ALL POSTS
What I Learned From Finding My Lead Actress Through ‘Women and Hollywood’
In January 2013, I wrote a guest post forWomen and Hollywood about my difficulties casting a curvier woman for my low-budget indie film. I had decided to Kickstart my first feature, “Bread and...
New Site Tracks Women Directors at Festivals, Publishes Stats for Venice and TIFF
When festivals announce their lineups, Women and Hollywood crunches the numbers to determine the percentage of female directors behind the films being screened. While the numbers vary according to...
The 10 Best Emmy Moments for Women Last Night
The Emmys shed its reputation for staid predictability last night — at least for this year — with Viola Davis’ historic win and recognition for fresh, even cutting-edge series and...
TIFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Anne Sewitsky — ‘Homesick’
Anne Sewitsky studied at the Norwegian Film School and has directed episodes of the series “Himmelbla,” “Norwegian Cozy” and “Helt perfekt.” Her debut feature, “Happy, Happy,”...
Weekly Update for September 11: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This WeekBreathe — Written and Directed by Mélanie Laurent With her second feature, actress-turned-director Melanie Laurent has made one of the best movies of the...
Ava DuVernay to Expand Her Distribution Company Under New Name
Ava DuVernay knows that films by women and minority filmmakers don’t just need to be made, but also seen. To increase distribution for works by under-represented directors, DuVernay is expanding...
TIFF’s Cameron Bailey and Kerri Craddock Discuss Female Filmmakers and Best Bets at the Fest
As Women and Hollywood gets ready to hit the ground in Toronto to watch movies, attend parties and participate on panels, we asked TIFF Artistic Director Cameron Bailey, and Director of Festival...
Telluride: 4 Female-Centric Films About to Make a Splash This Awards Season
We need no reminders that the 2014–15 awards season didn’t fareparticularly well for women in front of or behind the camera. Among the eightBest Picture Oscar nominees, none were about a woman,...
Patricia Rozema, Sophie Deraspe and Other Female Canadian Talent To Be Feted at TIFF
Nine Canadian female directors and actors will be honored at the Toronto Film Festival this year. Telefilm Canada, a federal cultural agency that helps fund and promote Canadian film, and Birks...
Venice Film Fest 2015 Women Directors: Meet Pietra Brettkelly — ‘A Flickering Truth’
Pietra Brettkelly is a multi-award-winning director and producer. Her 2008 film “The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins” won the World Cinema Documentary Editing Award at the Sundance Film Festival...
The 10 Most Significant (For Better or Worse) Portrayals of Trans Women in Film
It’s no secret that transgender women are having a long overdue moment in pop culture. When even the venerable Time magazine acknowledges we’ve reached a “Transgender Tipping Point,” society...
Weekly Update for August 28: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week The Second Mother — Written and Directed by Anna Muylaert August’s only film with a woman-of-color lead looks to be one of this month’s strongest...
‘The Second Mother’ Director Anna Muylaert on Why It Took 20 Years to Make Her Award-Winning Drama
Anna Muylaert is a Brazilian film and television director and screenwriter. Her first feature film, “Durval Discos” (2002), won seven awards at Festival de Gramado, including Best Film and Best...
Lois Vossen to Lead PBS Doc Series ‘Independent Lens’
Longtime “Independent Lens” supervisor Lois Vossen has been promoted to executive producer of the PBS documentary series. This new role means that Vossen will be among the top-ranking overseers...
Flying Headscarves, Trans Dating, and Plus-Size Models: Crowdfunding Projects of August 2015
The dating lives of transgender women. An Arab-American girl searching forfreedom on her motorcycle. Plus-size models rebelling against size-zero tyranny.If you want to see films about women defying...
TIFF Announces More Films, Incl. Works by Catherine Hardwicke, Natalie Portman, Chantal Akerman
TIFF continues to roll out additions to its lineup on a near daily basis, and thankfully many of the newly announced crop of films are helmed by women. Three female directors have been added to the...
TIFF Announces More Films, Including World Premiere of Barbara Kopple’s ‘Miss Sharon Jones!’
The Toronto International Film Festival has announced more entries in a number of lineups for the 40th installment of the high-profile fest. Of the first batch of films TIFF made public, a mere 14%...
The 5 Women We’re Excited to See This August
It’s been a much-better-than-usual summer for women on screen. We’ve had females leading smart comedies (“Spy,” “Trainwreck”), inspiring blockbusters (“Inside Out,” “Mad Max: Fury...
Guest Post: On the ‘Diary of a Teenage Girl’, Self-Acceptance, and the Power of Cinema
It’s very rare that a project comes along and saves your life. But that’s what happened to me with “The Diary of a Teenage Girl.” “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” is not just about female...
Weekly Update for August 7: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Ricki and the Flash — Written by Diablo Cody Meryl Streep takes on another musical role as aging rocker Ricki Randazzo, who left her family years ago to...
Eve Ensler Producing Web Series Starring and Written by Trans Woman About Dating
The new web series “Her Story” features playwright Eve Ensler (“The Vagina Monologues”) as a producer and trans activist Jen Richards as its star and co-writer. Richards has penned the...
Apply for a 10-Day Retreat for Women of Color Directors and Screenwriters
Spotting a woman director of color helming a studio film orshowrunning for a network can be like finding a Puya Raimondi — that rare flower that blooms every 100 years. There are plenty of...
Trailer Watch: True Adulthood Threatens Taissa Farmiga’s Relationship in Hannah Fidell’s ‘6 Years’
Writer-director Hannah Fidell made a splash at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival with “A Teacher,” a dark portrait of a twentysomething teacher desperate to continue her affair with a teenage boy....
August 2015 Film Preview
Get ready: August will see the releases of a number of female-driven narratives. Furiosa may have driven out of the box office into the sunset — meaning “Mad Max: Fury Road” is now on...
Venice Film Fest Adds Elizabeth Banks, Diane Kruger and Lynne Ramsay to Main Jury
Elizabeth Banks, Diane Kruger and “We Need to Talk About Kevin” director Lynne Ramsay will comprise the three women on the nine-person main jury at this year’s Venice International Film...
Director Marielle Heller Protests NC-17 Rating for ‘The Diary of a Teenage Girl’ in the UK
After receiving the British equivalent of a NC-17 rating from an all-male ratings board, the team behind “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” is speaking out against the perceived double standards at...
BBC Lists Top 100 American Films of All Time; Only 3 Female Directors Make the Cut
The BBC has compiled a list of the 100 greatest American films ever made. The list spans decades and genres, but what 98% of the listed movies have in common is that they’re directed by men. Only...
Weekly Update for July 17: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Trainwreck — Written by Amy Schumer It’s Amy Schumer’s time. The woman is everywhere, mostly in a good way. She’s brash, funny, feminist and riding...
‘Tig’ Offers an Intimate Look at the Comic’s Darkest Moments and Unexpected Joys
Overnight success in the Internet age is often equal parts skill, timing and luck. Or, in the case of comic Tig Notaro, really bad luck. While well known in comedy circles, Notaro wasn’t a...
Trailer Watch: Saoirse Ronan Leaves Ireland Behind for ‘Brooklyn’
“Brooklyn” received rave reviews out of Sundance, with many critics suggesting that the romantic drama may end up a serious contender come awards season. Our colleagues at The Playlist offered...
Guest Post: How ‘Mad Women’ Helped Me Appreciate My Female Perspective as A Cinematographer
Since I started my cinematography career, I am often asked “what it means to be a woman cinematographer.” After rephrasing the question as “what it means to be a cinematographer” I simply...
Impact Partners Launches Fellowship for Emerging Documentary Producers at DOC NYC 2015
Impact Partners, a film fund and advisory service that funds independent socially-conscious cinema, has announced the launch of a new annual Emerging Documentary Producers Fellowship. Five...
Films By Women Featured in ‘Indie 80s’ Program by NYC’s BAMcinématek and Cinema Conservancy
BAMcinématek and Cinema Conservancy are teaming up to present Indie 80s, a survey of women-directed films from “the rough-and-tumble early days of modern American independent cinema” that...
ArcLight Cinemas Spotlights “Exceptional” Women-Directed Docs in Summer Series
Four nonfiction films directed or co-directed by women have been selected to be screened as part of ArcLight Cinemas Hollywood’s summer series on female filmmakers. Starting Tuesday, July 7, the...
Trailer Watch: Comedienne Tig Notaro Fights Cancer and Heartbreak with Humor in Netflix Doc
2012 was a hell of a year for Grammy-nominated comedienne Tig Notaro. After steadily growing her fanbase and platform over the span of her career, Notaro was busier professionally than ever before....
Trailer Watch: Sex Addicts Fall in Uneasy Love in Leslye Headland’s ‘Sleeping With Other People’
Romance blooms between a serial cheater and a womanizer in the trailer for “Sleeping with Other People,” the latest offering from “Bachelorette” writer-director Leslye Headland. More than a...
‘Blackfish’ Helmer Gabriela Cowperthwaite to Make Narrative Debut with Action-Thriller ‘The Search’
Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite (“Blackfish”) is returning to nature in her narrative feature debut. The documentary filmmaker will helm “The Search,” an action-thriller based on a Black...
Women Win Majority of Awards at Provincetown Film Fest: Coixet, Green, Bianco and More
Women directors won big at this year’s Provincetown International Film Festival, taking home five of the eight prizes awarded. Isabel Coixet’s “Learning to Drive” landed the HBO Audience...
Highlights from Ava DuVernay, Nicole Kidman, Jill Soloway at WIF’s 2015 Crystal + Lucy Awards
Feminist film history, lost opportunities with Jane Campion, calls for solidarity and revolution — the winners of Women in Film’s 2015 Crystal + Lucy Awards used their time at the podium to...
New and Noteworthy VOD Films and Webseries: May 2015: Soul Singers and Sex Workers
The turbulent stories of two iconic black musicians rise to the top of this month’s VOD picks, albeit in different forms. “Bessie,” the HBO biopic starring Queen Latifah, earned rave reviews...
Natalie Portman Insisted on Woman Director for Ruth Bader Ginsburg Biopic
Ruth Bader Ginsburg shed some light on the upcoming biopic about her in an interview with her former clerk, California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu, this past Saturday. Starring Natalie...
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Chai Vasarhelyi — ‘Incorruptible’
Elizabeth “Chai” Vasarhelyi’sfilms as a director include “Meru,” winner of the Audience Award for US Documentary at Sundance 2015; “Youssou N’Dour: I Bring What I Love”...
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Renee Tajima-Peña — ‘No Más Bebés’
Renee Tajima-Peña is an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker whose directing credits include “Calavera Highway,” a road movie influenced by the novelist Juan Rulfo, about her husband Armando...
Human Rights Watch FF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Laura Nix — ‘The Yes Men Are Revolting’
Laura Nix is an independent filmmaker committed to exploringprovocative characters and subject matter. She directed the documentary “TheLight In Her Eyes,” about a Syrian Quran school for women,...
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Emily Ting — ‘It’s Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong’
Emily Tingis a graduate of the film/TV program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Ting has directedseveral shorts that have screened at film festivals across the nation andbroadcast on cable...
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Marya Cohn — ‘The Girl in the Book’
Marya Cohn is the award-winning writer/directorof the feature film “The Girl in the Book,” starring Emily Van Camp and MichaelNyqvist. Her short film, “Developing,” starring Natalie Portman...
Women in Film Now Accepting Applications for 2015 Finishing Fund Grants
Women in Film is currently accepting applications for its 2015 Film Finishing Fund. Projects that are by, for, or about women and have completed 90% of principal photography with a rough cut on...
June 2015’s New & Noteworthy Women-Created VOD & Webseries: Inclusive Gaming and Online Dating
This week’s female-centric VOD releases and noteworthy webseries are not to be missed. On the VOD front, we have two documentaries that have garnered some well-deserved buzz over the last few...
Trailer Watch: Viola Davis and Jennifer Lopez Take Back the Neighborhood in ‘Lila and Eve’
A grieving mother attempts to get revenge on the dealer who killed her son in a drive-by shooting in the female-led vigilante thriller “Lila and Eve.” Starring Viola Davis as a woman who sees...
Trailer Watch: Greta Gerwig is the Queen of Uncomfortable Comedy in ‘Mistress America’
Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s eagerly anticipated follow-up to 2013’s “Frances Ha” finally has a trailer. “There’s no cheating when you’re 18. You should all be touching each other...
New Study Charts the “Post-Festival Chasm” for Women Directors
After becoming the first black woman filmmaker to win the Best Director prize at the Sundance Film Festival (for her second narrative feature “Middle of Nowhere”), Ava DuVernay waited for people...