Women Directors
HIFF Women Directors: Meet Shana Betz
Shana Betz served as Executive Director for the MVPA, the premiere trade association for the music video industry, and executive produced the Director’s Cuts Film Festival, a cutting edge film...
HIFF Women Directors: Meet Irene Taylor Brodsky
Irene Taylor Brodsky is an Oscar-nominated, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning director whose documentaries have shown theatrically, at film festivals and on television worldwide. Irene most recently...
Weekly Update for October 11: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend A River Changes Course — Directed by Kalyanee Mann (doc) A River Changes Course is the moving and insightful 2013 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning...
One Woman Directed Short on 2013 Oscar Documentary Short Shortlist
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have announced the 8 documentary shorts that are on the 2013 Oscar shortlist for Best Documentary Short. Three to five of the films on the list will...
HIFF Women Directors: Meet Donna Zaccaro
Donna Zaccaro is Founder and President of Dazzling Media, a New York-based media production company and is also Geraldine Ferraro’s daughter. Donna served as the director and producer for...
HIFF Women Directors: Meet Barbara Kopple
Barbara Kopple is a two-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker. A director of documentaries, as well as narrative TV and film, her most recent project is the documentary Running From Crazy, which...
Claire Denis to be First Woman Director to Receive Stockholm’s Lifetime Achievement Award
Claire Denis will be the first female director to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 24th Annual Stockholm International Film Festival. Denis directed her first feature film in 1988,...
16 of 76 Oscar Foreign Language Submissions Directed by Women
A record number of 76 films were submitted this year for the 2014 Foreign Language Film Oscar. Last year, 71 films were submitted. Moldova, Saudi Arabia and Montenegro submitted films for the first...
TIFF Interview: Jasmila Zbanic and Kym Vercoe — Director and Co-Writers of For Those Who Can Tell No Tales
For Those Who Can Tell No Tales written by Jasmila Zbanic and Kym Vercoe and directed by Zbanic is one of those rare films that just stays with you. The film tells the story of Kym...
Guest Post: Afghan Doc Subject from The Network Flees to the Netherlands
In 2011, I spent 3 months in Afghanistan making The Network, a film set behind the scenes at Afghanistan’s largest media company, Tolo. The film is about the power of media to effect social change...
Weekly Update for October 4: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend Concussion — Written and Directed by Stacie Passon Concussion was one of my favorite movies at Sundance this year. It was truly a revelation. Robin...
DGA Report: Women Represent Only 14% of TV Directors
The DGA has released its annual report tracking the statistics of directors on episodic TV shows for the 2012–2013 season, and the news is that there is no news. The numbers have remained pretty...
“No One Can Say it’s a Level Playing Field” — Catherine Hardwicke Ignites Discussion on Women Directors
Catherine Hardwicke, director of Thirteen and Twilight, spoke candidly to Variety about her career. After Hardwicke directed Twilight, which was a huge deal for a woman director, she admitted that...
Citizen Jane Film Festival and Summit
I’m heading to Columbia, Mo for the Citizen Jane Film Festival which celebrates independent films by independent women. I will be a part of the Citizen Jane Summit which is going to discuss the...
Trailer Watch: Sunlight Jr. — Written and Directed by Laurie Collyer
Laurie Collyer’s Sunlight Jr. is her latest film following up 2006’s Sherrybaby starring Maggie Gyllenhaal. Written and directed by Collyer, the film follows Melissa (Naomi Watts) and her...
Cross Post: The State of the Race: Will There be a Hillary Effect on the Oscar Race?
Imagine as we enter Oscar race 2013 three strong films written and directed by women, with leading women at the forefront, one of which is crowned the early frontrunner to win. Imagine an Oscar race...
Weekly Update for September 27: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend Therese Set in the lower echelons of 1860s Paris, Therese Raquin, a sexually repressed beautiful young woman, is trapped into a loveless marriage to her...
Cinema Eye Announces 15 Nonfiction Short Film Finalists
Cinema Eye has announced the 15 nonfiction short film finalists for their 2014 Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Short Filmmaking award. The announcement was made on the opening day of the...
Gamechanger Films to Fund Women Directed Films
A new movie fund, Gamechanger Films, is set to fund women directed films only. It’s the first fund to specifically focus on women directors. Organizers of the fund have said that the idea for it...
Callie Khouri Talks Season Two of Nashville
Season Two of Nashville starts tonight at 10pm on ABC, and if you care about shows with strong women creators and shows created and run by women, you need to support this show. The women are...
Hamptons International Film Festival Announces Competition Lineup
The 21st Annual Hamptons International Film Festival has announced its competition lineup as well as awards and conversations with renowned actors. The festival places an importance on films with...
Women Win at Urbanworld Film Festival
The 17th Annual Urbanworld Film Festival, sponsored by BET, was held in New York from September 18–22. They screened 60 films this year — including 4 world premieres and 2 U.S. premieres....
Apply for This Athena Film Festival Workshop — Crafting a Short: How to Find Your Story and Make It a Movie
We are gearing up for the 3rd Athena Film Festival from February 7–10, 2013. We are very excited to be partnering with the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women for a day of...
32nd Annual Muse Awards Recipients
New York Women in Film and Television have announced the recipients of their annual Muse awards. Actresses Mariska Hargitay (of Law and Order fame) and Lucy Liu (currently starring on Elementary)...
New Generation of Polish Filmmakers Hit Tribeca Film Center
From November 15th-17th, eighteen films by The New Generation of Polish Filmmakers will screen at the Tribeca Film Center. New York Women in Film and Television is the event partner alongside Munk...
Interview with Rose Bosch — Director and Writer of La Rafle (The Round Up)
I loved the book Sarah’s Key (the movie not as much) but it revealed to me another story of the Holocaust and World War Two that I knew nothing about — the Vel’ de’ Hiv’ roundup of...
Guest Post: Coming Up Roses Or Bust…
“You’ll never get this made,” was the blunt and firm response from a well-regarded producer after reading my screenplay synopsis. The central theme of my film — a woman desperately...
Guest Post: Time For A Major Women’s Film Award Initiative?
As the awards season gets under way each year I look for the women who are nominated and most years I’m disappointed — the only award category where it is certain that a woman will be...
Guest Post: Why Make Babies When You Can Just Make Documentaries?
Being a woman, I was told since I was a teenager, “just wait, it’ll hit you — you’ll suddenly be overcome by the rash, ridiculous desire to have kids.” This was presented as a...
Trailer Watch: West of Memphis — Directed by Amy Berg
In 1994, three teenagers from Arkansas were convicted, despite lack of any physical evidence, of ritually murdering three 8 year old boys. Amy Berg’s acclaimed documentary West of Memphis takes a...
Guest Post: Into the Amazonian Jungle: Shooting in a Third World Country
Festival of Lights marked my departure from the documentary tradition for the first time in my professional career. I had always been attracted to the works of Margaret Mead and Mary Leaky, and...
No Women Nominated for European Film Awards in Major Categories
Last week The European Film Awards announced their nominees for their annual awards. Michael Haneke’s Amour and Steve McQueen’s Shame picked up a majority of the nominations. But how did women...
Guest Post: An Epoch of Parity for Women Directors?
It seems like everyone’s talking about women right now. With the 2012 presidential election just a day away with a demographic breakdown of male to female voters at 48% to 52%, women’s voices...
Watch This: Stella is 95 — Airing on PBS
The documentary, Stella is 95, is airing on PBS throughout November. Directed by Robin Baker Leacock, the documentary follows 95 year old Stella, a woman who doesn’t see her age as any impediment...
2012 Houston Cinema Arts Festival Focuses on Women Directors
The Houston Cinema Arts Society recently announced their lineup for the 2012 Houston Cinema Arts Festival. This year in honor of the 40th anniversary of Women Make Movies, the festival is...
Guest Post: American Mary Sets Out to Modify the Way You Think About Women in Horror
In short, our film American Mary proclaims that she is the story of medical student Mary Mason who is growing increasingly broke and disenchanted by medical school and the surgeons she once admired....
Interview with Julia Loktev — Writer and Director of The Loneliest Planet
Women and Hollywood: Where did you get the idea for this film? Julia Loktev: I was actually traveling in Georgia with my boyfriend at the time when I remembered this short story I had read by Tom...
Guest Post: Looking at Real Women With Real Life and Body Issues in Yogawoman
With the presidential debate including talk once again of women getting equal pay, it seems surreal to me that we are still having this discussion. In the 70’s, when I was a teenager reading books...
Change in Release Pattern for Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty
Kathryn Bigelow’s follow-up to her Oscar winning The Hurt Locker was supposed to open wide into the crowded Christmas market on December 19. The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Sony is now...
Trailer Watch: The Central Park Five — Co-Directed by Sarah Burns, Ken Burns and David McMahon
Recently nominated for a 2012 IDA Documentary Award for Best Feature and on the roster for the upcoming 2012 AFI Film Festival, The Central Park Five is based on Sarah Burns’ best-selling book. In...
Must Watch: Lana Wachowski Speaks About What It Means to Be Transgendered
What ever happens with Cloud Atlas (which opens this Friday) what Lana Wachowski has done in coming out as a transgendered person will go down as a seminal moment in Hollywood culture. She is a high...
Ava DuVernay Talks About The Gotham Nominations
I was in LA yesterday and already had a meeting set up with Ava DuVernay to just say hi in between her press appearances. I was able to chat with her a couple of hours after her two Gotham award...
Interview with Coley Sohn — Writer and Director of Sassy Pants
Sassy Pants is, yes, a sassy movie starring the breakout star of MTV’s show Awkward Ashley Rickards. She plays Bethany Pruitt who is basically held prisoner in her home by her overprotective...
Guest Post: Labor of Love: How Women are Changing Documentaries
In 2010, I finished my first feature documentary, Living Downstream. Based on the book by ecologist and cancer survivor, Sandra Steingraber, the film follows Steingraber as she tries to ring the...
Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere Has Big Opening Weekend
Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere opened with the top per screen average this past weekend. As Indiewire reports, opening on just 6 screens, the film made $78,030 — about $13,005 per theater....
Jodie Foster to Direct ‘Money Monster’
As we previously reported, Jodie Foster will be directing and executive producing, Angie’s Body, a new series for Showtime. According to The Playlist reports that Foster has also recently signed...
Women Directed 5 of 8 Documentary Shorts on Oscar Shortlist
Eight documentary shorts have been chosen for the 2013 Oscar shortlist. Between three and five will receive a nomination. Five of eight of the shorts are directed by women. Nominations will be...
New Trailer: Zero Dark Thirty — Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
I love that they are keeping many details about this movie so closely held. It makes people even more excited. The fact that a woman directed film is one of the most anticipated of the awards season...
As If!: The A.V. Club’s Top 50 Films of the 90’s has No Women Directors
The A.V. Club recently published a three-part series listing their top 50 films from the ’90s. As expected the likes of Tarantino, Scorsese, Fincher and the Coen Brothers appear, several, multiple...
Middle of Nowhere Enters The Oscar Conversation
I’ve been talking about Middle of Nowhere since I saw it last June at the LA Film Festival. As I wrote in my piece Could Middle of Nowhere Be a Game Changer? this is a very special movie. I talked...
Lena Dunham Gets A Big, Big Book Deal
Current megastar Lena Dunham is smartly trading on her success and wide name recognition and sold her first book, a book of advice to young women, entitled Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells...