ALL POSTS
Female Filmmakers Launch Middle Eastern Film Fund
Director Jessica Habie and journalist Deema Dabis have announced a new film fund in support of Middle Eastern cinema. The Fajr Falestine Film Fund is devoted to the “production of groundbreaking...
Trailer Watch: Walk of Shame
On TV’s 30 Rock, Elizabeth Banks was a revelation as Avery Jessup, a Megyn Kelly-like conservative news anchor. Now the movies are finally giving Banks a chance to prove her comedic chops after...
Women Directors Comprise 33% of Berlinale Forum
“There is no lack of female directors.” That’s one of the main take-aways from Oscar-nominated director Lexi Alexander’s recent post on the institutional sexism plaguing the movie industry....
The Big O: And the Oscars’ Winning (and Losing) Female Nominees Are…
And so it begins. The 86th Academy Award nominations did the hustle big time for American Hustle, with 10 nominations. From our female perspective, it’s terrific that both Amy Adams, with her...
The Good and the Bad Among the 2014 Oscar Nominees
2013 was an even-worse-than-usual year for non-acting women in Hollywood — only 6% of the 250 top-grossing films were directed by female filmmakers and just 10% written by female...
Four Women Directors Will Compete for 2014 Berlinale’s Golden Bear
Austrian Feo Aladag, Peruvian Claudia Llosa, Iranian-Austrian Sudabeh Mortezai, and Argentine Celina Murga will compete for the top prize at the 64th Berlin International Film...
Frozen: Let It Go… to Broadway!
Disney animated features don’t have the strongest track record on Broadway. While The Lion King remains a monster hit and the Beauty and the Beast stage production, which folded in 2007, boasts...
Women Comprise Majority of National Book Critics Circle Nominees
In the filmmaking world, fiction is dominated by men and nonfiction shared by both genders. Not so in literature. If the National Book Critics Circle is any indicator, the reverse is true. Women...
Female Directors and the Cannes Film Festival – 2014
Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Thanks to Emma Thompson’s biggest fan Meryl Streep, we now know that the Saving Mr. Banks star cares about what she’s contributing to pop culture at large, both as an actress and a writer. In...
Interview: Callie Khouri on Female Likability and Nashville’s Upcoming Guest Stars
Nashville creator Callie Khouri first came into prominence as the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Thelma and Louise. She is also the director of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Mad Money....
Celluloid Ceiling Report: No Progress in 16 Years for Women in Hollywood
Every January for the past 16 years, people who care about women’s progress behind the scenes in the film industry have restlessly anticipated Dr. Martha Lauzen’s Celluloid Ceiling analysis of...
An Oscar-Nominated Director Gets Real About How Women Are Treated in Hollywood
The following is cross-posted from Lexi Alexander’s blog with permission from the author. Editor’s Note: The post below is very important. This is a woman director standing up for herself and...
Sarah Polley, Lucy Walker, Jehane Noujaim are DGA Doc Nominees
Jehane Noujaim’s The Square, Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell, and Lucy Walker’s The Crash Reel are three among the five nonfiction films to receive a Best Documentary nod from the Directors...
TV: Rashida Jones, Casey Wilson, and June Diane Raphael Sell Pilots to NBC
On the heels of Amy Poehler’s Best Actress win for Parks and Rec at the Golden Globes comes more Pawnee news. P&R co-star Rashida Jones, whose last episode on the show will air in February,...
NAACP Awards: 2013 Was a Good Year for Black Men in Hollywood, Abysmal for Black Women
2013 was a good year for black men in Hollywood. 12 Years a Slave, Lee Daniels’ The Butler, Fruitvale Station, and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom gave stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Forest Whitaker,...
Amma Asante, Rebecca Miller Announce New Projects
Great news: two female filmmakers have announced new projects. Buoyed by positive reviews of her upcoming film Belle, British director Amma Asante has signed on to direct the studio thriller...
Why Amy Poehler and Tina Fey Should Host the Golden Globes Forever
I really like the Golden Globes. I know the Oscar pundits don’t take it seriously as a predictor of what’s to come for the Golden Derby, but the rest of us who don’t think that way could care...
Women Directors Nominated in Nearly Every Narrative Category at DGA-TV Awards
Television is much kinder to women. The opportunities are greater, the stories richer, riskier, and more varied. TV isn’t a haven for women by any means, but they do get more chances to prove...
Weekly Update for January 10: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films Directed By and About Women Opening The Truth About Emanuel — Written and Directed by Francesca Gregorini Emanuel (Kaya Scodelario), a troubled girl, becomes preoccupied with her...
TV: A Preview of Girls’ Third Season from TCA
Lena Dunham’s Girls, which returns to HBO for its third season on Sunday night, can be difficult to see as simply a television show. When it premiered in 2012, the series, which follows the lives...
When the Little Gals Get Stepped On: How Huff Po Stole from Women and Hollywood
Last night I got an email from a friend with a link to a Huffington Post piece he thought I would be interested in. I clicked on it and to my immediate alarm, I realized it was a piece that had been...
Why Judd Apatow Directing Amy Schumer in Trainwreck is a Great Thing
It looks like we’ll be able to look forward to at least one mid-budget female-driven comedy every summer. 2011 had Bridesmaids; 2012, Pitch Perfect. After last year’s The Heat, we’ll have...
Sarah Polley, Lucy Walker, Barbara Kopple Win at Cinema Eye Awards
Sarah Polley, Lucy Walker, and Barbara Kopple were honored at the seventh annual Cinema Eye Honors, which “recognize and honor exemplary craft and innovation in nonfiction film.” Polley won the...
The New DGA/Studio Agreement: Nothing New for Women
Yesterday, the DGA voted by “an overwhelming margin” to ratify a new contract between its members and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). DGA President Paris Barclay...
The Big O: Will the Academy’s Love of Female Ensembles Help August: Osage County?
What is almost over but has only just begun? The seeminglyendless race for the Oscars, of course. With the Golden Globes ceremony onSunday and Academy Award nominations being announced next...
Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson’s Feminist Love Fest
Holy hell. Last night at the National Board of Review awards ceremony, Meryl Streep outed herself as Emma Thompson’s biggest fan by celebrating her for being “a rabid, man eating feminist, like...
Watch the Athena Film Fest 2014 Trailer
The 2014 Athena Film Festival has released a trailer for the February event. Watch the video below, read the full Athena lineup here, and see you there!
BAFTA Nods Recognize Women Directors and Female Protagonists
After an award season apparently blind to non-acting female talent, we finally got some good news today. Among the BAFTA nominees are films by several women directors: Clio Barnard’s The Selfish...
An Open Letter to Martin Scorsese
Dear Mr. Scorsese- Your letter to your daughter Francesca came to my attention and I just had a few comments in response. First, I apologize for not seeing The Wolf of Wall Street. There was a time...
10 Highest-Grossing Films of 2013 by Women Directors
As we previously reported, 2013 was the year of the box-office heroine, with girl protagonists headlining the #1 (Hunger Games: Catching Fire) and #4 (Frozen) most popular films of the year. For...
TV: The Women-Created Network Shows in Contention for Fall 2014
The Hollywood Reporter has published a running list of all the network pilots in contention for the 2014–2015 season. About 40% of them (11 of 26) feature women creators, showrunners, and/or...
Women-Directed Films in 2014 Will Be Few and Far Between (Updated)
Movie-lovers interested in films by women directors won’t have much reason to go to the mutliplex this year. In 2013, only three films from female filmmakers — Frozen, Carrie, and Black...
Black Comedienne Sasheer Zamata Joins SNL
Sasheer Zamata became the most famous performer on Saturday Night Live yesterday when the show announced her addition to the cast. Zamata was hired after two of SNL’s black comedians, Kenan...
Jane Campion to Lead Cannes 2014 Jury
The Cannes Film Festival has selected New Zealand director Jane Campion to preside over the 2014 jury. Campion has been one of the most vocal critics within the industry of Hollywood’s...
Athena Film Fest Lineup Announced
The Athena Film Festival, the Women and Hollywood-affiliated event co-founded by Melissa Silverstein, has announced the lineup for its fourth annual showcase of works by women directors and about...
Trailer Watch: Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s The Mask You Live In
Sometimes you wear the mask, and sometimes the mask wears you. After the success of her documentary Miss Representation, which details the mainstream media’s pernicious effects on girls, Jennifer...
What the F@#- is Cancer and Why Does Everybody Have It?
I’ve been around a bit in this business. I came up throughthe ranks of production and then moved into post, all the while writingand working towards helming a film of my own to make my life...
Hunger Games: Catching Fire Will Be Top Grossing Movie of 2013, Frozen Surges to #4
All hail Katniss, Anna, and Elsa. The heroines of Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Frozen, introduced to us all the way back in November, have started off the new year still kicking box-office...
WGA Nominates Women Screenwriters for Dallas Buyers Club, Before Midnight
The Writers Guild of America announced their 2014 award nominees today. Only two female screenwriters — Dallas Buyers Club co-writer Melisa Wallack and Before Midnight co-writer/star Julie...
The Bechdel Test is a Good Indicator of Box Office Performance
Movies that pass the Bechdel test make significantly more money than movies that fail the test. That’s the conclusion that Vocativ.com writers Versha Sharma and Hanna Sender came to when they...
What It’s Like to Be a Woman Director in a Country with a Tiny Film Industry
I’m often askedwhat it’s like to be a woman working in the film industry. My answer? Depends on the context. While I am aware of the dismal statistics on gender inequality in Hollywood and what...
Megan Ellison Leads PGA Awards Nominations
The Producers Guild of America, an industry group that predicts and influences the Oscar nominees more often than not, announced the ten films in the running for its annual awards. Wunderkind...
Trailer Watch: Veronica Mars’ Theatrical Preview
The official trailer has been released for the much anticipated Veronica Mars movie. Thankfully, it turns away from the “choosing boyfriends” theme of the previously released “first look” to...
Women and Hollywood January 2014 Film Preview
January is for December movies. That’s the conventional knowledge in Hollywood, where the first two months of the year are reserved as dumping grounds for stinkers while audiences catch up on the...
Make Her as Likeable as Possible and Other Advice Filmmakers Should Ignore
My narrative feature, Vino Veritas, opens with a wife and husband arguing. Lauren, a former globe-trotting photojournalist and adventurer, expresses her extreme dissatisfaction with her current...
Exclusive Trailer: Hannah Espia’s Transit
In 2010, Israel began deporting the children of migrant workers, many of whom were fluent only in Hebrew and had never seen the land of their parents. First-time director Hannah Espia’s Transit...
The Most Anticipated Films of 2014
2013 was a great year for a few key female players in Hollywood (congrats to Jennifer Lawrence and Sandra Bullock), but for most women who work in the film industry, it was another 365 days of...
The Big O: Remembering 2013’s Top Female Film Moments
I have always been a list-maker. After all, they come in handy when it comes to remembering what groceries to buy, what clothes to pack and what chores to nag my husband about. But unlike many film...
The High and Low Points of 2013
This was a very interesting year for writing about issues related to women in entertainment. On the one hand, I feel very hopeful and think we may have hit a tipping point with the box-office...
Goodbye to Strong Female Characters
We are so over Strong Female Characters. Strong Female Characters were useful a few years ago when there was a dearth of women on film and most were so rubber-limbed, glass-ankled, or prone to...