What Would You Like to Hear?
As we enter our 5th Year, the Athena Film Festival is proud to have offered a history of unique panels, conversations, and standalone events featuring powerful women leaders. To name a few: In...
Makers Presents ‘Women in Hollywood’; ‘Maleficent’ Screenwriter Linda Woolverton on What’s Changed and What Hasn’t
Tonight, the Makers documentary series continues with a look at women in Hollywood. There are some great interviews, including one with Jane Fonda, where she talks about how she was able to get her...
Mill Valley Film Fest to Showcase 35 Women-Directed Films, Celebrate Elle Fanning and Laura Dern
Lynn Shelton’s Laggies, Doris Dorrie’s Que Caramba Es La Vida, and Ronit Elkabetz and Shlomi Elkabetz’s Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem are among the nearly three dozen women-directed films...
New ‘Twilight’ Shorts Directed by Women to Appear on Facebook
Great news for Twilight fans — and even better news for aspiring women filmmakers: Lionsgate, the studio behind the film series, and Stephenie Meyer, who, of course, wrote the Twilight novels,...
‘Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason’ Is the Highest-Grossing Women-Directed European Film in the Last Decade
From my latest Forbes post on why there are still major issues with women-centric content in Europe, where there are more women directors than in the US. Sometimes I think that Europe is leading the...