For those of you who follow this issue and who read Women and Hollywood, a blog post from director Lexi Alexander caused a viral sensation last week.
Her post An Oscar-Nominated Director Gets Real About How Women Are Treated in Hollywood was one of the biggest posts — if not the biggest post — that has ever been run on Women and Hollywood. Almost 20,000 people read it that first day and almost 40,000 the next day, and 20,000 the day after that. It has 19,000 Facebook likes; almost 4,000 shares; 703 tweets and 138 comments.
This is big for Women and Hollywood.
But more that it has made Lexi Alexander ground zero in the gender discussion related to women and directors and Hollywood.
She and I have been communicating since this happened and while the attention is pretty overwhelming, the great thing about Lexi is that she cares and feels a great responsibility to people to help continue this conversation and help it get taken seriously by people who can make a difference.
So, she will be coming to The Athena Film Festival in NYC next month to talk about her post and the status of women directors in Hollywood. She will appear on Friday, February 7th at 5pm at the Athena Film Festival.
Here’s what Lexi has to say about what she decided to come to the Athena Film Festival:
Since I have written “that” blog, I’ve received hundreds of emails, many screenplays and treatments, tons of invitations to speak at colleges or attend festival panels and an endless list of interview requests. I am so very, very grateful for your interest in the issue and I am humbled by the outpour of love that came my way. I will continue to be an activist in this field, but I didn’t expect this blog to go viral at all and unfortunately I don’t have a lot of time right now. There are two wonderful producers in Berlin who are anxiously awaiting a script I need to finish, so for the next ten days I will be chained to my desk.
In order to answer any questions you may have and to follow up on the issue, I have accepted an invitation from the Athena Film Festival to answer questions and continue the conversation. Then I hope to be able to get back to my day job. I hope to see you there.
