Although the issue of Hollywood’s egregious lack of women directors has gone mainstream, we still don’t have very many prominent male filmmakers willing to speak out on behalf of their female counterparts. 

"Creed" and "Fruitvale Station" director Ryan Coogler has made himself the exception in that regard. In a long and insightful interview with Variety, Coogler even went so far as to declare, "I feel like women are better filmmakers than men." 

After praising Ava Duvernay as a "good friend" and "a special person," the USC film school alum continued, "In film school, life, whatever, [women are] equipped to do this job, in many ways, better than us. They’re infinitely more complex than we are. Stronger and sharper. So, you know, we’re going to get better movies [if we have more female filmmakers]. The industry would improve. That’s the best thing I could say about that. They’ve got to be given the opportunity." 

Coogler also touched on the two female DPs he’s worked with, Rachel Morrison for "Fruitvale Station" and Maryse Alberti, whom he hired for "Creed" because Morrison was pregnant and thus unavailable. He said of his collaboration with Alberti: "One thing I was interested in in crewing up from top to bottom is always trying to have as much diversity as possible. But I think diversity in gender is so important in filmmaking. Especially looking at boxing, because it’s very easy to say, ‘Yeah, we get a bunch of dudes in there to tell their story.’ But [Alberti] would see things that would happen and have ideas about things that were just so awesome, things I would never see. It was incredible."

[via Variety]