ALL POSTS
Paramount to Distribute Ava DuVernay’s Selma
Director Ava DuVernay’s Martin Luther King, Jr. biopic Selma just got a big boost through a distribution deal with Paramount. Produced by Oprah Winfrey, Selma will be the third narrative feature...
Trailer Watch: Eliza Hittman’s It Felt Like Love
Girls and women begin their sexual lives in as many ways as there are girls and women, so any filmic depiction of burgeoning female sexuality that doesn’t take place in a softly lit...
Statistics
Statistics on the State of Women and Hollywood FILM2015 Women Behind the Scenes Women comprised 19% of all directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors and cinematographers working...
Special Report: Women Directors in January 2014
While Frozen continues its box-officedominance (with over $360 million in domestic grosses and a new sing-along version intheaters), the Mickey Mouse short that accompanies it, “Get a Horse!,”...
TV: Black Female Creators Discuss Responsibilities, Opportunities
Among the most interesting discussions this week about the difficulties and possibilities of culture creation today was a 30-minute roundtable discussion posted on YouTube called “The State of...
The Pretty One Director Jenee LaMarque on Her Twin Obsession and Her Inspiration to Make Her Debut Feature
Being a sister is hard, but being the sister of your dead twin is way harder. That’s the sad predicament socially awkward Laurel (Zoe Kazan) finds herself in, but she’s so fed up with being...
Women and Hollywood February 2014 Film Preview
There’s only a smattering of films directed, written, and about women on offer this upcoming month, but there’s a few gems in the mix, as well as a great deal of variety in quality and...
TV: The Staying Power of Veronica Mars
In the past year, Veronica Mars, Rob Thomas’ procedural about a high-school girl (Kristen Bell) who became a private investigator, has been back in the news cycle repeatedly. That’s not...
The Big O: The Truth Behind Emma Thompson and Oscar Isaac’s Oscar Snubs? Lack of Tragedy
When this year’s Oscar nominations were announced, there were a few surprising omissions on the ballot, especially in the acting categories. You wouldthink, for instance, that the 6,000 or so...
Capturing Truth through Fiction in South Africa
The story of how I found my way to film is a funny one. I was living in Paris, and I had no money. I was working as a waitress and a babysitter, pretty much doing everything I could to feed myself....
Trailer Watch: Freida Mock’s Anita
“Once I got subpoena’d, I knew what I had to do. I’m gonna tell what happened to me.” Directed by Oscar nominee Freida Mock, Anita focuses on the Clarence Thomas hearings, particularly the...
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...
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...
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 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...
Feminist Filmmaking Means NC-17 Rating from MPAA
Director Jill Soloway gave a wonderfully insightful interview to Flavorwire yesterday about the crude double standards at work at the MPAA. Soloway directed this year’s Afternoon Delight, a story...
Crosspost: Heroines of Cinema: An A to Z of Women in Film in 2013
It’s at times like these that twenty-six letters seems awfully few. Not that this list is intended as an encyclopedia. Instead, please see it as a mere sample of the films worth seeing, the...
The Crash Reel Director Lucy Walker on Snowboarding and Simone de Beauvoir
British director Lucy Walker is best-known for her Oscar-nominated film Waste Land, a profile of artist Vik Muniz’s work with Brazilian catadores, or workers who collect recyclables from...
Sherri Lansing, Keri Putnam, Callie Khouri, Kasi Lemmons to be Honored at Athena FF
The Fourth Annual Athena Film Festival will present former Paramount and 20th Century Fox chief Sherry Lansing with the Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as salute Sundance Executive...
Why is Everyone Pointing at Me?
2008 was a watershed year for me. I was nominated for my eleventh Emmy — for a composition I had created in three days for a science-fiction show. But what was most remarkable to me about the...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Sierra Pettengill and Jamila Wignot
Sierra Pettengill is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker. Town Hall is her directorial debut. She is the producer of Cutie and the Boxer (U.S. Documentary Directing Award, Sundance ’13) and the archival...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Suzan Beraza
Born in Jamaica and raised in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, social and environmental issues pervade Suzan’s work. Her films have appeared on National Public Television and on the...
DOC NYC Women Directors: Meet Dawn Porter
DawnPorter is the founder of Trilogy Films and the director/producer of Gideon’s Army, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and aired on HBO. Before becoming a filmmaker, she was...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Stephanie Martin
Born in Sao Paulo and raised mostly in Buenos Aires, Stephanie discovered her passion for film while at Wellesley College where she studied French and Political Science. Following graduation,...
Round-Up of October Movies Directed by Women
There areseveral milestones among the 22 films directed by women that were released inOctober. Among the ten features is Carrie,the first wide-release (3,157 theaters) studio film from a female...
AFI Women Directors: Meet Jillian Mayer
Jillian Mayer steeps her artistic practice in the verisimilitude of a generation that came of age in the 1980s. Her video works have premiered at galleries and museums internationally and at 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 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...
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...
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...
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...
The LA Femme Film Festival: By Women, For Everyone
Leslie LaPage launched the LAFemme Film Festival in 2005 after a dispiriting trip to the Sundance Film Festival, where she saw precious few films directed or written bywomen. The first LA Femme...
After Tiller Expands Across the Nation
Lana Wilson and Martha Shane’s deeply affecting and discourse changing documentary, After Tiller, is about the current state of late-term abortions after the murder of Dr. George Tiller in 2009....
LFF Women Directors: Meet Cherien Dabis
Cherien Dabis is an award-winning Palestinian American filmmaker who received her M.F.A. in film from Columbia University. She wrote, directed, produced and edited several short films including Make...
HIFF Women Directors: Meet Irene Taylor Brodsky
Irene Taylor Brodsky is an Oscar-nominated, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning director whose documentaries have shown theatrically, at film festivals and on television worldwide. Irene most recently...
Weekly Update for October 11: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend A River Changes Course — Directed by Kalyanee Mann (doc) A River Changes Course is the moving and insightful 2013 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning...
IFC Films Picks Up Megan Griffiths’ Lucky Them
IFC Films has acquired the rights to Megan Griffiths’ Lucky Them which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last month. Written by Emily Wachtel and Hugo Botko, the film follows a music...
HIFF Women Directors: Meet Barbara Kopple
Barbara Kopple is a two-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker. A director of documentaries, as well as narrative TV and film, her most recent project is the documentary Running From Crazy, which...
Weekly Update for October 4: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend Concussion — Written and Directed by Stacie Passon Concussion was one of my favorite movies at Sundance this year. It was truly a revelation. Robin...
October Film Preview
We’ve come off an impactful September for women in film with Haifaa Al-Mansour’s Wadjda breaking boundaries for women directors in Saudi Arabia and being the country’s first Oscar entry;...
The Big O: Are Grande Dames the New Babes?
Beautybefore age. Thistwist on an old adage has held sway for the most part when it comes toselecting which actresses are granted an Oscar each year, at least for the pastseveral decades. But2013...
Trailer Watch: Concussion – Directed by Stacie Passon
Concussion, hands down one of the sexiest movies of the year, premiered at Sundance and later screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival and Outfest to critical praise. Written and directed by...
Women Win Top Doc Awards at TIFF
Women directors took home the top audience awards in the documentary area at TIFF this year. Jehane Noujaim’s The Square took home the top audience prize. The film looks at the Egyptian...
Weekly Update for September 13: Women Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend Wadjda – Haifaa Al-Mansour What Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) wants to do is simple – ride a bike. That shouldn’t be so...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Dana Rotberg
Dana Rotberg was born in Mexico City and graduated from Mexico’s Centro de Capacitacion Cinematografica. She has won numerous awards for her films, including Best Documentary from the...
Emma Watson to Star in Francesca Gregorini’s Your Voice in My Head
Emma Watson is set to star in Francesca Gregorini’s Your Voice in My Head adapted from Emma Forrest’s memoir of the same title. The film, adapted by Forrest, follows a young woman who is...
TIFF Women Directors: Meet Megan Griffiths
Megan Griffiths was born in Athens, Ohio and received her MFA in film from Ohio University. She has written and directed the short films Moving (08), and Eros (09), and the features First...
Trailer Watch: Ass Backwards – Written by and Starring Casey Wilson and June Diane Raphael
Ass Backwards, written by and starring Casey Wilson and June Diane Raphael, premiered earlier this year at Sundance. The first trailer for the film shows Kate (Wilson) and Chloe (Raphael) who are...
SXSW Rerun: Interview with Hannah Fidell, Lindsay Burdge and Kim Sherman of A Teacher
Originally published on April 9. A Teacher is in theaters in New York and Los Angeles today and is available on VOD. A Teacher is a tense, unflinching piece of film that gets under your...
TIFF Women Directors and Producers: Meet Sabine Emiliani and Stephanie Levy
Sabine Emiliani’s documentary editing has garnered accolades from Sundance to Cannes to the Academy Awards. Ms. Emiliani’s 2006 Oscar-winning documentary, March of the Penguins...