ALL POSTS
Trailer Watch: Melissa McCarthy Is a Fugitive From Justice in Tammy
Melissa McCarthy’s much anticipated summer comedy Tammy will focus on a broke woman who discovers that her husband is cheating on her. She then embarks on an eventful and ill-fated road trip to...
Sundance London Directors: Meet Sydney Freeland (Drunktown’s Finest)
Writer-director SydneyFreeland’s feature debut, Drunktown’s Finest, was shotagainst New Mexico’s mesmerizing landscape and explores life on the reservationin the 21st century. The film...
Callie Khouri Talks Nashville Season 2 Conclusion (No Spoilers)
I’ve been very lucky to be able to talk with Nashville creator Callie Khouri a bunch of times over the last two seasons. THe show has two more episodes (one airs tonight) and the team is still...
Amy Schumer and the Women of Broad City: Paving the Way for a Female “Golden Age”
Recently, a lot has been made of the so-called Golden Age of Television and the question of is it or isn’t it one. I tend to nod off during those kinds of articles because they so often turn into...
Women Directors Helmed Nearly 40% of Student Oscar Finalists
Female filmmakers directed or co-directed 38% of the shorts in the running for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 41st Student Academy Awards competition. Female directors were best...
Women Directors Fare Much Better in the Indie World — But It’s Still Not Good Enough
Here’s my latest column on Forbes If you follow the issue of women directors working in Hollywood you will know that that this is a very complicated issue. Getting more women directors working at...
Watch: Kimberly Peirce Encourages the Next Generation of AFI Women Directors
As the keynote speaker at the 2014 AFI Directing Worshop for Women Showcase, Kimberly Peirce was upfront about the difficult road that her listeners had ahead of them while congratulating them for...
TV: Orange is the New Black Renewed for Season 3
A month before the long awaited return of Orange is the New Black for its sophomore season, Netflix went ahead and renewed the groundbreaking series for a third year. That bodes well for the...
Cartoon: The Trouble With Wonder Woman
Crossposted from Dorkly.
Why Leslie Jones’ Controversial Slavery Sketch on SNL Was So Important
On May 3rd, Leslie Jones made her debut on Saturday Night Live. Jones was one of the three black women that SNL hired in January in response to the criticism over the show’s lack of diversity, and...
NYC Women Filmmakers Mentor Each Other
Since the big boys still have so much trouble letting the women into their club, dozens of female filmmakers in the New York City area have decided to mentor and support each other on the road to a...
A Teachable Feminist Moment Courtesy of Shailene Woodley
Dear Shailene Woodley: I think you are a really talented young woman and I have enjoyed seeing you in several films and am actually very much looking forward to The Fault in Our Stars. But you kind...
Charlize Theron Options Mental Illness Memoir for Dakota Fanning
Charlize Theron has never been shy about criticizing the film industry’s relative lack of interesting roles for women. Back in 2008, she told The Guardian, “People just aren’t willing to see...
Special Report: Women Directors at the Box Office in April 2014
The Aprilreleases directed by women were dominated by non-fiction, with elevendocumentaries to six features and one anthology film. The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden, from married...
SFIFF Women Directors: Meet Catherine Breillat (Abuse of Weakness)
Beginning in 2004, filmmaker/novelist Catherine Breillat had a series of debilitating strokes connected to a previously undiagnosed cerebrovascular disease. During her long, grueling recovery, she...
Sundance London Women Directors: Meet Jane Lipsitz (Under the Electric Sky)
By way of England and New York City respectively, Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz joined forces in 2001 to form the television production company, Magical Elves, which has given us Top Chef, Project...
Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott School Hollywood
When I started writing Women and Hollywood seven years ago sometimes I thought I was nuts. I would write about issues related to gender and films and there were times when I felt I was shooting my...
Weekly Update for May 2: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening Belle — Directed by Amma Asante; Written byMisan Sagay There’s nothing quite like Belle onthe contemporary film scene — a luxurious period film and a sweet,...
Women Writers Make The New Yorker the Most Feted Publication at National Magazine Awards
The New Yorker won four prizes at the 2014 National Magazine Awards, including individual accolades for TV critic Emily Nussbaum, author Zadie Smith, and journalist and feminist critic Ariel Levy....
Belle Director Amma Asante on Challenging Stereotypes About Black Directors
There’s nothing quite like Belle on the contemporary film scene — a luxurious period film and a sweet, gentle romance that wears its keenly insightful politics on its silk sleeves. Belle is...
Ukraine is Not a Brothel Director Kitty Green Documents Where Feminism and Self-Objectification Meet
Ukraine is Not a Brothel is a portrait of Ukraine’s topless feminist sensation, Femen, which has stirred up a press frenzy across Europe. Outraged by the world’s image of Ukrainian women as...
TV: Queen Latifah to Star as Bessie Smith in HBO Biopic
Queen Latifah will play jazz and blues legend Bessie Smith in an HBO movie written and directed by Dee Rees. Latifah will also serve as an executive producer on the project. An adaptation of Chris...
Producers Ann An and Paula Wagner to Make War Drama About Heroic Chinese Nurse
Last year, I wrote an article for The Atlantic defending the influx of Chinese money into the American film industry. The forced diversification of Hollywood is an overwhelmingly positive...
Obvious Child Director Gillian Robespierre Signs Second Picture
Apparently not content with successfully combining abortion and romance in her debut film Obvious Child, writer-director Gillian Robespierre has announced that she’ll attempt to make divorce funny...
Belle Director Amma Asante Explains Why She Wanted Tell a Jane Austen Story With a Black Protagonist
There’s nothing quite like Belle on the contemporary film scene — a luxurious period film and a sweet, gentle romance that wears its keenly insightful politics on its silk sleeves. Belle is...
SFIFF Women Directors: Meet Zeynep Dadak and Merve Kayan (The Blue Wave)
Zeynep Dadak was born in Balikesir, the midsize Turkish city where The Blue Wave is set. She has been making movies since 2001, is a contributor to the Turkish film magazine Altyazi, and lectures on...
Cannes Adds Six More Films to Lineup, None Directed by Women
Thierry Fremaux may have generated some positive headlines with a Jane Campion-led female-majority competition jury and the prominence of jury presidents Andrea Arnold and Rebecca Zlowtowski at...
Hollywood Men Star in White House PSA Against Sexual Assault
After releasing a depressing but unsurprising report that 1 in 5 female college students are sexually assaulted, the White House posted a PSA on its YouTube account starring President Obama and VP...
May 2014 Film Preview
If you’re lucky enough to live in a city with several arthouse theaters, May is a veritable banquet of indie and foreign gems by and about women. And if your choices are limited to the multiplex,...
Sundance London Women Directors: Meet Marjane Satrapi (The Voices)
MarjaneSatrapis’s fourth feature film, The Voices, stars Ryan Reynolds, AnnaKendrick and Gemma Arterton and was included in the Sundance London program this past weekend. Shecame to our attention...
Trailer Watch: Extended Spot for The Fault in Our Stars
An extended trailer has been released for The Fault in Our Stars, and it goes a long way in translating to a three-minute format one of the chief pleasures of John Green’s YA novel: the book’s...
Meet the New Women and Hollywood Columnists
I am thrilled to introduce you to the new Women and Hollywood columnists who will be taking up their posts beginning next week: Sara Stewart will be handling the weekly TV beat. She also works at...
Newport Beach FF Women Directors: Meet Regina Russell (Well Now You’re Here, There’s No Way Back)
After two decades and over fifty film and television roles as an actress, Regina Russell steps behind the camera as director and producer. A visual artist in many mediums, she has always had a...
The Tony Award Nominations: Women Writers Are Missing
The Tony Award nominations were handed out this morning. The thing I noticed immediately is that not a single play written by a woman was nominated. Turns out the problem is that a woman couldn’t...
Hot Docs Women Director: Meet Teodora Ana Mihai (Waiting for August)
Teodora Ana Mihai was born in 1981 in Bucharest, Romania, under Nicolae Ceausescu’s dictatorship. In 1989, she came to Belgium and was reunited with her parents, who had fled the year before. In...
Jane Campion-Led 2014 Cannes Jury is Majority Female
Five women will sit on the nine-person Cannes jury, which means there will be 2.5 women jurors for every woman director in competition. As we reported earlier this month, only two of the 18...
SFIFF Women Directors: Meet Sara Dosa (The Last Season)
Sara Dosa’s past projects include work as an associate producer on Elena and Jacob Kornbluth’s acclaimed documentary about Robert Reich, Inequality for All. A graduate of Wesleyan University,...
SFIFF Women Directors: Meet Julie Bertuccelli (School of Babel)
Julie Bertuccelli is the daughter of filmmaker Jean-Louis Bertuccelli. She worked as an assistant director to several well-known filmmakers before helming several documentaries for television. Her...
Watch: A Jem Fan Responds to the Movie’s Whitewashed Casting
Last week, Jem fan Lindsay Taylor took to YouTube to decry the whitewashed casting for Shana Elmsford, the shy African-American character in the 1980s cartoon about a group of foster kids who become...
The Other Woman Takes the Box Office Crown
I’m going to be honest: I had no desire to see The Other Woman. I saw the poster a couple of months ago, read the premise, and said to myself, no way. Not being a reviewer with an editor assigning...
Sundance’s Keri Putnam Shares What She’s Learned from the Women Filmmakers Initiative
As the Executive Director of the Sundance Institute, Keri Putnam oversees all of the organization’s programs, including the Women Filmmakers Initiative and its associatedresearch. Prior to taking...
Weekly Update for April 25: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening Bright Days Ahead — Directed by Marion Vernoux; Co-Written by Marion Vernoux and Fanny Chesnel For recent retiree Caroline (Fanny Ardant) a new life of freedom and...
Argentine Director Lucia Puenzo Helps Her Country Come to Terms With Its Nazi-Sheltering Past
Writer-director Lucia Puenzo’s historical drama The German Doctor (opening April 25) became a sensation in Argentina last year, ultimately amassing nine Sur Awards (the Argentine Oscars),...
SFIFF Women Directors: Meet Jane Pollard (20,000 Days on Earth)
Artist and filmmaker Jane Pollard met her collaborative partner Iain Forsyth at Goldsmiths College in the early 1990s. After the duo earned early acclaim with A Rock ’N’ Roll Suicide (1998), a...
Tribeca Women Directors: Meet Sheila Canavan (Compared to What: The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank)
Sheila Canavan makes her directorial debut with Compared to What: The Improbable Journey ofBarney Frank. Canavan grew up in Boston and met Frank as a youngcollege student, when they were both...
TV: J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy to Be Adapted for HBO and BBC
J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy will be adapted into a three-hour miniseries for HBO and the BBC. Set in the picturesque English village of Pagford, the novel is Rowling’s first book after...
Third Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Movie Planned
Fans of magical jeans, rejoice! A third installment of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is in the works, with the planned movie picking up ten years after the events of the last movie. The...
Zero Motivation Director Talya Lavie Wins Top Prize at Tribeca
Director Talya Lavie’s Zero Motivation won the Tribeca Film Festival’s top prize yesterday. Lavie described her feature debut as “a comi-tragic glimpse into Israeli military society” in an...
Tribeca Women Directors: Meet Farihah Zaman (This Time Next Year)
This Time Next Year is Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman’s first feature documentary as co-directors. Their short film “Remote Area Medical” premiered at the 2013 Full Frame Documentary Film...
Trailer Watch: Marion Cotillard in The Immigrant
Eastern European immigrant Ewa (Marion Cotillard) arrives at Ellis Island and is promptly separated from her ailing sister Magda (Angela Sarafyan). Stranded in a new land with no one to turn to, she...
Lupita Update: People Cover, Movie Roles, Endorsement Deals
Last month, I confessed that I want Lupita Nyong’o “on every Hollywood short list [and] swiming in gold doubloons inside a McScrooge-like vault.” Since her Best Supporting Actress Oscar win...