ALL POSTS
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Nikole Beckwith – “Together Together”
Writer and director Nikole Beckwith made her feature film debut at Sundance 2015 with “Stockholm, Pennsylvania,” which earned her a Nicholl Fellowship, Satellite Award, Women’s Image Award, and...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Rintu Thomas – “Writing with Fire”
Rintu Thomas is an independent documentary director-producer based in New Delhi, India. She is a 2018 Sundance Institute, Bertha Foundation Fellow, and a 2019 Sundance Stories of Change Fellow. A...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Salomé Jashi – “Taming the Garden”
Salomé Jashi was born in Tbilisi, Georgia. Her documentary “The Dazzling Light of Sunset” was awarded the Main Prize at Visions du Réel’s Regard Neuf Competition as well as at ZagrebDox,...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Jamila Wignot – “Ailey”
Jamila Wignot is a documentary filmmaker whose directing work includes the Peabody, Emmy, and NAACP award-winning series “The African-Americans: Many Rivers to Cross” (PBS), hosted by...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Siân Heder – “CODA”
Siân Heder is a writer, director, and showrunner. She wrote and produced three seasons of the acclaimed Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black,” receiving multiple WGA nominations for her work....
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Erin Vassilopoulos – “Superior”
Erin Vassilopoulos is a New York-based filmmaker whose short films have screened at Sundance, the Berlinale, BFI London Film Festival, and Tribeca. Her directorial feature debut, “Superior,”...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Maisie Crow – “At the Ready”
Maisie Crow is a documentary film director, cinematographer, and photographer. “Jackson,” Crow’s documentary exploring both sides of the reproductive health care debate in the Deep...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Karen Cinorre – “Mayday”
Karen Cinorre is a writer/director whose work has shown internationally at such venues as the New York Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, and Opera Centrum Amsterdam. She’s currently...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Mariem Pérez Riera – “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It”
Mariem Pérez Riera’s first documentary, “Cuando lo pequeño se hace grande,” about the Puerto Ricans who fought against the U.S. Navy presence in the island of Vieques, was...
Sundance 2021 Preview: Tributes to Rita Moreno & Pauli Murray, a Queer Romance, “Passing,” & More
Newly reimagined thanks to COVID-19, this year’s edition of Sundance Film Festival is just around the corner. With nearly 50 percent of features directed or co-directed by women, there are...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Sally Aitken – “Playing with Sharks”
Sally Aitken is an Emmy-nominated director and writer, and showrunner of multiple international series. Her award-winning work includes the Camera d’Or-nominated feature documentary “A...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Marion Hill – “Ma Belle, My Beauty”
Marion Hill (she/they) is a New Orleans-based director with roots in Vietnam, England, and France. Her direction of the camera is devoted to the nuances of femme power, queer sensibility, and radical...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Kate Tsang – “Marvelous and the Black Hole”
Kate Tsang is an artist, filmmaker, and Emmy-nominated writer. Tsang’s award-winning shorts have been watched by millions online and broadcast nationally on PBS. Her most notable works are...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Zoe Lister-Jones – “How It Ends”
Zoe Lister-Jones is an actor, writer, director and producer. She recently wrote, directed, and produced “The Craft: Legacy.” Lister-Jones made her directorial debut with “Band Aid,” which...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Frida Kempff – “Knocking”
Frida Kempff’s films have been screened and awarded at festivals including Cannes, Sundance, Telluride, IDFA, London Film Festival, and Gothenburg. In 2010 she won Cannes’ Jury Prize for...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Carlson Young – “The Blazing World”
Carlson Young’s first short film, “The Blazing World,” premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Also an actor, she has appeared in “Scream: The TV Series,” “Key...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Prano Bailey-Bond – “Censor”
Prano Bailey-Bond is a Welsh director and screenwriter. Commissioned by Film4 to direct an episode of their Halloween focused “Fright Bites,” Bailey-Bond’s short...
Trailer Watch: A Kosovo Woman Rebels By Starting a Business in Blerta Basholli’s Sundance Pic “Hive”
Set to make its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival later this month, Blerta Basholli’s “Hive” tells the story of a woman who rebels against her patriarchal society to provide...
Women Directed 47 Percent of Sundance 2021’s Overall Feature Slate
Sundance has gifted us all with a holiday present. The film festival has unveiled its 2021 lineup and 47 percent of the overall feature slate is directed or co-directed by women. Even better, women...
Loira Limbal, Ekwa Msangi, & Shalini Kantayya Among Sundance Institute’s 2021 Momentum Fellows
The Sundance Institute has announced the selectees for its 2021 Momentum Fellowship, a year-long program “of deep, customized creative and professional support for mid-career writers and...
Radha Blank to Receive Sundance Institute’s 2020 Vanguard Award
Time for RadhaMUSPrime to start penning a celebratory rap. The Sundance Institute has named Radha Blank, the writer, director, and star of “The 40-Year-Old Version,” as the recipient of...
Gina Duncan Named as Sundance Film Festival’s First-Ever Producing Director
Gina Duncan is joining the Sundance Film Festival team. A press release announced that she’ll serve in the newly-created role of Producing Director, reporting to Festival Director Tabitha...
Women at Sundance | Adobe Fellowship Announces Inaugural Class
Eleven artists have been selected for the inaugural Women at Sundance | Adobe Fellowship. According to a press release, the program is “designed to meaningfully support women artists creating...
Trailer Watch: Sundance Winner “Boys State” Explores a Microcosm of American Democracy
“Boys State” sees a thousand Texas high school seniors gathering for a week-long program to build their own state government. A new trailer for Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss’ doc...
“Bad Mothers” Is Coming to Sundance Now
While we await the fate of “Big Little Lies” — a third season of the HBO hit has neither been confirmed nor outright denied — another drama about the complicated, intertwining...
Garrett Bradley’s Sundance Winner “Time” Acquired by Amazon
The winner of Sundance 2020’s Directing Award: U.S. Documentary is heading to Amazon. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Amazon Studios acquired Garrett Bradley’s “Time” for...
Sundance Winner Garrett Bradley Directing Netflix Docuseries About Naomi Osaka
Garrett Bradley recently won Sundance’s Directing Award: U.S. Documentary for “Time,” the story of a real-life superheroine fighting to free her incarcerated husband. Her next...
Josephine Decker’s Sundance Winner “Shirley” Acquired by Neon
“Shirley” is continuing its Sundance hot streak. Following its Special Jury Award for Auteur Filmmaking win and the stigma-shattering portrait taken of breastmilk-pumping director...
Quote of the Day: Josephine Decker on Pumping at Sundance, Normalizing Everyday Parts of Motherhood
While at Sundance promoting her new film, “Shirley,” director Josephine Decker did something that’s both radical and a part of millions of women’s everyday routines: she...
Radha Blank’s Sundance Winner “The 40-Year-Old Version” Lands at Netflix
Radha Blank’s banner week continues. Just days ago her feature directorial debut, “The 40-Year-Old Version,” landed her the Directing Award: U.S. Dramatic at Sundance Film Festival,...
Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick’s “On the Record” Lands at HBO Max Following Sundance Premiere
After much controversy, Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick’s “On the Record” has found a new home. The film made headlines weeks ahead of its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival when...
Tabitha Jackson Makes History as Sundance’s First Woman and POC Festival Director
Sundance is bringing on its first new Festival Director in 11 years — and she’s the first woman and person of color to take on the role. A press release has announced that, following a...
Sundance: Women Sweep Major Directing Awards
The 2020 edition of Sundance Film Festival has come to a close. An awards ceremony was held Saturday in Park City, and “of the 28 prizes awarded … to 25 films – comprising the work of...
Sundance 2020 Women Directors: Meet Channing Godfrey Peoples – “Miss Juneteenth”
Channing Godfrey Peoples is an MFA graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts and one of Filmmaker magazine’s 2018 “25 new faces of independent film.” She wrote two episodes of “Queen...
Sundance 2020 Women Directors: Meet Susanne Regina Meures – “Saudi Runaway”
Susanne Regina Meures is a Swiss-German filmmaker. Her debut film, “Raving Iran,” premiered in 2016 and has been shown at over 130 film festivals worldwide, including Hot Docs and Visions...
Sundance 2020 Women Directors: Meet Zoé Wittock – “Jumbo”
Originally hailing from Belgium, Zoé Wittock grew up travelling the world. She attended the International Film School of Paris. Her shorts include “A demi-mot,” “Still,” and...
Sundance 2020 Women Directors: Meet Ramona S. Diaz – “A Thousand Cuts”
Ramona S. Diaz’s award-winning films include “Imelda,” “The Learning,” “Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey,” and...
Filmmaker Leya Hale Named 2020 Recipient of Sundance Institute Merata Mita Fellowship
Filmmaker and PBS producer Leya Hale has received the 2020 Sundance Institute Merata Mita Fellowship. Named in honor of the late groundbreaking Māori filmmaker Merata Mita, the annual fellowship...
Sundance: ACLU Doc “The Fight” Goes to Magnolia Pictures, Elyse Steinberg Co-Directs
Another woman-directed film has secured distribution out of Sundance. “The Fight,” from Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, and Eli Despres, has been acquired by Magnolia Pictures in “a...
Sundance 2020 Women Directors: Meet Cristina Costantini – “Mucho Mucho Amor”
Cristina Costantini’s first feature documentary, “Science Fair,” won audience awards at both the Sundance and SXSW Film Festivals in 2018, as well as an Emmy and Critics’ Choice...
Sundance Deals: “Identifying Features” and “I Carry You With Me” Find Homes
Two more women-directed films have secured distribution out of Sundance. Kino Lorber snagged North American rights to Fernanda Valadez’s “Identifying Features” and Sony Pictures...
Sundance 2020 Women Directors: Meet Verónica Chen – “High Tide”
Verónica Chen was born in Buenos Aires and raised in Texas. Her films have screened at festivals such as Venice, Sundance, and San Sebastián, among others. Her films include “Smokers...
Sundance 2020 Women Directors: Meet Kim A. Snyder – “Us Kids”
Kim A. Snyder directed the Peabody Award–winning documentary “Newtown,” which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival before screening at festivals worldwide, being released...
Zawan Mahmoud & Viviane Charlestin Receive Horizon Award for Emerging Women Directors at Sundance
Zawan Mahmoud and Viviane Charlestin are the winners of the 2020 Horizon Award for rising female filmmakers. Prize founders Christine Vachon, Lynette Howell Taylor, and Cassian Elwes presented the...
Sundance 2020 Women Directors: Meet Liz Garbus – “Lost Girls”
Liz Garbus is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning filmmaker whose film “What Happened, Miss Simone?” opened the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, received a Peabody Award, and was nominated for an...
Sundance 2020 Women Directors: Meet Zeina Durra – “Luxor”
Zeina Durra’s directorial debut, “The Imperialists Are Still Alive!,” premiered in US Dramatic Competition at Sundance 2010. A British born of...
Sundance 2020 Women Directors: Meet Shana Feste – “Run Sweetheart Run”
Shana Feste’s first feature, “The Greatest,” premiered at Sundance 2009 and went on to be nominated for a Humanitas Prize. Her second writing and directing effort, “Country...
Sundance 2020 Women Directors: Kirsten Johnson – “Dick Johnson Is Dead”
Kirsten Johnson’s most recent film “Cameraperson” premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for an Academy Award. Her short “The Above” premiered at...
Sundance 2020 Women Directors: Meet Amanda Kernell – “Charter”
Amanda Kernell has made several award-winning short films as a writer and director. “Sami Blood,” her feature film debut, premiered at the 2016 Venice Film Festival and won the Europa...
Sundance 2020 Women Directors: Meet Romola Garai – “Amulet”
Romola Garai is a writer, director, and actor, whose directorial debut, “Scrubber,” was nominated for Sundance Best Short Film in 2013. As a performer, her extensive film, TV, and stage...
Sundance 2020 Women Directors: Tara Miele – “Wander Darkly”
Tara Miele is a writer and director in both film and television. Her directorial work includes the backdoor pilot “Green Arrow and The Canaries,” episodes of “Arrow,”...