#Activism
“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” Wins Los Angeles Film Critics Award For Best Doc
“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” is looking more and more like the frontrunner in the Oscars’ documentary race. Laura Poitras’ latest has been named Best...
Trailer Watch: Rachel Lears Reunites with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for “To the End”
“Fighting for change politically requires faith,” says Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a new trailer for “To the End.” Rachel Lears’ follow-up to “Knock Down the...
Trailer Watch: Laura Poitras Tackles Art and the Opioid Crisis in “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”
“When you think of the profit of people’s pain, you can only be furious,” says Nan Goldin in a new trailer for Laura Poitras’ “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.”...
Showrunner Coalition Now in Talks with Studios Re: Abortion Demands, Aiming to Launch Hotline
The coalition of over 400 women and nonbinary showrunners — and the approximately 1,000 directors and male showrunners who are standing with them in solidarity — is continuing its quest...
Buffy Sainte-Marie to Receive TIFF Tribute Award
Buffy Sainte-Marie is getting a TIFF Tribute Award at the 47th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival. The Oscar-winning Indigenous Canadian-American musician will be honored with the...
Showrunner Coalition Sends Second Letter Issuing Abortion Safety Demands, Requires Studio Response by Labor Day
The coalition of women TV showrunners and creators demanding abortion safety plans from studios is not backing down. Following the non-response/fuck-you companies including Disney, Netflix, AppleTV+,...
Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media to Be Honored with TV Academy’s Governors Award
With over four decades of credits under her belt and an Oscar for her role in “The Accidental Tourist,” Geena Davis’ acting career has made a major mark on the biz. But it’s...
SXSW 2022 Women Directors: Meet Linda Goldstein Knowlton – “Split At The Root”
Linda Goldstein Knowlton is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker, working in documentary, scripted feature films, and television. Her award-winning documentary “We Are The Radical Monarchs” ...
Amy Goldstein Revisits a Historic Sit-In with “The Unmaking of a College”
Amy Goldstein is a director, producer, and screenwriter of television series, feature films, and music videos. Her latest documentary, “Kate Nash: Underestimate the Girl,” was made for...
Rebecca & Josh Tickell’s Environmental Doc “The Revolution Generation” Acquired by Greenwich Entertainment
The kids are all right — the world they’re inheriting, not so much. “The Revolution Generation,” Rebecca and Josh Tickell’s look inside global youth movements aimed at...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Julie Ha – “Free Chol Soo Lee”
Julie Ha’s storytelling career spans more than two decades, with a specialized focus on Asian American stories. She worked as an editor for 10 years at KoreAm Journal, a national Korean American...
2021 NYWIFT Muse Awards: Sandra Oh, Patina Miller, and Darnell Martin to Be Honored
New York Women in Film and Television (NYWIFT) have announced the honorees of this year’s Muse Awards. An annual tribute to “women and men of outstanding vision and achievement in front...
Mamie Lang Kirkland Doc “100 Years from Mississippi” Acquired by Virgil Films
Film audiences will soon get to learn about Mamie Lang Kirkland and her incredible life. According to Deadline, a documentary about the activist, directed by her son Tarabu Betserai Kirkland, has...
Pick of the Day: “My Name Is Pauli Murray”
If there were any justice in this world, Pauli Murray would be a household name on par with Martin Luther King or Gloria Steinem or Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was an activist and legal scholar whose...
Trailer Watch: “Mothers of the Revolution” Pays Tribute to the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp
“If you always do as you’re told, then you don’t ever change anything,” an alumna of the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp observes in the new trailer for “Mothers of...
Under the Radar: “Women of My Billion” Examines India’s Long-Standing Gender-Based Social Injustices
How does one deal with the anger and frustration propelled by news of violent social injustices rampant in one’s country? If you’re Srishti Bakshi, you walk it off. Walk the entire length of...
Trailer Watch: Trailblazer Valerie Taylor Welcomes Us into the Underwater World in “Playing with Sharks”
“Every dive has the potential to be a great adventure. I would slide into the water into another world,” says Valerie Taylor in a new trailer for “Playing with Sharks.” From...
Pick of the Day: “144”
An all-access look into a WNBA season like no other, “144” takes viewers inside the bubble of the 2020 season, which saw the league creating a single site at the IMG Academy in Bradenton,...
Trailer Watch: Nancy Buirski Revisits “A Crime on the Bayou” and Exposes Institutional Racism
An examination of justice, allyship, and activists working together to dismantle institutional racism, Nancy Buirski’s “A Crime on the Bayou” tells the story of Gary Duncan, a Black...
Tamara Mariam Dawit’s “Finding Sally” Will Air as Part of WORLD Channel’s “AfroPoP” Series
Tamara Mariam Dawit’s investigation into a family mystery is headed to WORLD Channel. A press release has announced “Finding Sally” will debut on WORLD Channel as part of its...
Trailer Watch: Activists Work to Destigmatize Periods in “Pandora’s Box”
“When I started my period, I was very young and nobody had told me about it,” an interviewee reveals in the trailer for “Pandora’s Box,” a documentary about the stigma...
Betsy West and Julie Cohen’s “My Name Is Pauli Murray” Acquired by Amazon Studios
The new doc from Oscar-nominated “RBG” filmmakers Betsy West and Julie Cohen has secured worldwide distribution. Variety confirms “My Name Is Pauli Murray” has been acquired...
Kim A. Snyder’s March For Our Lives Doc “Us Kids” Lands at Greenwich Entertainment
Described by director Kim S. Snyder as “a coming-of-age story about a bunch of regular teenage kids who live their lives against the backdrop of this horrendous national issue of gun...
Pick of the Day: “La Leyenda Negra”
“Respect my existence or expect resistance.” These are the words high school senior and immigration rights activist Aleteia (Monica Betancourt) reiterates throughout “La Leyenda...
Pick of the Day: “I Am Greta”
Greta Thunberg never expected to become a household name helping to lead the charge on climate activism. Her life, she explains in “I Am Greta,” now seems like a movie or dream,...
Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Fest’s Final Week to Showcase Works by Felicia Pride & More
This year’s edition of the Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival has confirmed its final week’s titles and events. The fest, an annual affair founded by African Voices magazine and...
Trailer Watch: “Us Kids” Fight to End Gun Violence
Kim A. Snyder is back with another documentary about gun violence. She’s following up 2016’s “Newtown,” a portrait of Newtown, Connecticut, one year after the shooting at...
Pick of the Day: “Belly of the Beast”
Though it’s most closely associated with Nazi Germany, eugenics has a history stateside as well. And it’s not just a thing of the past. “Belly of the Beast” tells the story of...
Trailer Watch: An Iranian Activist and Human Rights Lawyer Refuses to Be Silenced in “Nasrin”
A new documentary is paying tribute to Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent human rights lawyer described as “one of the bravest voices in Iran.” Known for taking on cases other lawyers are too...
Doc About Human Rights Activist Nasrin Sotoudeh Acquired by Virgil Films, Olivia Colman Narrates
Audiences will soon have the chance to learn more about Nasrin Sotoudeh and the #FreeNasrin movement. “Nasrin,” a documentary following the Iranian lawyer, human rights activist, and...
Trailer Watch: From #MeToo to BLM, Women Are “Not Done” Fighting for Change in MAKERS’ New Doc
“There are some people who think that we are post-civil rights, we are post-feminism, and therefore we’re post-intersectional,” an interviewee says in a new documentary about the...
Trailer Watch: “Belly of the Beast” Investigates Modern-Day Eugenics in California Prisons
“Belly of the Beast” tells the story of Kelli Dillon, one of many women who has been involuntarily sterilized while in prison. A new trailer for Erika Cohn’s documentary sees Dillon...
Trailer Watch: “I Am Greta” Follows Greta Thunberg’s Epic Journey
“For many years, people refused to listen to me,” says Greta Thunberg in a new trailer for “I Am Greta.” The spot kicks off with footage of Thunberg’s one-person school...
Trailer Watch: CJ Crim Celebrates Women, Activism, and Social Justice in “Resisterhood”
People of color, immigrants, LGTBQ folks, women — life in America has become very frightening for all of these groups and more since Trump’s election nearly four years ago. But, in spite...
Civil Rights Leader and Minnesota’s First Black Female Attorney Lena O. Smith Is Getting a Biopic
Lena O. Smith, a civil rights leader and trailblazing lawyer, will soon be getting her own feature film. A biopic about Smith, the first African American woman attorney to be licensed in Minnesota,...
Josephine Baker Series in Development at Studiocanal
A show about Jazz Age icon and civil rights activist Josephine Baker could soon be dancing its way to the screen. Studiocanal, CPB Films, and Leyland Films are developing “a high-end...
TV Movie About Criminal Justice Reform Advocate Kemba Smith in the Works at BET
BET is teaming up with the Moving Picture Institute (MPI) to tell the story of criminal justice reform advocate Kemba Smith. A press release confirmed a feature-length TV movie is being developed,...
Quote of the Day: Viola Davis’ “Entire Life Has Been a Protest”
When a tide of Black Lives Matter protests broke out after George Floyd’s murder, Viola Davis wanted to join them. But, due to COVID-19 concerns, she decided not to attend the events. Instead,...
Join the Girls Club for a Conversation About “We Are the Radical Monarchs”
The Girls Club’s next conversation will be with Linda Goldstein Knowlton, director of “We Are the Radical Monarchs,” the story of an Oakland-based alternative to the Girl Scouts....
Pick of the Day: “John Lewis: Good Trouble”
John Lewis is a seminal figure in our history. What the activist and political leader has done to improve civil rights in our country is immeasurable. Watching Dawn Porter’s new doc, “Good...
Hot Docs 2020 Women Directors: Meet Nathalie Bibeau – “The Walrus and the Whistleblower”
Nathalie Bibeau is a director and producer of international award-winning productions. She began her career at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, producing documentary projects such as “8th...
Trailer Watch: Abortion Rights Activists in Ireland Fight to Repeal “The 8th”
Two years ago, Ireland voted to repeal the 8th amendment, the 1983 law that granted fetuses the same right to life as their mothers, in a historic referendum. Now Maeve O’Boyle, Lucy Kennedy, and...
Trailer Watch: John Lewis Gets in “Good Trouble” in Dawn Porter’s New Documentary
“When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just — say something!” John Lewis instructs a cheering crowd in Dawn Porter’s upcoming documentary. “Do...
Trailer Watch: Women of Color Are Pushing American Politics Forward in “And She Could Be Next”
“People aspiring to be leaders in this country, they need to go through women of color because we’re making our voices known,” a character in “And She Could Be Next”...
Pick of the Day: “There’s Something in the Water”
Women and Hollywood has temporarily suspended our recommendations newsletter. We’ll be sharing some of the week’s highlights in TV, VOD, and streaming via blog posts. Ellen Page has been known...
Pick of the Day: “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution”
Women and Hollywood has temporarily suspended our recommendations newsletter. We’ll be sharing some of the week’s highlights in TV, VOD, and streaming via blog posts. “I wanted to be part...
Trailer Watch: A Summer Camp for Teens with Disabilities Sparks a Revolution in “Crip Camp”
“I wanted to be part of the world, but I didn’t see anyone like me in it,” one of the characters featured in “Crip Camp” says in a new trailer for the documentary....
Trailer Watch: Aja Naomi King Rallies Against Female Genital Mutilation in “A Girl from Mogadishu”
“‘A Girl from Mogadishu’ is the story of how Ifrah Ahmed came to understand, develop, and employ the most potent of campaign tools — her own true story — and use it to...
Protests from Adèle Haenel, Céline Sciamma, Activists, and More Rock the 2020 César Awards
When the César Awards inexplicably presented Roman Polanski with the best director prize at its 45th edition February 28, actress Adèle Haenel, her “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” director...
Under the Radar: “We Are the Radical Monarchs” Champions Young Activists
These aren’t your average Girl Scouts — they’re the Radical Monarchs. “We Are the Radical Monarchs,” a doc from director Linda Goldstein Knowlton, follows the first troop of...
Trailer Watch: Ellen Page Exposes Environmental Racism in “There’s Something in the Water”
A new trailer for “There’s Something in the Water” sees Oscar-nominated actress Ellen Page, who was born and raised in Nova Scotia, reflecting on the Canadian province’s...