ALL POSTS
Chelsea Handler to Take Over Netflix with Talk Show, Stand-Up Special, and Four Docu-Comedies
Late night’s only female host has just signed a new deal with Netflix. Having just departed E!, Chelsea Handler will first appear on the streaming site-turned-mini-network in a stand-up special...
Human Rights Watch FF Women Directors: Meet Joanna Lipper (The Supreme Price)
JoannaLipper is an award-winning filmmaker and a lecturer at Harvard University, where sheteaches a course called “Using Film for SocialChange.” Her work as a documentary filmmaker has been...
Lupita Nyong’o Becomes 2nd African Woman to Land Vogue Cover
Scroll down for the full Vogue cover. A couple of weeks after the announcement that she’d optioned Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, Lupita Nyong’o has graced the cover...
AFI Docs Women Directors: Meet Laura Naylor (The Fix)
Writer-producer Laura Naylor first discovered her interest in documentary-style representation while studying visual arts and art history at Columbia University in New York City. In 2011, she...
Will the Female-Driven Drama Chasing Life Dare to Get Real About Leukemia?
Cancer is having a definite pop-cultural moment, given The Fault in Our Stars’ recent trouncing of Tom Cruise at the box office. Lucky timing for Chasing Life, the new ABC Family drama that...
Janet Malcolm, Hanya Yanagihara, and Victoria Wilson Among 2014 PEN Literary Award Nominees
Janet Malcolm, Hanya Yanagihara, and Victoria Wilson are some of the female writers shortlisted for the 2014 PEN Literary Awards. Yanagihara is the only woman writer eligible for one of the PEN...
LAFF Women Directors: Meet Gren Wells (The Road Within)
Gren Wells was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. After attending Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY, Wells moved to New York City, where she starred in six...
Human Rights Watch FF Director: Meet Blair Dorosh-Walther (Out in the Night)
Director and producer Blair Dorosh-Walther (who identifies as gender non-conforming and uses both male and female pronouns) is a social-issue documentary director, an experienced production...
The Four Things I Learned on My Recent Trip to Hollywood
From my latest Forbes post on the four things I learned on my recent trip to Hollywood: People are talking and looking for ways to make in roads all across the business. From what I’ve noticed,...
Ann Hui’s The Golden Era to Close Venice Film Festival
The world premiere of Hong Kong director Ann Hui’s The Golden Era will close the 71st Venice Film Festival (August 27-September 6). It will be screened out of competition. The Golden Era centers...
LAFF Women Directors: Meet Jennifer Prediger and Jess Weixler (Trouble Dolls)
Trouble Dolls marks Jennifer Prediger and Jess Weixler’s writing and directing debuts. Prediger has starred in Joe Swanberg’s Uncle Kent, Madeleine Olnek’s Foxy Merkins, and Hanna Fidell’s A...
Alice Rohrwacher to Head Venice Film Fest’s Best First Film Jury
Italian director Alice Rohrwacher, who won the 2014 Cannes Grand Prix with her sophomore film The Wonders, will head the Venice Film Festival’s jury for best first film. Also called the Luigi de...
New Annual List Launched to Spotlight Women’s Plays
The latest effort to combat gender inequality in theater comes courtesy of The Kilroys, a group of LA-based women playwrights and producers founded last year. The Kilroys have launched The List,...
Human Rights Watch FF Women Directors: Meet Iva Radivojevic (Evaporating Borders)
Iva Radivojevic is an award-winning filmmaker who spent her early years in Yugoslavia and Cyprus before settling in NYC over a decade ago. Her work explores the themes of identity, migration and...
Kathryn Bigelow Eyeing Movie Project About Bowe Berghdal
Just last month, Kathryn Bigelow announced that she would adapt Anand Giridharadas’ The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas, a dual portrait of domestic terrorist Mark Stroman and the...
DC Comics President Challenged on “Embarrassing” Record of Excluding Women
Last Friday, a male shareholder asked DC Entertainment president Diane Nelson about her studio’s “embarrassing” lack of superheroine movies. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the unnamed...
Human Rights Watch FF Women Directors: Meet Rachel Beth Anderson (First to Fall)
Rachel Beth Anderson, a Sundance Award-winning cinematographer, has filmed around the world in several conflict zones, including Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey, and South Sudan, for...
Provinceton Film Fest to Present Its Inaugural Juice Award for Women Directors
The Provincetown International Film Festival and the Juice Fund will bestow P-town’s inaugural Juice Award to one of six eligible women-directed films. According to a press statement, the Juice...
Human Rights Watch FF Women Directors: Meet Jasmila Zbanic (For Those Who Can Tell No Tales)
Jasmila Zbanic is one of Europe’s most promising young directors. Her 2006 film Land of My Dreams won the Golden Bear at the Berlin international Film Festival, and her 2010 follow-up, On the...
Weekly Update for June 13: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening I Am I — Written and Directed by Jocelyn Towne Here’s something you don’t see much in Hollywood: a completely original premise. In her writing and directing...
Human Rights Watch FF Women Directors: Meet Cynthia Hill
Cynthia Hill crafts documentaries that take a complex approach to critical contemporary issues, creating story-driven and visually rich films. Private Violence is Hill’s fourth feature...
Watch: Laverne Cox Talks About the “Transgender Tipping Point”
Laverne Cox isn’t as much on the new season of Orange is the New Black as some (including myself) would like, but fortunately she’s everywhere else these days. Two weeks ago, Cox became the...
CSI Producer Carol Mendelsohn Leaves Show, Joins Sony TV
After 13 years at CBS Television Studios, Carol Mendelsohn will join Sony Pictures TV. The jump from CBS to Sony means Mendelsohn will be giving up her co-showrunning duties at the long-running...
LAFF Women Directors: Debra Granik on Stray Dog, Her Follow-Up to Winter’s Bone
Debra Granik is the director of Winter’s Bone, the 2010 drug drama set in the Ozarks that received four Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay (by Granik and Anne Rosellini),...
Cate Blanchett and Kerry Washington Discuss the Difficulty of Risk-Taking As Women in Hollywood
Cate Blanchett and Kerry Washington received the two highest honors at Women in Film’s Crystal + Lucy Awards ceremony this past Wednesday, and both actresses used their time at the podium to say...
Human Rights Watch FF Women Directors: Meet Alessandra Zeka and Holen Sabrina Kahn (A Quiet Inquisition)
Alessandra Zeka and Holen Sabrina Kahn have been producing documentary stories collaboratively since 1998. Their films have focused on Albania, Rwanda, India, Taiwan, Central America, and the U.S....
LAFF Women Directors: Meet Amanda Marsalis (Echo Park)
California-born Amanda Marsalis’ photography career began during her teenage years, when she would document punk shows held in her mother’s basement and skip class to spend time in her high...
Guest Post: Notes from the Field: The Importance of Female Collaboration
This past Saturday, the Film Fatales, a collective of women feature-film writers and directors, joined other New York City-based filmmaker collaboratives for a discussion hosted by the Brooklyn Film...
Guest Post: “Nan Goldin: I Remember Your Face” is About Turning the Camera on a Photographer
Afterworking for many years as a movie makeup artist for Tom Tykwer, Dani Levy andWim Wenders, I became used to getting very close to people, no matter howfamous, young or old. After my second child...
Human Rights Watch FF Women Directors: Meet Jennifer M. Kroot (To Be Takei)
Jennifer M. Kroot directed the documentary feature It Came From Kuchar, about the legendary underground filmmaking twins George and Mike Kuchar, which premiered at the 2009 South by Southwest Film...
Kristen Wiig to Direct, Star, and Co-Write a Bridesmaids Follow-Up with Annie Mumolo
The writing team behind Bridesmaids is finally reuniting to make another female-friendship comedy. Wiig will sit in the director’s chair for the first time in the unnamed project. The former SNL...
Cate Blanchett: “People Want to See Stories With Women at the Center”
After using her Best Actress win at the Oscars as a platform to call for more movies about women (“the world is round, people”), Cate Blanchett recently spoke out again on behalf of her fellow...
Video-Game Developer Argues He Excluded Female Characters Because It Would “Double the Work”
Here’s something cool about Assassin’s Creed: Unity, the newest installment of one of gaming’s largest franchises: for the first time in the series’ history, up to four players will be able...
Human Rights Watch FF Women Directors: Meet Katy Chevigny (E-Team)
Katy Chevigny is an award-winning filmmaker and partner at Big Mouth Productions. She has produced a dozen feature-length documentaries as well as short-form films, videos and webisodes. Her credits...
Women Directors Win Majority of Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund Grants
Female filmmakers make up the majority of the 2014 recipients of the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund, a grant devoted to supporting domestic and international projects with a social mission. The...
It’s the Little Things That Make OITNB One of the Best Shows on TV
Orange is the New Black is back, and its arrival seems to have elevated the term “binge-watching” to a new level. But when did binge-watching become de rigeur for showing appreciation for a...
LAFF Women Directors: Meet Rania Attieh (Recommended by Enrique)
Rania Attieh, among Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 Faces of Independent Film” in 2011, is a Guggenheim and U.S. Rockefeller Fellow in film/ video. Attieh is from Tripoli, Lebanon. Together with...
Marion Cotillard to Star in French Auteur Nicole Garcia’s Next Film
Marion Cotillard has signed on to star in French auteur Nicole Garcia’s next film. Mal de Pierres, literally translated to “Evil Stones,” will be a big-screen adaptation of Milena Agus novel...
Welcome Interns Kelcie Mattson and Alice Thorpe
I just wanted to take a moment and welcome the Women and Hollywood summer interns, Kelcie Mattson and Alice Thorp. Inkoo and I are very excited that they are on board. Here’s a little bit about...
Comedy Central Renews Inside Amy Schumer, Greenlights Two More Female-Led Comedies
Sometime in the last year, Comedy Central became the friendliest place for feminist comedy on the small screen. First came Inside Amy Schumer in the spring of 2013, a crass, honest, and of course...
After Tiller Director Lana Wilson to Helm Doc About Suicide in Japan
After tackling late-term abortions in After Tiller, documentarian Lana Wilson will delve into an equally difficult and complex subject in her next project: suicide. Wilson’s follow-up to Tiller,...
Shonda Rhimes’ Dartmouth Commencement Speech: “Dreamers Often End Up Living in the Basements of Relatives”
This past Sunday, Shonda Rhimes doled out some tough love — and shared a few great anecdotes — at the commencement ceremony at Dartmouth University, her alma mater. Her overall message...
LAFF Women Directors: Meet Kimberly Levin (Runoff)
Kimberly Levin is an award-winning filmmaker and former biochemist. Her short film Between Baronovsksy premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival and went on to play festivals in the US...
Yaya DaCosta Alafia to Play Whitney Houston in Lifetime Biopic
If you watched the third (and best) season of America’s Next Top Model, you’ve probably also been following runner-up Yaya DaCosta Alafia’s subsequent acting career with some interest. Alafia,...
Jennifer Lawrence to Team Up Again with David O. Russell
After working together on Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, Jennifer Lawrence and director David O. Russell will collaborate again on a film currently titled Joy. The 23-year-old actress...
Why Young Women Are the Hottest Box Office Demographic
From my latest Forbes post on Hollywood’s curious negligence of young women as a box-office demographic: This weekend proves that women are actually a more reliable audience [than young men]. As I...
Audra McDonald Sets Two Records at the 2014 Tony Awards
Theater legend Audra McDonald set two records at the Tonys last night by becoming the first performer to win all four acting categories and receiving the highest number of acting prizes in the...
Trailer Watch: Chloe Grace Moretz Wavers Between Life and Death in New If I Stay Trailer
Life-or-death situations are rarely as literal as the one teenage Mia (Chloe Grace Moretz) faces: Should she live or die? A new trailer has been released for the big-screen adaptation of Gayle...
Guest Post: What We Can Learn About Women in Hollywood from Amma Asante’s Belle
Have you seen the extraordinary new film Belle? Amma Asante’s latest project is not just a great work, but a testament tothe equal ability of women to direct great films. In fact, Belle...
Weekly Update for June 6: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening Obvious Child — Written and Directed by Gillian Robespierre Obvious Child is the kind of movie that helped me remember why I love movies. I was laughing my ass off...
Lauren Faust to Direct Animated Comedy About Medusa
After Maleficent made $170 million in international ticket sales in its opening weekend, it was almost inevitable that studio execs would sit around in their offices on Monday morning thinking of...