Women Directors
Ava DuVernay to be Honored by Adrienne Shelly Foundation
Ava DuVernay will receive the Adrienne Shelly Foundation’s Third Annual Woman of Vision Salute. Named after actress and filmmaker Adrienne Shelly, the non-profit organization helps support women...
A Look Back at November’s Women-Directed Movies
Frozenhad already made history when it opened on November 22 for an exclusive 5-dayrun at El Capitan, Disney’s restored movie palace in Hollywood. ScreenwriterJennifer Lee directed Frozen...
Sundance US Competition List a Disappointing Tumble from Last Year’s Equality Benchmark
At last year’s Sundance Festival, the future looked rosy, with half of all U.S. narrative features and documentaries in the Park City lineup coming from female filmmakers. It was a promising...
Chicken & Egg Pictures Helped Fund 23 Documentaries by Women Directors This Year
Chicken & Egg Pictures, the “only nonprofit film fund devoted solely to supporting women documentary directors,” announced last week that it would help support 23 nonfiction features...
Ava DuVernay on Directing Tonight’s Scandal Episode
Middle of Nowhere director and Women and Hollywood hero Ava DuVernay helmed tonight’s episode of ABC’s Scandal. DuVernay spoke to us (by email) about her own Scandal fandom, Shonda Rhimes’...
Director Andrea Arnold On Her Next Film: “It’s Going to Involve Lots of Wild Kids, Rihanna and a Bear.”
Fish Tank and Wuthering Heights director AndreaArnold recently spent over a month in the U.S. as the first filmmaker-in-residence at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Her residency coincided...
Latest Forbes Post: Year End Roundtables and Best of Lists Highlight the Lack of Gender Diversity in Films
Here’s my latest Forbes Post: The awards season is another time of the year where you can literally feel the gender disparity of behind the scenes personnel in the film business. While the summer...
Angelina Jolie, Angela Lansbury Honored at the Governors Awards
Angelina Jolie and Angela Lansbury, along with Steve Martin and costume designer Piero Tosi, received honorary Oscars at the Governors Award last night. Awarded by the Board of Governors of the...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Stephanie Martin
Born in Sao Paulo and raised mostly in Buenos Aires, Stephanie discovered her passion for film while at Wellesley College where she studied French and Political Science. Following graduation,...
Round-Up of October Movies Directed by Women
There areseveral milestones among the 22 films directed by women that were released inOctober. Among the ten features is Carrie,the first wide-release (3,157 theaters) studio film from a female...
Sunlight Jr. and Sherrybaby Director Laurie Collyer Shines a Light on the Unseen America
Laurie Collyer is best known for writing and directing Sherrybaby, for which actress Maggie Gyllenhaal received a Golden Globe nomination. She also directed the documentary Nuyorican Dream (1999)....
AFI Women Directors: Meet Patrice Toye
Patrice Toye was born in 1967 and studied film in Brussels. She has made several short films, documentaries and television programs. In 1995, she wrote the feature Tin Soldier with the support of...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Karlyn Michelson
Karlyn Michelson is an Emmy Award-winning multimedia producer and video journalist. (AFI) Charlie Victor Romeo is playing AFI as part of the American Independents program. Women and Hollywood:...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Jillian Mayer
Jillian Mayer steeps her artistic practice in the verisimilitude of a generation that came of age in the 1980s. Her video works have premiered at galleries and museums internationally and at film...
Lynne Ramsay Responds to Jane Got a Gun Lawsuit
Lynne Ramsay issued a short statement this weekend in response to the lawsuit filed last week by the producers of Jane Got a Gun. Here’s the short statement: Lynne Ramsay has not been served with...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Kasia Roslaniec
Kasia Roslaniec was born in Poland in 1980. She graduated from Warsaw Film School and also studied at the Wajda School. Her graduation film, Mall Girls, won Best Debut Director at the Polish Film...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Jenni Toivoniemi
Jenni Toivoniemi studied screenwriting in several international workshops, including Torino Film Lab’s Script & Pitch and Berlinale Talent Campus Script Station. She is about to complete her...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Katrin Gebbe
Katrin Gebbe attended the Utrecht Graduate School of Visual Arts and Design in the Netherlands and received her master’s degree in directing at the Hamburg Media School. Her short, Sores &...
Weekly Update for November 8: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women OpeningThis Weekend Ass Backwards — Written byCasey Wilson and June Diane Raphael Two best friends (Kate andChloe) embark on a cross country trip back to their hometown to...
Director Joan Carr-Wiggin Shooting Female Friendship Film
Femalefriendship is the subject of writer-director Joan Carr-Wiggin’s fourth film, If You See Her. Carr-Wiggin’s follow upto this year’s romantic comedy If I WereYou will star JanetMontgomery...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Michelle Morgan
Michelle Morgan is sick of being just a screenwriter, even though she writes scripts for major studios. Most recently, her screenplay Imogene was brought to life by the talents of Kristen Wiig and...
Producers of Jane Got a Gun Sue Lynne Ramsay
The saga of Jane Got a Gun and Lynne Ramsay continues and it’s not pretty. If you recall, Lynne Ramsay left the production right before the start of production. Reports were that Ramsay never got...
Indie Director Ava DuVernay on Dressing for Success
Clothes make the director. That’s the lesson filmmaker Ava DuVernay imparted in her keynote speech at the LA Film Independent Forum last week. In her 45-minute speech, the 2012 winner of the...
The Square Directed by Jehane Noujaim Partners with Netflix and Participant Media
In another indication of just how much things are changing in the business, award winning documentarian Jehane Noujaim whose film The Square is now in an Oscar qualifying run has decided to forgo...
My Latest Forbes Piece: The Evolving Conversation About Women Directors
Last week I attended the first conference ever held in Israel to discuss the status of women working in the film and television industries. They had brilliant academics, high level executives in TV,...
Weekly Update for November 1: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend Running from Crazy — Directed by Barbara Kopple (doc) Running from Crazy is a documentary examining the personal journey of model and actress Mariel...
November Film Preview
After an Oscar buzzy October with Sandra Bullock’s turn in Gravity and the tremendous performances of the controversial Blue is the Warmest Color, we move into a more mainstream November. November...
Cross Post — 13 Myths Hollywood Uses to Hide Discrimination Against Women Directors
1. The number of women directors is so small because women are not really interested in directing and few women are exceptional enough to do a man’s job. Right, so 3,500 women DGA members pay...
Valentine Road: An Examination of Accountability, Awareness and Compassion
The documentary Valentine Road — depicting the aftermath surrounding the shooting of young Oxnard, California high school student Larry King — had been winning accolades and gaining...
Director Antonia Bird Has Died
Over the weekend, it was announced that director Antonia Bird had died. She was 62. Bird started working as an assistant in the Royal Court Theatre, working her way up to directing projects. That...
Weekly Update for October 25: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend Blue is the Warmest Color There’s no doubt when Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue is the Warmest Color hits theaters today it will cause controversy. The movie...
Stockholm International Film Festival Announces Competition Films and Lineup
The Stockholm International Film Festival has announced their films in competition and their general lineup. The 24th annual festival runs from November 6–17 and will screen over 180 films from 50...
AFI Film Festival Announces 2013 Lineup
The AFI Film Festival, held in Los Angeles, announced its 2013 lineup yesterday. Mother of French New Wave cinema, Agnes Varda, will be this year’s guest artistic director. While this year boasts...
Cinema Eye Announces List of 25 Most Influential Documentaries
Cinema Eye announced their list of the 25 Most Influential Documentaries which was put together by current filmmakers who are vying for the 2014 Cinema Eye Honor, one of the top awards for...
IDFA Announces 2013 Lineup
The International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam (IDFA) announced their 2013 lineup. The festival will screen a total of 288 films and over a 100 will be premieres. This year the festival...
Trailer Watch: Sweet Dreams — Directed by Lisa Fruchtman and Rob Fruchtman
Award winning documentary filmmakers Lisa Fruchtman and Rob Fruchtman have a new documentary being released, Sweet Dreams. The film has already received many critical accolades including being a top...
LFF Interview with Flora Lau — Director of Bends
The title of Flora Lau’s debut feature film, Bends, refers to the winding river that separates Hong Kong from the Chinese mainland. The theme of the film is separation — the wealthy from the...
DOC NYC Announces Line Up
DOC NYC, the largest documentary festival in the U.S., has just announced its slate. The festival will run from November 14–21. Over 125 documentary filmmakers and and special guests are expected...
LFF Women Directors: Meet Chloe Ruthven
Chloe Ruthven’s first feature, Mario and Nini, followed two nine-year-old boys over five years, as she struggled to help them find alternatives toa life of crime. The film premiered at Sheffield...
Weekly Update for October 18: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend Carrie — Directed by Kimberly Peirce Peirce’s modernized version of the classic stars Chloe Grace Moretz as Carrie, an ostracized teen, who learns...
LFF Interview with Destiny Ekaragha — Director of Gone Too Far!
Destiny Ekaragha’s debut feature film, Gone Too Far!, follows two incredibly well received short films, Tight Jeans and The Park, onto the screens of her local film festival, the BFI’s LFF. But...
LFF Women Directors: Meet Elina Psykou
Born in Athens, Greece in 1977, Elina Psykou studied Film Direction at Lykourgos Stavrakos Film School and Sociology at Panteion University, both in Athens. She continued her studies receiving her...
LFF Women Directors: Meet Chiemi Karasawa
Chiemi Karasawa founded Isotope Films in 2005 to develop and produce original content based on non-fiction material. Her award-winning work as a producerincludes Billy the Kid, The Betrayal, Tell...
Interview with Diablo Cody — Director of Paradise
Diablo Cody’s directorial debut, Paradise, is out on October 18th, 2013 in Los Angeles and New York theaters. The story about a young Mormon girl named Lamb who survives a horrific plane crash and...
LFF Women Directors: Meet Cherien Dabis
Cherien Dabis is an award-winning Palestinian American filmmaker who received her M.F.A. in film from Columbia University. She wrote, directed, produced and edited several short films including Make...
France Pushes for Gender Equality in the Film Industry
France is setting up a sex equality charter for improving the numbers of women working within the film industry. The five point charter was signed last week by Culture and Communications Minister...
Guest Post: A Trip Down the Rabbit Hole: Things I’ve Learned and Want to Fix
Back in 2011, I wrote a guest blog for Women and Hollywood entitled I Sold My House to Make My Feature.I had spent many years working in film art departments both in the U.S. and the U.K. ( Harry...
Three of the Five Nominees for EFA’s Discovery Award Are Women
The European Film Academy announced the five nominees for their 2013 Discovery Award, which is given to recognize a director for their first feature film. Of the five nominated films three are...
Cross Post: London Film Festival — Shorts Short on Women Directors
Yesterday we went to a good discussion on feminism, curated by performance artist Bryony Kimmings at Soho Theatre in relation to her show there at the moment, Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model....
Women Win Big at the Hamptons International Film Festival
The Hamptons International Film Festival wrapped up over the weekend and handed out their awards. Women directors and women centric films cleaned up the big prizes at the festival with the Judi...
LFF Women Directors: Meet Chika Anadu
Chika Anadu’s debut feature film, B For Boy, is in competition in the London Film Festival’s first feature section. Having delivered two ambitious and acclaimed short films on a similar subject,...