ALL POSTS
The Strong Women in Thor The Dark World
We’restill a long way off from a female-led superhero film. There’s just no wayaround it — even if the studios started working on it now, it would be pushingit to get it out by 2015. So...
Lynne Ramsay Responds to Jane Got a Gun Lawsuit
Lynne Ramsay issued a short statement this weekend in response to the lawsuit filed last week by the producers of Jane Got a Gun. Here’s the short statement: Lynne Ramsay has not been served with...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Kasia Roslaniec
Kasia Roslaniec was born in Poland in 1980. She graduated from Warsaw Film School and also studied at the Wajda School. Her graduation film, Mall Girls, won Best Debut Director at the Polish Film...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Jenni Toivoniemi
Jenni Toivoniemi studied screenwriting in several international workshops, including Torino Film Lab’s Script & Pitch and Berlinale Talent Campus Script Station. She is about to complete her...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Katrin Gebbe
Katrin Gebbe attended the Utrecht Graduate School of Visual Arts and Design in the Netherlands and received her master’s degree in directing at the Hamburg Media School. Her short, Sores &...
Weekly Update for November 8: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women OpeningThis Weekend Ass Backwards — Written byCasey Wilson and June Diane Raphael Two best friends (Kate andChloe) embark on a cross country trip back to their hometown to...
The Big O: Natalie Portman Swings the Hammer When it Comes to Her Post-Oscar Career
NataliePortman is in the midst of a very important performance, one that could decideher future in the movie industry. And, no, it isn’t her return to the bigscreen after a two-year break as Jane...
Miranda Otto Talks About Playing Elizabeth Bishop in Reaching for the Moon
Reaching for the Moon tells the story of the explosive love affair between Pulitzer Prize winning poet Elizabeth Bishop (Mirnada Otto) and Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares (Gloria Pires) in...
Marvel Introduces Kamala Khan, a Muslim-American Superheroine
You’d never know it from Marvel’s (white)sausage-fest movies, but the comic-book company has reinvented itself in recentyears as Team Diversity. Vulture noted last month that, “in a cheeky bit...
All Five Docs Nominated for Cinema Eye’s Top Prize Directed or Produced by a Woman
Nonfiction filmmakingtends to be the one bright spot for women in Hollywood, with female documentarydirectors nearing parity with their male counterparts. The nominations forCinema Eye’s 7th...
Director Joan Carr-Wiggin Shooting Female Friendship Film
Femalefriendship is the subject of writer-director Joan Carr-Wiggin’s fourth film, If You See Her. Carr-Wiggin’s follow upto this year’s romantic comedy If I WereYou will star JanetMontgomery...
Caitlin Moran and Mary Beard Join Award Panel for Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction
Since1996, the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, formerly known as the Orange Prizefor Fiction, has awarded “excellence, originality and accessibility in women’swriting from throughout...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Michelle Morgan
Michelle Morgan is sick of being just a screenwriter, even though she writes scripts for major studios. Most recently, her screenplay Imogene was brought to life by the talents of Kristen Wiig and...
Producers of Jane Got a Gun Sue Lynne Ramsay
The saga of Jane Got a Gun and Lynne Ramsay continues and it’s not pretty. If you recall, Lynne Ramsay left the production right before the start of production. Reports were that Ramsay never got...
Navigating Hollywood’s Cutthroat Corners with Ms. in the Biz
Helenna Santos-Levy launched her online magazine, Ms. in the Biz, just six months ago, with thesimple goal of connecting women working in Hollywood with one another. Today ithas 61,000 readers in...
Trailer Watch: Maidentrip
In 2010, Laura Dekker made history by becoming the youngest person to sail around the world. She was 16, though she might have been even younger were it not for the interference of the Dutch...
Essence Magazine Launches Short Film Competition
In the November issue of Essence, the magazine published a study on how black female audiences viewed their counterparts on the big and small screens. Unsurprisingly, the results were dispiriting....
Director John Sayles: “I Don’t Think There’s an Independent Movie Business Anymore”
Between superhero fatigue, the low cost of digital filmmaking, and the new distribution medium of video on demand, we’re supposed to be living in the Golden Age of indie cinema. But director John...
Two Woman Directors Eligible for Next Year’s Animation Oscar
Among the 19 animated features submitted for the Oscar consideration yesterday, two were directed or co-directed by women. Both Nancy Savard, who helmed the Canadian production The Legend of...
Swedish Cinemas Push Hard for Gender Equity
What is it about Sweden? What’s in the water? On the heels of my recent piece about what the Swedish government is doing to combat the gender disparity in the directing ranks, now comes news that...
Indie Director Ava DuVernay on Dressing for Success
Clothes make the director. That’s the lesson filmmaker Ava DuVernay imparted in her keynote speech at the LA Film Independent Forum last week. In her 45-minute speech, the 2012 winner of the...
Welcome Inkoo Kang to the Women and Hollywood Family
After 18 months, Kerensa Cadenas has moved on to a new position, and I am happy to welcome Inkoo Kang as the news editor for Women and Hollywood. Inkoo comes to Women and Hollywood with lots of...
The Square Directed by Jehane Noujaim Partners with Netflix and Participant Media
In another indication of just how much things are changing in the business, award winning documentarian Jehane Noujaim whose film The Square is now in an Oscar qualifying run has decided to forgo...
My Latest Forbes Piece: The Evolving Conversation About Women Directors
Last week I attended the first conference ever held in Israel to discuss the status of women working in the film and television industries. They had brilliant academics, high level executives in TV,...
Diana — A Dystopian Love Story
People prefer gossip, conspiracy, or drama over truthbecause we’re cynical. The recent release Dianaabout the final years of Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales, is a controversialattempt at...
Final Trailer for Hunger Games Catching Fire
The tracking for this film is huge. Predictions have it opening at $150 million. The first film in the series opened in March and grossed $152 million on its opening weekend. It is the largest...
SNL Addresses the Lack of African American Women Straight On
Over the last couple of weeks there has been an ongoing controversy over the lack of African American women on Saturday Night Live. Honestly, it’s probably something we all should have been...
NYWIFT Announces 33rd Annual Muse Awardees
New York Women in Film and TV has announced the awardees for the 33rd annual Muse Awards. The honorees include: actors Ellen Barkin, Connie Britton, and Robin Wright; Sesame Street actor and writer...
Weekly Update for November 1: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend Running from Crazy — Directed by Barbara Kopple (doc) Running from Crazy is a documentary examining the personal journey of model and actress Mariel...
Ellie Kemper to Headline Tina Fey Written Comedy
We’ve been following all news about the multiple television projects that Tina Fey has in the works. And one of those projects just got a straight to series order at NBC along with a star for...
November Film Preview
After an Oscar buzzy October with Sandra Bullock’s turn in Gravity and the tremendous performances of the controversial Blue is the Warmest Color, we move into a more mainstream November. November...
The Big O: Oscar Could be Swayed by Leto’s Feminine Mystique
Ifsomeone said a year ago that Jared Leto is expected to be a likely Oscarnominee for his next film, most people who recognize his name would have saidone of three things: Youmean that cute guy...
October Horror Series Wrap Up
Throughout October, Women and Hollywood has been examining women in horror — coming of age, lady killers, demon girls, witches, haunted women — in television and film. We’ve also had...
“Fear Teaches Us A Lot About Ourselves” — An Interview with Ginger Snaps Writer Karen Walton
As we’ve explored in this month’s horror series, there’s a lot — both good and bad — to discuss when it comes to the intersection of horror, women and feminism. One movie that...
Season of the Witch: Conjuring Strength Through Power
It’s the season of the witch, both in the sense that it’s Halloween, and that supernatural sisters are in the midst of a huge comeback. Meryl Streep’s playing the Witch in a movie adaptation...
Examining the “Woman Anxiety” Problem in The Exorcist
William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973) has been a horror classic for the past 40 years, often referred to as one of the scariest films of all time, and an Oscar winner to boot. The film comes at...
Barbra Streisand to Receive 2013 Glamour Woman of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award
Barbra Streisand will be receiving Glamour magazine’s 2013 Woman of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award during the 23rd annual Women of the Year Awards on November 11th in New York. The legendary...
Margaret Dean and Kristy Scanlan Elected WIA Co-Presidents
Margaret Dean and Kristy Scanlan have been elected co-presidents of Women In Animation. The organization is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2014 and it includes women from all aspects of the...
Happy 10th Anniversary of Wicked
Today celebrates the 10th anniversary of the now classic musical, Wicked. Based on Gregory Maguire’s novel, the show written by Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz changed theatre forever. It...
Ripley: Believe it or Not, It’s About All That
When Women and Hollywood asked me if I wanted to do a couple of guest posts on horror movies, I jumped at the chance. Like Kerensa Cadenas mentioned in her introduction to the series, I have an...
Directing News: Susanne Bier and Carol Morley Start New Projects
Susanne Bier and Carol Morley are helming some new and exciting projects — both of which include cast members from HBO’s Game of Thrones. Morley will be directing The Falling, which she...
IDA Documentary Awards Announces 2013 Nominations
IDA has announced their 2013 Documentary Awards nominations. Among them are some of the most talked about female directed documentaries of the year including Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s Blackfish,...
Turning Ash into Mia: Changing the Gender of One of Horror’s Most Iconic Characters
In the past few years, horror films have seen more than their fair share of sequels, remakes and reimaginings. As a genre, it’s been particularly hospitable to distinctive, memorable characters,...
Noomi Rapace to Play Septuplet Sisters in Sci-Fi Drama
Noomi Rapace will be playing septuplet sisters in the upcoming sci-fi drama, What Happened to Monday? Rapace will play the seven sisters who are struggling to hide in an overpopulated world whose...
Ellen DeGeneres and Liz Feldman Developing Lesbian Sitcom for NBC
Ellen DeGeneres and Liz Feldman will be developing a lesbian sitcom for NBC. Written by Feldman, the sitcom will focus on a lesbian who gets pregnant with her straight male best friend just as he...
International Trailer Watch: The Book Thief
The Book Thief, based on Marcus Zusak’s bestselling novel, just released an international trailer for the upcoming film. The film follows a young girl Liesel (Sophie Nelisse) who lives in Nazi...
Cross Post — 13 Myths Hollywood Uses to Hide Discrimination Against Women Directors
1. The number of women directors is so small because women are not really interested in directing and few women are exceptional enough to do a man’s job. Right, so 3,500 women DGA members pay...
The Horror of Little Girls and Social Anxiety About Women
Horror films frequently provide commentary on the social fears and anxieties of their time. A universally recognized truth of horror is that children can be terrifying — especially little...
LFF Interview with Gabrielle Tana — Producer of Philomena and The Invisible Woman
Gabrielle Tana’s name made two notable appearances at the London Film Festival — through her New York-based shingle Magnolia Mae, she is the producer (with her partner Carolyn Marks...
Valentine Road: An Examination of Accountability, Awareness and Compassion
The documentary Valentine Road — depicting the aftermath surrounding the shooting of young Oxnard, California high school student Larry King — had been winning accolades and gaining...
Director Antonia Bird Has Died
Over the weekend, it was announced that director Antonia Bird had died. She was 62. Bird started working as an assistant in the Royal Court Theatre, working her way up to directing projects. That...