ALL POSTS
Weekly Update for April 19: Women Centric, Directed, and Written Films Playing Near You
FILMS ABOUT WOMEN OPENING Little Woods – Written and Directed by Nia DaCosta This Tribeca winner sees Tessa Thompson playing a woman facing a handful of crises in Little Woods, North Dakota....
Jennifer Kaytin Robinson on Gina Rodriguez-Starrer “Someone Great” & Telling Women’s Stories
Jennifer Kaytin Robinson is best known for creating MTV’s “Sweet/Vicious,” a comedy about two college students who have a secret life as vigilantes targeting sexual assailants on...
Trailer Watch: Tiffany Haddish and Ali Wong are “Tuca & Bertie”
We’ve seen the last of Abbi and Ilana’s shenanigans, but a new animated series might help fill the void left by “Broad City’s” finale. Created by Lisa Hanawalt...
Four Women-Directed Films Will Screen in Cannes’ Main Competition. That’s Not Good Enough.
The Gender Parity Pledge was launched at Cannes last year with the mission of making film festivals more inclusive and transparent. Behind-the-scenes, the Cannes Film Fest does seem to be improving:...
Managing Motherhood: Crowdfunding Picks
Even as more and more women opt out of having children, the pressure to pursue motherhood remains consistent. Those women who do choose to have kids must grapple with the reality of balancing their...
Quote of the Day: “The L Word” Creator Ilene Chaiken on Telling LGBTQ Stories
“The L Word” is coming back, but before the sequel to the trailblazing series about a group of lesbians living in West Hollywood premieres on Showtime, the creator behind the original...
Camila Cabello to Star in Kay Cannon-Directed Re-Imagining of “Cinderella”
Kay Cannon will follow up her feminist coming-of-age comedy “Blockers” with a fresh take on an old classic. She’s signed on to write and direct a new telling of...
Full Frame 2019 Women Directors: Meet Malla Grapengiesser – “Giants and the Morning After”
Malla Grapengiesser has a background in art, theater, and performance art. In 1994, she established the independent film production company Hysteria Film AB alongside Antonio Russo Merenda. Her...
One-Woman Show Based on Maya Angelou’s Life and Writing in the Works
A Broadway show about Maya Angelou’s life and work might be on the way. Deadline confirms one-woman show “Phenomenal Woman: An Evening With Maya Angelou” is being developed with the...
Michelle Williams and Laura Dern Talk Equal Pay and the Power of Standing United
April 2 marks Equal Pay Day in the United States, but raising awareness about the gender pay gap must be an everyday occurrence. Michelle Williams and Laura Dern have attributed major shifts in...
Full Frame 2019 Women Directors: Meet Jacqueline Zünd – “Where We Belong”
Jacqueline Zünd was born in Zurich, Switzerland. Her debut film, “Goodnight Nobody,” has been shown at many international film festivals and won numerous awards such as Best Newcomer at...
Quotes of the Day: Taraji P. Henson, Bette Midler, & Gigi Hadid on the Power of Women
As Variety Power of Women: New York honorees, it’s no surprise that Taraji P. Henson, Bette Midler, and Gigi Hadid have plenty to say about feminism and the way women are treated in show...
Full Frame 2019 Women Directors: Meet Bettina Perut – “Los Reyes”
Bettina Perut is a Chilean filmmaker born in Italy. She launched her career as an assistant director on documentary television shows. Her feature co-directing and co-producing credits include...
Full Frame 2019 Women Directors: Meet Vivian Vázquez Irizarry and Gretchen Hildebran – “Decade of Fire”
An educator and facilitator, Vivian Vázquez Irizarry ran educational and youth leadership development programs at the Coro Foundation and BronxWorks, and is currently the director of...
Susan Orlean’s “The Library Book” Being Adapted for TV
Brace yourselves, book lovers: another story about book burning is coming to the small screen, and this one is based on a true story. Less than a year after HBO debuted an adaptation of Ray...
Trailer Watch: 20 Years Later, Survivors Share Their Stories in “We Are Columbine”
April 20 will mark the 20th anniversary of the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado. Even though two decades have passed since Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 12...
Full Frame 2019 Women Directors: Meet Patrizia Landi – “Ressaca”
Patrizia Landi is a Brazilian director, focused on documentaries and documentary series. “Ressaca” is her second feature film. In 2012, she directed “Hijas del Monte,” which...
Weekly Update for March 29: Women Centric, Directed, and Written Films Playing Near You
FILMS ABOUT WOMEN OPENING Slut in a Good Way – Directed by Sophie Lorain; Written by Catherine Léger One tipsy evening, Charlotte (Marguerite Bouchard), the recently heartbroken, Megan (Romane...
April 2019 Film Preview
After an exciting Women’s History Month, complete with the groundbreaking release of Marvel’s first superheroine film, April will continue the momentum with a slew of women-centric and...
Smashing Stigmas: Crowdfunding Picks
In her deeply personal book “The Cancer Journals,” Audre Lorde wrote about the value of speaking up. “My silences had not protected me,” she revealed. “Your silence will...
Actress Mirirai Sithole Talks About Her New Play & Why She Considers Inclusive Projects the Norm
When it comes to working with women, actress Mirirai Sithole has been very fortunate. From playwrights Jocelyn Bioh and Ngozi Anyanwu to the gals behind “Broad City” and “Russian Doll,”...
Zoe Lister-Jones Is Writing and Directing a “Craft” Remake
Zoe Lister-Jones will introduce the joys of playing “light as a feather, stiff as a board” to a new generation. The “Life in Pieces” star has signed on to write and direct a...
“Miss Scarlet and the Duke” Gets Green Light from A+E Networks International
Hulu’s eagerly awaited “Veronica Mars” revival debuts later this year, and now we have another female-led PI story to look forward to. Led by “Peaky Blinders” actress...
Janelle Monáe to Star in Lionsgate Film
The good news: Janelle Monáe is starring in a film. The bad news: exceedingly few details about the project are known. She’s signed on to topline an upcoming Lionsgate movie from activist...
“Women, War & Peace’s” Abigail Disney On Funding Women Filmmakers and Redefining War
Abby Disney is one of the those people who has been at the intersection of feminist work in New York for the last 25 years. She has been the board chair of the New York Women’s Foundation and...
Playwright Bekah Brunstetter on “The Cake,” Working on “This Is Us,” and The Kilroys
After three years of working on NBC’s hit series “This Is Us,” writer and producer Bekah Brunstetter is bringing two plays to the NYC stage this year: “The Cake” is now...
Trailer Watch: “Girls of the Sun” Go to War with Extremists
Based on a true story, “Girls of the Sun” centers on an all-female Kurdish battalion that takes on ISIS. “In one night, one single night, over 7,000 women were captured and kept as...
Director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre Talks About Her New Film “The Mustang”
To achieve a sense of realism in “The Mustang,” Laure de Clermont-Tonnere spent five years researching the U.S. prison system and animal therapy. Her new film focuses on an inmate, played by...
Nelly Kaplan Will Be Honored with Film Retrospective at NYC’s Quad Cinema
Nelly Kaplan will soon receive her very first New York retrospective. NYC’s Quad Cinema announced it will be hosting “Wild Things: The Ferocious Films of Nelly Kaplan” from April...
Guest Post: How Censorship Made Me a Filmmaker
Guest Post by Shakti Bhagchandani When I was in the seventh grade, my English Literature class was assigned Alexandre Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo.” On our first day of studying...
SXSW 2019 Women Directors: Meet Julia Parnell – “The Chills: The Triumph & Tragedy of Martin Phillipps”
Julia Parnell is an award-winning producer and documentary director from New Zealand. Her work has been chosen for festivals in New Zealand and Australia such as DocEdge, NZIFF and MIFF, as well as...
SXSW 2019 Women Directors: Meet Anna Odell – “X&Y”
Anna Odell is a Swedish conceptual artist and film director. In her 2013 feature debut “The Reunion,” she reenacted a 20-year class reunion, exploring tensions between victims, bullies,...
“Captain Marvel” Soars at the Box Office, Breaks Records
Sexist trolls couldn’t stop Carol Danvers from dominating the box office. Brie Larson-starrer “Captain Marvel” landed the biggest worldwide opening of all time for a female-led...
SXSW 2019 Women Directors: Meet Jenifer McShane – “Ernie & Joe”
Jenifer McShane is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Her credits include “A Leap of Faith” and “Mothers of Bedford.” “Ernie & Joe” will premiere at the 2019 SXSW Film...
SXSW 2019 Women Directors: Meet Erin Derham – “Stuffed”
Erin Derham is an award-winning film director who began her career editing and directing for PBS. Her films include “Buskin’ Blues,” a music documentary exploring the secretive lives of...
SXSW 2019 Women Directors: Meet Sandy K. Boone – “J.R. ‘Bob’ Dobbs and The Church of the SubGenius”
Sandy K. Boone is a director and producer. She began making films in the 1980s with her late husband, filmmaker David Boone. She served as associate producer on “Richard Linklater: Dream is...
SXSW 2019 Women Directors: Meet Jennifer Trainer – “Museum Town”
Jennifer Trainer is an award-winning journalist and author of 19 books that have been translated into ten languages. She wrote the first story about Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art for The...
SXSW 2019 Women Directors: Meet Catalina Arroyave – “Days of the Whale”
Catalina Arroyave was born in Medellín, Colombia. In 2010 she co-funded Rara, an-art house producing company based in Medellín. She has worked as an assistant director and teacher for several...
Weekly Update for March 8: Women Centric, Directed, and Written Films Playing Near You
FILMS ABOUT WOMEN OPENING Captain Marvel – Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck; Written by Anna Boden, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, and Ryan Fleck The highly anticipated first Marvel movie with...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Erin Lee Carr: “I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth vs. Michelle Carter”
Erin Lee Carr is a writer, director, and producer. She recently directed an episode of Netflix’s “Dirty Money,” an investigation into price gouging tactics revolutionized by pharma...
“Captain Marvel’s” Brie Larson on Sharing Power and Changing Hollywood
I got lucky this week: I was able to spend some time with Brie Larson. She’s been keeping super busy on a global press tour for “Captain Marvel” but she managed to find time to talk...
SXSW Women Directors: Meet Rebecca Stern – “Well Groomed”
Rebecca Stern is a director, writer, and producer. She started out in documentary filmmaking as the production coordinator of the Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning documentary “Cartel...
SXSW 2019 Women Directors: Meet Jenna Ricker – “Qualified”
Jenna Ricker is a producer and director. In 2007, she wrote, directed, and produced her first feature film, “Ben’s Plan,” a coming-of-age drama made on a micro-budget, which was...
SXSW 2019 Women Directors: Meet Elizabeth Carroll – “Nothing Fancy: Diana Kennedy”
Elizabeth Carroll is a director and producer. In 2013, she founded Honeywater Films to produce stories about food. She has directed video content for The New York Times. “Nothing Fancy: Diana...
SXSW 2019 Women Directors: Meet Barbara Vekarić – “Aleksi”
Barbara Vekarić is a director and producer. She directed the travelogue documentary series “Couchsurfer Girl” and the children’s television show “Space Lab.” Vekarić...
“A Wrinkle in Time,” “Widows,” “Hate U Give,” and More Receive ReFrame Stamp
Time to plan a feminist movie night. ReFame, a coalition working to advance women’s representation on and off-screen, has awarded its gender equality stamp to 20 of the top-grossing films of...
SXSW 2019 Women Directors: Meet Patricia Ortega – “Being Impossible”
Patricia Ortega is a director, screenwriter, and producer. She made her feature directorial debut with 2013’s “El Regreso.” “Being Impossible” is her second...
SXSW 2019 Women Directors: Meet Gabriela Calvache – “La Mala Noche”
Gabriela Calvache was born in Ecuador. Her short film “En Espera” (“On Hold”) premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, screened at the Berlinale, and earned...
SXSW 2019 Women Directors: Meet Kestrin Pantera – “Mother’s Little Helpers”
Kestrin Pantera is an actress, writer, and director. She made her feature debut with 2014’s “Let’s Ruin It with Babies,” and has since directed TV series such as “Bad Parent...
SXSW 2019 Women Directors: Meet Emily Ting – “Go Back to China”
Emily Ting is a film writer, director, and producer. Her first narrative feature, “Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong,” premiered at the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival, and was later screened at over...
SXSW 2019 Women Directors: Meet Tracey Frazier – “Becoming Leslie”
Tracy Frazier first became involved in film production working as an assistant director on the feature film “Jumping Off Bridges.” Frazier went on to produce two short films,...