ALL POSTS
NBC Orders Monica Potter Pilot About Juggling Three Ex-Husbands and a Family
Parenthood is coming to an end this Thursday — get your tissues ready — which means we’ll have to say goodbye to Kristina Braverman. But we may be seeing lots more of Monica Potter,...
Trailer Watch: ‘Game of Thrones’ Star Maisie Williams Grows Up in the Eerie ‘The Falling’
A wonderfully atmospheric trailer has arrived for The Falling, one of Women and Hollywood’s most anticipated films of the year. Starring Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams (who plays badass Arya),...
USC Annenberg to Issue Report Cards Grading the Entertainment Industry on Diversity
In the aftermath of #OscarsSoWhite, the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism is launching an initiative aimed at improving diversity across the entertainment industry. The...
Sundance Women Producers: Meet Sophia Lin — ‘Z for Zachariah’
Sophia Lin is a producer and production manager. Her previous credits include Camp X-Ray, Take Shelter, and Friends with Kids. Z for Zachariah premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival on January...
Guest Post: Overcoming Imposter Syndrome through the Power of Inclusion
Last fall, I was fortunate enough to be nominated by Women in Hollywood for the inaugural year of the Fox Global Directors Initiative. I reacted with disbelief when I received notice that I was...
Octavia Spencer Attached to Star in Biopic of Famed 19th-Century Nurse Mary Seacole
Three years after winning the 2012 Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Help, Octavia Spencer may finally have found the kind of cinematic starring role worthy of her talents. Last summer, Spencer...
IFP Announces ‘Screen Forward’ Lineup Highlighting Female Filmmakers
The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) has announced the February — May lineup for its year-round “Screen Forward” series: Four films from female filmmakers will be highlighted, focusing...
The Cast of ‘Ghostbusters’ Reboot Chosen — McCarthy, Wiig, Jones, and McKinnon to Suit Up
The casting of an all-female Ghostbusters reboot has been the source of much speculation since the project was first announced. Now we finally have word on which women will be headlining the Paul...
ABC Orders New Pilots From Shondaland and Stephanie Savage
ABC picked up two women-centric pilots on Monday — new dramas from Shondaland and Fake Empire. The Catch is the latest offering from the prolific executive producers of Grey’s Anatomy,...
Sundance Women Producers: Meet Naomi Scott — ‘The Overnight’
Naomi Scott is a London-born writer and producer. Her previous credits include The Greatest Event in Television History, The Andy Milonakis Show, and Jimmy Kimmel Live! Scott produced The Overnight,...
Jane Fonda: “We Have to Shame the Studios for Being So Gender-Biased”
Only 7% of the top 250 films last year were directed by women, according to the latest Celluloid Ceiling Report from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State....
Sundance Deals Update: Debut Films Starring Nicole Kidman and Kristen Wiig from Women Directors Sold
A trio of films by emerging female filmmakers have been sold at Sundance. Perhaps generating the most buzz among the three is Marielle Heller’s directorial debut, The Diary of a Teenage Girl,...
Slamdance Women Directors: Meet Jiyoung Lee — ‘Female Pervert’
Jiyoung Lee is a writer, director, musician, and actress. In 2007 she received an MA in Television, Radio, and Film from Syracuse University. In 2011 she played a fictionalized version of herself in...
Slamdance Women Directors: Meet Gabrielle Demeestere — ‘Yosemite’
Born and raised in Paris, Gabrielle Demeestere is a New York-based filmmaker. Most recently, she wrote and directed a segment of the feature film The Color of Time, based on the poetry of C.K....
The Big O: How Nora Grossman of ‘The Imitation Game’ Broke the Code of Becoming a Woman Producer
Of the top 250 movies that were released last year, women made up only 23% of the producers involved with those titles — down 1% from 1998 — according to the Center for the Study of...
Ava DuVernay’s Next Picture to be Hurricane Katrina Drama with Star David Oyelowo
Ava DuVernay has lined up her follow-up to Selma. The ascendant filmmaker will collaborate with Selma star David Oyelowo for the third time in an untitled love story and murder mystery set against...
Watch: See How Important Female-Driven Films Are in Inspiring ‘What Athena Means to Me’ Video
The Athena Film Festival, which will host the world premiere of HBO Documentary Film’s Rosie O’Donnell: A Heartfelt Standup and honor Jodie Foster with the Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Chloé Zhao — ‘Songs My Brothers Taught Me’
Chloé Zhao was raised in Beijing and England, and is currently a MFA thesis student at New York University’s graduate film program. She was selected as a fellow at the 2012 Sundance Directors and...
Emma Watson Takes Gender Equity Global & Will Star as Belle in New ‘Beauty and the Beast’
Emma Watson is making headlines for her work on and off the screen. The actress and UN Women Goodwill Ambassador has had quite a week: she announced a yearlong initiative, HeforShe’s IMPACT...
Women In Film Awards $33,000 to Filmmakers in Sundance
More good news for female filmmakers at Sundance: Women In Film, Los Angeles awarded over $33,000 in cash and in kind-grants at “Unstoppable — The Road to Yes,” its 9th Annual Women in...
SAG Award Winners: Viola Davis & Uzo Aduba Make History
While all 20 acting nominees competing for an Oscar thisyear are white — for the first time in nearly 20 years — twowomen of color made history at the SAG Awards last night for their...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Mora Stephens — ‘Zipper’
Mora Stephens’ debut feature film, Conventioneers, won the 2006 Independent Spirit Awards’ John Cassavetes Award for Best Low-Budget Feature. The film premiered at the 2005 Tribeca Film...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Kristina Goolsby and Ashley York — ‘Tig’
Kristina Goolsby’s producing credits include Intervention and Who Do You Think You Are? Ashley York previously served as a producer on Inside Deep Throat and TransGeneration, and she directed the...
Sundance Women Producers: Meet Rebecca Green and Laura D. Smith — ‘I’ll See You in My Dreams’
Rebecca Green and Laura D. Smith have produced the feature film It Follows, written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, which premiered to rave reviews at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Jenni Olson — ‘The Royal Road’
Jenni Olsen is a pioneering filmmaker, journalist, curator and film historian. She is also one of the world’s leading experts on LGBT cinema history. In addition to The Royal Road, Olson has had...
Sundance Women Producers: Meet Susan Bedusa — ‘Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead’
Susan Bedusa is currently Senior Vice President of Production and Development at 4th Row Films, where she sets up development and distribution deals with various networks and studios. She also...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Sophie Deraspe — ‘The Amina Profile’
Sophie Deraspe fell into cinema through visual arts and literature. As both a director and a cinematographer, she worked mostly in documentary before directing her realism-bending first feature...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Marielle Heller — ‘The Diary of a Teenage Girl’
Marielle Heller is a writer, director, and actor. She was selected as a2012 Sundance Screenwriting Fellow and a 2012 Sundance Directing Fellow, and washonored with the Lynn Auerbach Screenwriting...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Kris Swanberg — ‘Unexpected’
Kris Swanberg began her film career at Southern Illinois University, where she studied documentary film production. Her first feature, It Was Great, But I Was Ready to Come Home, played in...
Weekly Update for January 23: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Song One — Written and Directed by Kate Barker-Froyland Song One begins with anthropology grad student Franny (Anne Hathaway) immersed in Moroccan...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Jennifer Phang — ‘Advantageous’
Jennifer Phang is a San Francisco-based filmmaker with more than ten years of experience (Half-Life, Crazy Beats Strong Every Time, Glass Butterfly). The Berkeley-born daughter of Chinese-Malaysian...
Guest Post: How the Female-Heavy Crew Making ‘Little Accidents’ Probably Saved the Production
Although it was never an intentional goal, one of the best aspectsof making Little Accidents was making a film with so many strong women up anddown the ladder of production and finance. I became...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Kim Longinotto — ‘Dreamcatcher’
One of the foremost documentary filmmakers working today, Kim Longinotto is renowned internationally for her compellingly human portraits and her sensitive and compassionate treatment of difficult...
Kim Longinotto, Rose McGowan, and Erika Cohn Ink Deals at Sundance
Sundance 2015 is just getting underway, but there’s already a lot of exciting news coming in for female directors, novices and vets alike. Yesterday, the opening day of the festival, brought word...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Alexandra Shiva — ‘How to Dance in Ohio’
Alexandra Shiva is the founder of Gidalya Pictures, a Manhattan-based documentary production company. Shiva produced and directed Bombay Eunuch in 2001, which went on to win Best Documentary Feature...
Katniss Headlines the Highest-Grossing Film Two Years in a Row
Hunger Games fans, rejoice: Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen has dominated the box office once again. Mockingjay — Part 1 has surpassed Guardians of the Galaxy at the box office,...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Rania Attieh — ‘H.’
Rania Attieh & her H. co-director Daniel Garcia were named the 2015 Independent Spirit Awards’ “Someone to Watch.” Included among the “25 Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmakers...
Trailer Watch: Ellie Kemper Flees a Doomsday Cult in Tina Fey’s ‘Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Erika Cohn — ‘In Football We Trust’
Erika Cohn is a DGA award-winning filmmaker with a diverse background in the arts and a passion for documentary photography. (Kickstarter)Co-directed by Tony Vainaku, In Football We Trust will...
‘A Path Appears’: Finding Hope and Horror While Uncovering Stories of Global Gender Oppression
‘Song One’ Director Kate Barker-Froyland on Rewriting Her Script for Anne Hathaway, Being Typecast as a “Woman Director”
Song One begins with anthropology grad student Franny (Anne Hathaway) immersed in Moroccan culture. We witness her carefully observing local rituals and taking meticulous notes. The drama chronicles...
SF Film Society Introduces New Fellowship for Female Filmmakers
If you’re a regular reader of Women and Hollywood’s interviews, there’s a good chance you’ve noticed that a significant number of female filmmakers have shared that securing funding for...
Tony Award Winner Anika Noni Rose Gets into Producing
You may recognize Anika Noni Rose from the stage (she won a Tony for her performance in Caroline, Or Change), TV (The Good Wife, Private Practice), or the big screen (Dreamgirls). The multi-talented...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Kim Farrant — ‘Strangerland’
Kim Farrant’s Naked on the Inside sold to major networks worldwide and her award winning short films The Secret Side of Me, Alias, Sammy Blue, Beloved and Bombshell have screened at Cannes, New...
Trailer Watch: How College Campuses Became ‘The Hunting Ground’ for Rapists
The first trailer has arrived for The Hunting Ground, and it is heartbreaking and frustrating, which is to be expected given its subject matter: the ubiquity of sexual assault on U.S. campuses and...
Sundance Women Directors: Meet Mor Loushy — ‘Censored Voices’
Mor Loushy graduated from the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in 2007 and has been working as a freelancer ever since. Her debut film, Israel Ltd., world-premiered at IDFA 2009 and has been...
Guest Post: Earning My Invitation into the Highly Secretive, Male-Dominated Fraternity of Magicians
Ricky Jay, the subject of my American Mastersdocumentary DeceptivePractice (premieres Friday, January23 at 9 PM on PBS), told me that the field of sleight of hand is one of theworld’s few true...
Slamdance Women Directors: Meet Esra Saydam and Nisan Dag — ‘Across the Sea’
Esra Saydam is an award-winning filmmaker born and raised in Istanbul who later moved to the US for her filmmaking career. She directed two shorts that screened at festivals such as the Seattle FF...
Anne Hathaway and Julie Taymor Team Up for Play About Female Fighter Pilot
After winning an Oscar for playing the doomed Fantine in Les Misérables two years ago, Anne Hathaway will delve even deeper into her theatre roots by starring in Grounded, a one-woman play about a...
Slamdance Women Directors: Meet Dana Nachman — ‘Batkid Begins’
Born and raised in New York, writer/director Dana Nachman’s films — Witch Hunt (2008), Love Hate Love (2011), and The Human Experiment (2015) — have premiered and screened at the...
Watch: First Clip from Liz Garbus’ Nina Simone Documentary