ALL POSTS
June 2015’s Noteworthy Women-Centric Crowdfunding Projects: ‘Sweetening the Pill,’ ‘Creased,’ ‘Faith’
A little help can go a long way when it comes to crowdfunding campaigns, and we’re here to spread the word about a few notable film projects trying to get their financial footing. While these...
Mindy Kaling Warns Against Idolizing Her TV Character, Hints at What to Expect in Season 4
Mindy Kaling isn’t shying away from serving as a role model to girls and women, but that doesn’t mean she wants her character on “The Mindy Project,” Dr. Mindy Lahiri, to be considered an...
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...
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Anna Axster — ‘A Country Called Home’
As a writer, director and producer, Anna Axster has been making films and music videos for more than 10 years, many of which have screened in festivals around the world and been viewed more than...
LAFF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Negin Farsad — ‘3rd Street Blackout’
Negin Farsad is an Iranian-American comedienne andfilmmaker. In addition to being selected as a TEDFellow, Farsad was namedone of the 50 Funniest Women by the Huffington Post and one of Good...
Bedbugs, Blue Energy and Big Boo: “Orange is the New Black” is Back
Slight spoilers ahead for the first four episodes of Season 3. Previously on “OITNB”: Baddie Vee (Lorraine Toussaint) terrorized the population for most of Season 2 before getting bumped off by...
‘Pitch Perfect 3’ Officially Announced; Elizabeth Banks Decries “Boxes and Labels Threatening Dreams”
On paper, “Pitch Perfect” never exactly screamed “lucrative franchise.” And yet the Barden Bellas are set to sing their way to the bank once more. A third a capella pic is officially in the...
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,...
Human Rights Watch FF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Gini Reticker — ‘The Trials of Spring’
GiniReticker is the Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning producer and director of “Pray the Devil Goes Back to Hell,” “Asylum,” and the celebrated PBS Series, “Women, War & Peace.” She...
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...
Human Rights Watch FF 2015 Women Directors: Meet Tamara Erde — ‘This Is My Land’
Tamara Erde is a French-Israeli filmmakerliving and working in Paris. She often deals in her work with politicaland social issues focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Her works mixesher...
Trailer Watch: Meryl Streep Stops Running Away from Family Drama in New Spot for ‘Ricki & the Flash’
“I came out here because I wanted to help you,” Ricki (Meryl Streep) tells her recently divorced daughter Julie (Mamie Gummer). The new trailer for “Ricki and the Flash” emphasizes Ricki’s...
Nicole Perlman to Adapt Hugh Howey’s Sci-Fi Bestseller ‘Wool’
Nicole Perlman, co-writer of “Guardians of the Galaxy,” has lined up her next project. Perlman will adapt Hugh Howey’s self-published runaway bestseller “Wool,” in which a few rebellious...
Country Music and Cannes: Blaming Women for Sexism
At first glance,country music and the Cannes Film Festival couldn’t appear more culturallydifferent. And yet, recent events reveal that some high-profile individualsassociated with these...
Gender and Identity in the Wachowskis’ “Sense8” on Netflix
Ever since “The Matrix,” I’ve been hoping the Wachowskis (formerly the Wachowski brothers) would do something else really worthwhile. I’m not sure if the directing duo’s “Sense8” (on...
‘Sister Act’ Remake On the Way
It’s been over two decades since the last “Sister Act” movie, “Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit,” was released, but Disney is apparently confident that singing and dancing nuns never go out...
How The Lilly Awards Help Make Women’s Stories Matter
The recipients of this year’s Lilly Awards gathered onthe stage of Off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons Monday afternoon and remained thereas all the awards were presented, chatting, laughing,...
Study: How Much Older Are Male Leads in Romantic Films than Their Female Co-Stars?
Last week, Oscar-nominated actress Maggie Gyllenhaal revealed that, by Hollywood standards, she was “too old” to play the on-screen love interest of a 55-year-old man. She’s 37. Following...
June 2015 Film Preview
Summer brings more great news for those of us who long to see women-centric films in theaters.Many of the biggest and most anticipated films of the season are aboutwomen — and a fair portion...
Highlights from The Hollywood Reporter’s Amazingly Candid TV Comediennes Roundtable
The Hollywood Reporter hosted an especially candid and entertaining roundtable interview with some of TV’s best and brightest comic actresses, and the results speak for themselves. The...
Inside Out 2015 Women Directors: Meet Na Torres — ‘Liz in September’
Na Torres is currently adirector/writer/producer who brings experience from all areas of filmmaking to her work. In 1985, Torres won the CannesFestival Camera d’Or, among twelve other...
‘Game of Thrones’ Star Lena Headey Pens a Letter to Her Unborn Daughter and Girls All Over the World
Actress Lena Headey, best known for her role as the conniving Queen Cersei on HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” has written a letter to her unborn daughter and girls worldwide about the relative...
Read: The ACLU’s Letter to the EEOC Citing Employment Discrimination Against Women Directors
Two weeks ago, the ACLU sent letters to three government agencies requesting an investigation into the gender-based discrimination against women directors in the film and TV industries. The...
4 Female Directors Discuss What It Takes to Make a Passion Project
RichardLinklater’s “Boyhood” got a lot ofdeserved attention for the dedication it took to make a feature film over 12years. While that timeline was planned, getting a film made often turns out...
Frances McDormand on Shoegate, Hollywood’s Pay Gap and What Makes Her a Successful Producer
Frances McDormand made quite the statement on Shoegate — and sundry other issues relating to women in the film industry — during a Women in Motion panel at this year’s Cannes Film...
Inside Out 2015 Women Directors: Meet Christina Zeidler — ‘Portrait of a Serial Monogamist’
Christina Zeidler is a film and video artist with over thirtytitles in distribution. Zeidler is one half of the Euro-electronica-pop-diva sensation “ina unt ina” and part of the high-conceptart...
Get Involved: A Call to Action about the Representation of Women at the Tony Awards
On June 7th, when girls across the country turnon the Tony Awards, what do you want them to see? This is the question we’re posing to the Tony AwardsManagement Committee and CBS in a petition...
Inside Out 2015 Women Directors: Meet Barbara Hammer — ‘Welcome to This House, a Film on Elizabeth Bishop’
A highly prolific filmmakerand videographer, Barbara Hammer has directed over eighty films and videos in acareer that spans 40 years. She is considered a pioneer of queer cinema. Hammer made the...
May 2015’s Noteworthy Women-Centric Crowdfunding Projects
Last month, we at Women and Hollywood started a new feature spotlighting women-centric crowdfunding projects that we feel deserve attention and support. This month’s crowdfunding selections vary...
The Power and Relevance of ‘Carol’
In a few short weeks, the Supreme Court of the United States will decide on the issue of gay marriage once and for all. Over here at the Cannes Film Festival, “Carol,” based on Patricia...
Oops! I Made a Feminist Manifesto: George Miller and “Mad Max”
It’s been three days since I saw “Mad Max: Fury Road” and I still can’t shut up about how phenomenal it was. I often think of this Onion article when attempting to reconcile my love of...
Salma Hayek Drops Truth Bombs About Hollywood’s Gender Problem
Salma Hayek is my new heroine. This morning at the Kering Talks (Kering is a sponsor of the festival and Hayek’s husband François-Henri Pinault is the CEO) this woman dropped epic truth bombs for...
Cannes 2015 Women Directors: Meet Nancy Buirski — ‘By Sidney Lumet’
Nancy Buirski is the director, producer and writer of “Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq,” which had its world premiere at the 51stNew York Film Festival and its international premiere at...
About F-cking Time: ACLU Requests Feds Investigate Systematic Bias Against Women Directors
Today is a great day for gender justice in Hollywood. There are not many great days in this fight, but this is one of them. News broke today that the ACLU has asked the Equal Employment Opportunity...
Meryl Streep’s Eccentric Socialite Comedy ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’ Begins Filming
After belting out Swedish pop in “Mamma Mia!,” show tunes in “Into the Woods” and rock in the upcoming “Ricki and the Flash,” Meryl Streep will turn to opera in the period comedy...
Trailer Watch: Meryl Streep Reconnects with the Family She Abandoned in ‘Ricki and the Flash’
“Ricki and the Flash” tells a familiar tale, a staple of rock bios: A rising star is forced to choose between fame and fans, on the one hand, and domestic responsibilities on the other. Years...
Cynthia Nixon to Play Emily Dickinson in Biopic; Jennifer Ehle to Co-Star
“Sex and the City” star Cynthia Nixon will star in a new biopic about Emily Dickinson that will trace the poet’s life from her school days to her last years as a reclusive, unrecognized...
Judy Greer Delivers a Mic Drop on Hollywood’s Wage Gap Problem
The conversation about Hollywood’s pay gap has been urgent and mounting, but it’s also been largely impersonal, focusing on statistics and a few famous women (understandably) reluctant to...
Marvel CEO Doesn’t Believe in Female Superheroes
Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter has his mind made up about superheroines — they aren’t profitable. An email exchange between Perlmutter and Sony CEO Michael Lynton has been made public after...
Bentonville Women Directors: Meet Elizabeth Van Meter — ‘Thao’s Library’
Elizabeth Van Meter’s documentary work has taken her from the AndesMountains of Peru to the Tohoku region of Japan. Van Meter hasdirected/produced 40 short films for Gorgeous Entertainment,...
Guest Post: Why I Decided to Direct Lifetime’s Ariel Castro Movie ‘Cleveland Abduction’
Likemany people around the world, I was shocked and gripped by the story of thewomen who were abducted and kept for over a decade by Ariel Castro in a housein Cleveland, Ohio. When Sony first...
Hot Docs 2015 Women Directors: Meet Amber Fares — ‘Speed Sisters’
Amber Fares is a Canadian-born filmmaker with Lebanese roots. In the aftermath of 9/11, Fares left her career in marketing to deepen her understanding of life in the Middle East. In response to her...
Trailer Watch: The Journey from Oxford to the Trenches in WWI Drama ‘Testament of Youth’
Fresh off the sci-fi indie “Ex Machina,” for which she’s receiving rave reviews, budding star Alicia Vikander is demonstrating excellent range as she switches gears from a playing a futuristic...
Women & Hollywood’s Summer Preview, Part 1: May and June 2015
The summer movie landscape can often feel like a haze of one huge blockbuster after another, each more testosterone-drenched than the last. However, this summer is packed with titles about...
Hot Docs 2015 Women Directors: Meet Erinnisse Rebisz — ‘Shoulder the Lion’
Erinnisse Rebisz is a seasoned editor for television and film, born and based in NYC. Her credits include numerous unscripted TV shows and documentaries such as “What Not To Wear,” “24 Hour...
Broadway Star Kelli O’Hara on Maintaining Self-Worth in a Male-Dominated Industry
Cross-posted from The Interval. You know how when you’re applying to college people always ask you those cliché questions like, “What is a moment that changed your life?” and you think they...
Gay Divorce and Rock-umentaries: April’s Noteworthy Women-Centric Crowdfunding Projects
We at Women and Hollywood are always in pursuit of women-centric projects to promote and encourage, which is why, starting this month, we are beginning a new feature. Once a month, we will highlight...
Hot Docs 2015 Women Directors: Meet Rebecca Parrish — ‘Radical Grace’
Rebecca Parrish is director, cinematographer and an editor on “Radical Grace.” She has run her Chicago-based film company, Interchange Productions, since 2007. She has worked as an editor and...
Quote of the Day: Carey Mulligan Criticizes the “Massively Sexist” Film Industry
Carey Mulligan had much to say about the sorry state of the film industry, especially as it pertains to gender, in a recent interview with Time Out. The Academy Award-nominated actress echoed...
Hot Docs 2015 Women Directors: Meet Laurie Kahn — ‘Love Between the Covers’
Laurie Kahn started her film career by helping a friend make an adaptation of a Guy de Maupassant story. While working on this project, she found paying work on the side writing film reviews for the...
Tribeca 2015 Women Directors: Meet Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy — ‘Song of Lahore’
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy is an Academy-and Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker. Her work centers on human rights and women’s issues. She has worked with refugees and marginalized communities...