ALL POSTS
Athena Co-Chair Diablo Cody Helps Kicks Off The Athena Film Festival Tonight
As we here at Women and Hollywood gear up for the Athena Film Festival starting tonight at Barnard College, we are so excited and thankful for the press that has been circulating about the festival....
Bonnie Hammer and Lauren Zalaznick Take on New Roles at NBC
Bonnie Hammer will be taking on running the full NBCU’s cable portfolio. Hammer, who previously oversaw USA Network, Syfy, E!, G4, Cloo, Chiller, Universal HD, Universal Cable Productions and...
Interview with Cate Shortland – Director and Co-Writer of Lore
Cate Shortland’s Lore opens on this Friday (2/8) in New York and Los Angeles. Originally published on September 25, 2012. Lore is Cate Shortland's second film after the exciting...
Jane Campion Named President of 2013 Cannes Short Film Jury
In exciting news from Cannes, Jane Campion has been named president of the Short Film Jury and the Cinefondation at this year’s festival. Campion (who we just interviewed at Sundance) has...
Sundance Interview with Sarah Barnett, General Manager of the Sundance Channel
We got to spend a couple of minutes at Sundance with the woman behind the Sundance Channel, Sarah Barnett. We don't get to talk to executives too often so it was really nice to get her...
Julia Stiles Playing Frances Marion in Jennifer DeLia’s Mary Pickford Biopic ‘The First’
Julia Stiles has just signed on to play screenwriter Frances Marion in Jennifer DeLia’s The First, which is based on Eileen Whitfield’s biography Pickford: The Woman Who Made...
Our Favorite Super Bowl Ad Starring Amy Poehler
One of Women and Hollywood's favorite ladies, Amy Poehler, starred in a Best Buy ad during the Super Bowl as an extremely difficult customer, automatically winning our favorite Super Bowl ad of...
Sundance Interview with Lynn Shelton – Director of Touchy Feely
I had never met Lynn Shelton before last month but I already felt like I knew her. She has a way of telling us stories about other people that are really about all of us. Her new film...
A Sisterhood With a Glass Ceiling
The NY Times devoted the top story in the Arts and Leisure section this past weekend to an exciting thing happening off-Broadway, the fact that women are being regularly hired to direct shows. The...
Kerry Washington Wins Big at NAACP Image Awards
Over the weekend at the NAACP Image Awards, Kerry Washington swept the show. She won three awards. She won for outstanding actress in a drama series for her role as Olivia Pope on Scandal, and also...
Guest Post: A Perfect Ending — Lesbian Film, Art House Film or Both?
So what is it that makes a movie a lesbian movie? Does it require lesbians playing the roles of the characters? Does the director have to be gay? Is there a quota of girl on girl...
Lena Dunham’s Big Week: DGA Win, New Show and Entertainment Weekly Cover Story
Things for Lena Dunham are showing absolutely no signs of slowing down—within the past week, she’s won a DGA, is developing a new show for HBO, is Entertainment Weekly’s cover girl...
Julia Ormond’s First US TV Starring Role in Witches of East End for Lifetime
Julia Ormond has had a varied and interesting career from roles in Legends of the Fall to David Lynch’s Inland Empire. Ormond has also had roles in many TV movies and miniseries and guest...
Stoker- Starring Mia Wasikowska and Nicole Kidman
The media and art that I always tend to be attracted to, some would say, could fall into the disturbing spectrum. I like messy, complicated and at times psychotic female characters. This has ranged...
SXSW Line Up: Not Great for Women Directors
Fresh on the heels of Sundance is SXSW’s film line up. While there are some awesome women-directed films featured such as Sini Anderson's documentary, The Punk Singer, about Kathleen Hanna,...
Surprise! Go Daddy’s Sexist Super Bowl Ad is the Worst Ever
While the Super Bowl is bringing us Beyonce at halftime, another thing it annually brings are the worst of the worst in terms of sexist ads. And GoDaddy.com without fail brings the cream of the crop...
Sundance Interview: Concussion – Directed by Stacie Passon, Produced by Rose Troche, Starring Robin Weigert
Concussion was one of my favorite movies at Sundance this year. It was truly a revelation. Robin Weigert who we have seen for so many years as a supporting character in shows like...
Standing Up and For Women
When I first started Women and Hollywood I knew that I wanted to the site to support women and their roles and accomplishments in pop culture but I really did not know exactly what that meant. Now,...
Kathleen Kennedy to Receive Will Rogers Motion Pictures Pioneer of Year Award
Kathleen Kennedy will be receiving the Pioneer of the Year award at this year’s Will Rogers Motion Pictures Pioneers dinner. Last year, Kennedy was picked by George Lucas to lead Lucasfilm....
Jessica Chastain to star in Miss Julie – Directed by Liv Ullmann
Liv Ullmann, director and muse of Ingmar Bergman, is set to direct an adaptation of August Strindberg’s Miss Julie. Set in 1874, the play explores the title character’s...
Watch This: New TV Spot for Admission starring Tina Fey
As we here at Women and Hollywood learn how to cope in a post-30 Rock world, we will be glad to see Tina Fey in everything we can. Next up for Fey, is Admission, where she plays Portia, a Princeton...
Kasi Lemmons Directing Black Nativity Starring Jennifer Hudson
Kasi Lemmons, director of Eve’s Bayou, has begun principal photography on Black Nativity. Shooting began this week in New York City, on the film which is based on Langston Hughes’ 1961...
Cross Post: Uppity Women: How Maya and Kathryn Bigelow Continue to Threaten the Status Quo
“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.” — Eleanor Roosevelt If you want to win an Oscar for Best Picture now, make an...
Rise of the Underdog: Kimberly Peirce and the Connection Between Carrie and Boys Don’t Cry
This month’s issue of The Advocate features an incredible interview, with Kimberly Peirce, talking at length about her upcoming remake of Carrie and its surprising linkage to Peirce’s...
The Sun Sets on 30 Rock
As we wrote last week two female written sitcoms were shut down last week, Ben and Kate and Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23. We also said goodbye to Private Practice which did not get...
Cross Post: A Common Problem I See In Plays By Women Playwrights. It’s Not What You Think.
My theatre company is in heavy season planning mode, so I’ve recently read dozens of new plays. I’m always reading new plays, but this time of year, I’m reading a lot of plays, all...
2013 Women-Created TV Pilots
It’s prime pilot season for the networks. After all the news that’s been coming out in the last six months or so about women-created shows, we wanted to see how that’s holding up...
Countdown to 2014: Amy Poehler is Writing a Book
Get your phone alerts ready, Amy Poehler is writing a book that will drop in 2014. This should also be known as your new favorite book of all time. Poehler signed with It Books, an imprint of Harper...
Sundance Interview: Lana Wilson and Martha Shane – Directors of After Tiller
One of the highlights of Sundance was seeing the documentary After Tiller directed by Martha Shana and Lana Wilson. Here's our conversation right after they won a $5,000 grant from Women in...
For the First Time Women are the Majority on Berlin Film Festival Competition Jury
The 2013 Berlin International Film Festival announced this year’s competition jury. In a first for the festival, women are the majority of the voting body—comprising 4 of the 7 jury...
Cross Post: Reel Girl’s Gallery of Girls Gone Missing From Children’s Movies in 2013
In 2012, I waited until the last possible minute. It wasn’t until December that I posted Reel Girl’s Gallery of Girls Gone Missing from Children’s Movies in 2012. Even though in the...
Michael Moore: Zero Dark Thirty is a Movie About ‘How We Don’t Listen to Women.’
Always controversial and rarely quiet political filmmaker and author, Michael Moore, has spoken out in defense of Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty. Moore took to Facebook (and Time.com),...
Jill Soloway and Lake Bell Take Home Major Awards at 2013 Sundance Feature Film Awards
Sundance wrapped up over the weekend and announced their 2013 Film Awards. Women filmmakers took away some of the bigger prizes of the festival including Jill Soloway winning the directing award for...
Noemie Lvosky Receives 13 Nominations for France’s Cesar Awards
The nominations for France’s César Awards were announced and women, specifically one in general, are dominant. Noémie Lvovsky received 13 nominations for her film, Camille...
Jimmy Olsen is now Jenny Olsen in Zach Snyder’s Man of Steel?
While it’s still unconfirmed, earlier this week, io9 reported that Zach Snyder made a huge change in his upcoming stab at the Superman franchise, Man of Steel. Reportedly (and according to...
Sundance News: Women In Film Awards Grants to Jordana Spiro, Martha Shane and Lana Wilson
During its 7th annual Sundance Filmmakers panel, Women In Film – Los Angeles awarded $30,000 in grants to women filmmakers. Jordana Spiro, director of Skin, received the Women In Film/CalmDown...
Amy Hobby and Anne Hubbell Launch Women-Focused Tangerine Entertainment
Industry veterans, Amy Hobby and Anne Hubbell are launching Tangerine Entertainment, a production company and community meant to support women directors and interesting and strong roles for...
Sundance Watch: Austenland – Directed by Jerusha Hess
Austenland, directed by Jerusha Hess, centers around Jane (Keri Russell) who goes to a Jane Austen themed resort to find her own Austen-esque leading man. The film was acquired by Sony Pictures...
Sundance Review – Salma: Tamil Poet’s Struggle Against Patriarchy
Salma, a film premiering at the Sundance Film Festival this year, focuses on the life of the prolific Tamil poet, by British documentary filmmaker Kim Longinotto. It highlights the struggles of a...
Sexist Movie Poster of the Day: Movie 43
Another day, another objectification of women's bodies, this time in the form of Movie 43's poster, showing a barely clad woman for some ridiculous reason. Marketing? It's a pretty...
2012 Celluloid Ceiling Study Results Are In. Spoiler Alert: They Aren’t Great
Following the Sundance Institute & Women in Film’s unveiling of their new groundbreaking study of women directors during the Sundance Film Festival, comes Dr. Martha Lauzen's annual...
Women-Created, Sitcom Voices Silenced: Apartment 23 and Ben and Kate Pulled From Line Up
This was a sad week in television for me. Two of my favorite sitcoms, Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23 and Ben and Kate were pulled from ABC and Fox’s schedules effective immediately. As...
Sundance Watch: Blackfish – Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite
Blackfish, a documentary directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, has been getting a lot of buzz at Sundance since its premiere. The doc follows the history of killer whales in captivity leading up to...
Five Minutes with Jane Campion
This week at Sundance I got to sit down for a brief couple of minutes to check in with Jane Campion who was in town promoting her six hour mini series Top of the Lake which will premiere on the...
Kathryn Bigelow Covers Time and Appears on The Colbert Report
Kathryn Bigelow went on The Colbert Report for one of her most candid interviews yet. She was set to appear on the show weeks ago but admitted she had been "spooked" by the Senate...
Sundance Watch: Afternoon Delight – Directed and Written by Jill Soloway
Jill Soloway's Afternoon Delight, premiered the other day at Sundance. The film centers around a thirtysomething couple (the hilarious Kathryn Hahn and Josh Radnor) living in the Los Angeles...
Sundance Deals: Women Directed and Women Centric Round Up
Here are some of the deals coming out of Sundance in the past couple days that are women directed or women focused films. Sundance 2013: 'Pussy Riot' Doc to Air on HBO...
Kathryn Bigelow Wants You to Support Women Working in National Security
Some criticism against Kathryn Bigelow during The Hurt Locker era was lobbed against Bigelow’s statements that filmmaking for her isn’t about breaking gender roles. However, as Jessica...
Sundance Watch: The East – Co-Written and Starring Brit Marling
The East, co-written by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij (who directed and previously collaborated with Marling on Sound of My Voice) centers around an ex-FBI agent (Marling) who goes undercover to...
Toni Collette and Geena Davis to Headline Two TV Pilots
Toni Collette and Geena Davis are coming back to your television screens in two new bad-ass women focused television shows. It’ll be great to have these two extremely talented actresses back on...
NBC’s Revolution Elects Woman President
NBC drama, Revolution, has elected a new president, and unlike most TV shows and films, this one is a woman. Former 24 actress, Leslie Hope, has been cast as President Foster, the tough and...