Women Directors
Angelina Jolie to Direct, Co-Write, and Star in “Intimate” Film with Brad Pitt
Angelina Jolie is busy with post-production on Unbroken, her Oscar shoo-in opening Christmas Day, but the actress-turned-filmmaker has already lined up her next project. Jolie announced last week...
Half of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces Are Women
Women directors and screenwriters make up half of Filmmaker Magazine’s 2014 list of the New Faces of Independent Film. Spanning narrative helmers and documentarians, studio collaborators and...
Guest Post: Celebrating Woman Directors with a Look Back at Jane Campion’s The Piano
At last weekend’s Etheria Film Night,director Lexi Alexander received an award for inspiring women directors. In her acceptance speech,Alexander bemoaned the current statistics, but she also...
Asian American Festival to Feature Asian Women Filmmakers Panel
The 37th Asian American International Film Festival (July 24-August 2) in New York City will host a panel of five Asian women directors, writers, and producers to discuss their thoughts and...
New Line to Co-Produce Thea Sharrock’s Me Before You
The big-screen adaptation of Jojo Moyes’ best-selling novel Me Before You has found a new studio and a release date. Acclaimed theater and TV director Thea Sharrock’s feature directing debut...
An Open Letter to TV Showrunners: There Are Over 1200 Experienced, Accomplished Women Directors Waiting to Be Hired
Dear TV Showrunners, I haveknown many of you over the years as colleagues, bosses and friends. I know youto be a group of professionals with the highest work ethic and a mindfulapproach to your...
Women in Film and Television International Seeking Shorts for Female Filmmaker Showcase
In celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8, 2015, Women in Film and Television International (WIFTI) is soliciting films by women directors from all over the world to feature in its...
The Big O: 2015 Oscar Preview: Expect Reese to Rise Again and a Woman to Crash the Directing Category
Wow, that was fast. The movie year is already half over, and if you are a fan of Legos, sequels to bombastic blockbusters, and just-OK comedies, you probably think everything has been awesome in...
More Details on the Fox Mentoring Program for Women Directors
As you read earlier, Women and Hollywood will be one of the nominating organizations of the Fox Global Directors Initiative. Each organization gets to nominated 10 women. After we put in the...
Director Courtney Hunt Begins Shooting Follow-Up to Frozen River
Frozen River writer-director Courtney Hunt has begun shooting her second film, the courtroom drama The Whole Truth. The Keanu Reeves vehicle sounds just as compassionate and as unflinching as...
Universal Chief Donna Langley: There is No “Magic Bullet” to Improve Number of Women Directors Working on Studio Films
The Summer DGA Quarterly has hit and director Nicole Holofcener is on the cover. I have been told that Nicole is only the second-ever female director to be featured on the cover, the first being...
Land Ho! Director Martha Stephens on Her Raunchy Comedy About Two Old Men and Her Unlikely Muse
Land Ho! tells the story of two very different ex-brothers-in-law whotravel to Iceland for a holiday. It’s about life and regrets and coming toterms with the fact that you are getting older....
Trailer Watch: First Spot for Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken
Angelina Jolie fires an early warning shot to her fellow Oscar contenders with the new trailer for Unbroken, her inspirational biopic of Olympic runner and World War II prisoner-of-war Louis...
Canadian Film Org Launches Mentorship Program for Women Directors
Canada’s largest artist-run film production and education organization, the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT), has launched an intensive five-month mentoring program for women...
Maleficent Grosses $600 Million Worldwide, Becomes Fourth Highest-Earning Film of the Year So Far
The Wicked trend of turning villainnesses into anti-heroines continues to pay off. Maleficent has now crossed the $600 million benchmark, becoming the fourth highest-earning film of the year so...
Fox Launching Mentoring Program for Women Directors
Fox exec Nicole Bernard will spearhead a new initiative aimed at hiring more women directors at the film and TV studio. The Fox Global Directors Initiative will recruit twenty candidates for a...
HBO to Air Docs on Monday Night Year-Round
Documentarians better get their HBO pitch ready, because the premium cable channel is in the market to buy a whole lot more nonfiction content. It looks like the parade of boobs and guts on Game of...
Trailer Watch: Gugu Mbatha-Raw is a Troubled Pop Star in Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Beyond the Lights
After starring in Amma Asante’s Austenesque romance Belle, Gugu Mbatha-Raw will next be seen as a troubled pop star in Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Beyond the Lights. At the Los Angeles Film...
Only One Female Filmmaker Invited to Join the Academy as a Director; Only 28% of Invitees Are Women
Only 75 74 of the 271 invitees announced yesterday to join the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences were women. That constitutes a paltry 27% of invitees. It’s not just the numbers that paint a...
Sarah Polley to Direct John Green’s Looking for Alaska
Now that The Fault in Our Stars has grossed $166 million on a $12 million production budget — thanks to the irrationally underestimated loyalty of fangirls — Hollywood is looking to...
Why Maleficent is the Rape Revenge Film That We Need
Warning: Lots of Maleficent spoilers ahead.Not since I Spit on Your Grave have I seen such an intrepid and compelling rape-revenge film. I am talking, of course, about Disney’s Maleficent, the...
Ava DuVernay’s Selma to Be Released Christmas Day
After directing two independent features and one documentary, Ava DuVernay is poised for her Hollywood — and possibly Oscar — breakthrough with Selma, the MLK biopic that’s her biggest...
Will 2014 Be a Breakthrough Year for Women Directors at the Academy Awards?
From my latest Forbes post on the potentially record-breaking awards season to come: “I know it is overly optimistic and a tad delusional to think that women could get two nominations for best...
Julie Taymor Wraps Up Shooting of A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Film and theater director Julie Taymor has just wrapped up shooting on her fifth film: a big-screen version of her visually lavish reimagining of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The...
Human Rights Watch FF Women Directors: Meet Zeina Daccache (Scheherazade’s Diary)
Zeina Daccache is a Lebanese actress, director, and drama therapist. She has directed the award-winning film and stage versions of 12 Angry Lebanese (2009, First Prize — Muhr Arab Documentary...
Iranian Director Mahnaz Mohammadi Jailed, Inspires Petition Demanding Her Release
The imprisonment of Iranian filmmaker, actress, and women’s rights activist Mahnaz Mohammadi since June 7 has sparked international concern and outrage. Mohammadi has been sentenced to a...
LAFF Women Directors: Meet Gren Wells (The Road Within)
Gren Wells was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. After attending Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY, Wells moved to New York City, where she starred in six...
The Four Things I Learned on My Recent Trip to Hollywood
From my latest Forbes post on the four things I learned on my recent trip to Hollywood: People are talking and looking for ways to make in roads all across the business. From what I’ve noticed,...
Kathryn Bigelow Eyeing Movie Project About Bowe Berghdal
Just last month, Kathryn Bigelow announced that she would adapt Anand Giridharadas’ The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas, a dual portrait of domestic terrorist Mark Stroman and the...
Human Rights Watch FF Women Directors: Meet Jasmila Zbanic (For Those Who Can Tell No Tales)
Jasmila Zbanic is one of Europe’s most promising young directors. Her 2006 film Land of My Dreams won the Golden Bear at the Berlin international Film Festival, and her 2010 follow-up, On the...
LAFF Women Directors: Meet Amanda Marsalis (Echo Park)
California-born Amanda Marsalis’ photography career began during her teenage years, when she would document punk shows held in her mother’s basement and skip class to spend time in her high...
Guest Post: Notes from the Field: The Importance of Female Collaboration
This past Saturday, the Film Fatales, a collective of women feature-film writers and directors, joined other New York City-based filmmaker collaboratives for a discussion hosted by the Brooklyn Film...
Guest Post: “Nan Goldin: I Remember Your Face” is About Turning the Camera on a Photographer
Afterworking for many years as a movie makeup artist for Tom Tykwer, Dani Levy andWim Wenders, I became used to getting very close to people, no matter howfamous, young or old. After my second child...
Human Rights Watch FF Women Directors: Meet Jennifer M. Kroot (To Be Takei)
Jennifer M. Kroot directed the documentary feature It Came From Kuchar, about the legendary underground filmmaking twins George and Mike Kuchar, which premiered at the 2009 South by Southwest Film...
LAFF Women Directors: Meet Rania Attieh (Recommended by Enrique)
Rania Attieh, among Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 Faces of Independent Film” in 2011, is a Guggenheim and U.S. Rockefeller Fellow in film/ video. Attieh is from Tripoli, Lebanon. Together with...
Marion Cotillard to Star in French Auteur Nicole Garcia’s Next Film
Marion Cotillard has signed on to star in French auteur Nicole Garcia’s next film. Mal de Pierres, literally translated to “Evil Stones,” will be a big-screen adaptation of Milena Agus novel...
LAFF Women Directors: Meet Kimberly Levin (Runoff)
Kimberly Levin is an award-winning filmmaker and former biochemist. Her short film Between Baronovsksy premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival and went on to play festivals in the US...
Guest Post: What We Can Learn About Women in Hollywood from Amma Asante’s Belle
Have you seen the extraordinary new film Belle? Amma Asante’s latest project is not just a great work, but a testament tothe equal ability of women to direct great films. In fact, Belle...
Guest Post: Creating My Film Footprint: The Importance of Women on Both Sides of the Camera
As far back as I can remember, I have always hada deep passion for movies, which probably derives from my fascination with thehuman character. The ability that film offers to travelwith a character...
30% of Films at Karlovy Vary Festival Directed by Women
The 49th Karlovy Vary Film Festival, which will take place on July 4–12 in Carlsbad, the Czech Republic, will showcase ten women-directed films (from a total of 34). Female representation at the...
Guest Post: Telling a Female Story with a (Nearly) All-Female Crew
“There is a special place inhell for women who don’t help other women.” — Madeleine Albright And even more so when itcomes to making movies. My first feature film, Emoticon 😉, tells...
Guest Post: The Film Fatales Inspire DIY Chapters
On Tuesday night, afull house of Independent Filmmaker Project members gathered at the Made in NY Media Center in downtownBrooklyn to meet the Film Fatales face-to-face. Earlier this month,...
Frozen Becomes the 5th Top-Grossing Movie of All Time
Thanks to the international box office, Disney’s Frozen has become the fifth highest-grossing movie of all time, as well as the single highest-grossing film with a clear female protagonist and a...
Cannes Film Festival Wrap Up — Why Gender Matters
Here’s my latest piece on Forbes: This past weekend while we were all barbecuing and relaxing here in the states, the 67th Cannes Film Festival concluded. Not surprisingly, the festival continued...
TV: Angela Bassett to Direct Lifetime Movie About Whitney Houston
Lifetime has greenlit a movie about Whitney Houston, with the late singer’s Waiting to Exhale co-star Angela Bassett to direct. Whitney Houston will focus on the R&B diva’s troubled...
Catherine Breillat to Make First English-Language Film
After making the most autobiographical film of her career in Abuse of Weakness, in which she recreated her own victimization by a con artist after a stroke, director Catherine Breillat will veer in...
Niki Caro to Write and Direct Maria Callas Biopic
Director Niki Caro has lined up her sixth feature: a biopic of Maria Callas that focuses on the iconic opera singer’s two-year relationship with billionaire Aristotle Onassis. Caro, who will also...
Cannes Dispatch: Women Directors Panel Reveal It’s a Man’s World, Suggest Gender Quota
Not manytopics make people squirm more than gender-based quota systems, but afterhearing significant statistics about women in the film and televisionindustries, a somewhat ambivalent panel at...
Guest Post: Directing a Feature Film With Sword in Hand
Myfirst experience in “keiko,” or fight practice in kendo, the Japanese art ofsword play, was over 20 years ago. Confronted with an experienced player’s bamboo sword, I was taken aback by the...
Guest Post: Bridging the Generational Gap Through Technology
In 2009, a documentary idea simply fell into my lap. My two younger sisters were in highschool when they decided to create a volunteer program called “Cyber-Seniors.” Inspiredby seeing our...
Kathryn Bigelow Books Her Next Film: The True American
We have a new Kathryn Bigelow film to look forward to. Bigelow will direct and produce an adaptation of the non-fiction book The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas, written by New York Times...