#Documentary
February 2022 Television Preview
Although it will be dominated by sports — i.e. the Winter Olympics and the Super Bowl — television is also offering plenty of intriguing projects by and about women this February. A new...
Betsy West and Julie Cohen Have a Gabby Giffords Doc in the Works
Betsy West and Julie Cohen have yet another documentary in the works. The pair released two in 2021, “Julia,” a portrait of culinary queen Julia Child, and “My Name Is Pauli...
DGA TV Nominations: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Lorene Scafaria, Lucia Aniello, and More
The TV nominations are in for the 2022 Directors Guild of America (DGA) Awards. Oscar favorites Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin are among the directors in the running for Documentary Feature...
Trailer Watch: Laura Poitras Explores the Impact of Cyberweapons in “Terror Contagion”
“Surveillance is not only a breach of privacy, but it is violence — it does things to you,” we’re told in a new trailer for “Terror Contagion.” Described as...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Tonya Lewis Lee and Paula Eiselt – “Aftershock”
Tonya Lewis Lee is a director, producer, and writer whose work through storytelling often explores the personal impact of social justice issues such as civil rights and criminal justice. Paula Eiselt...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Abigail Disney and Kathleen Hughes – “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales”
Abigail Disney is an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker, activist, and co-founder of Fork Films, a nonfiction media production company which produces the podcast “All Ears.” She is the...
Keisha Rae Witherspoon, Assia Boundaoui, Diane Paragas, & Ekwa Msangi Named United States Artists Fellows
Keisha Rae Witherspoon, Assia Boundaoui, Diane Paragas, Ekwa Msangi are among the 63 artists across 10 creative disciplines named as 2022 United States Artists Fellows. The directors account for four...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Shalini Kantayya – “TikTok, Boom.”
Shalini Kantayya is a filmmaker whose film “Coded Bias” premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and is now streaming on Netflix. The film won a Social Impact Media Award for Best...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Eva Longoria Bastón – “La Guerra Civil”
As an award-winning actress, director, producer, entrepreneur, and activist, Eva Longoria Bastón has become one the most significant trailblazers behind the camera. For over a decade, she has been...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes – “The Janes”
Tia Lessin was nominated for an Academy Award for her work as a director and producer of the Hurricane Katrina survival story “Trouble the Water,” winner of the 2008 Sundance Grand Jury Prize and...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Rachel Lears – “To the End”
Rachel Lears is a documentary director, producer, and cinematographer based in Brooklyn, NY. Rachel’s most recent feature documentary, Netflix’s “Knock Down the House,” won...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Isabel Castro – “Mija”
Isabel Castro is a four-time Emmy-nominated, Mexican-American filmmaker who combines a practice in journalism and art to tell stories about immigration, civil rights, and identity. She splits her...
Exclusive: Petra Costa and Tracy Heather Strain Among 2022 Chicken & Egg Award Recipients
Chicken & Egg Pictures has selected the recipients of the 2022 Chicken & Egg Award, which offers unrestricted funding to advanced women and gender nonconforming documentary filmmakers. Women...
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...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Sara Dosa -“Fire of Love”
Sara Dosa is an Indie Spirit Award-nominated documentary director and Peabody award-winning producer. Her first feature as a director, “The Last Season,” won a Golden Gate Award at its...
Sundance: Sara Dosa’s “Fire of Love” Lands at National Geographic Documentary Films Following Bidding War
Things are heating up at Sundance 2022. National Geographic Documentary Films came out the victor of a “fierce bidding war” for “Fire of Love,” a deal Variety describes as...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Amy Poehler – “Lucy and Desi”
Perhaps best known for her Emmy-nominated series “Parks and Recreation,” Amy Poehler currently serves as co-creator, executive producer, and the lead voice of Fox’s animated series...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Ondi Timoner – “Last Flight Home”
Ondi Timoner is an internationally-acclaimed filmmaker who has the rare distinction of winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance twice – for “Dig!” (2004), about the collision of art and...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Rita Baghdadi – “Sirens”
Rita Baghdadi is an award-winning Moroccan-American documentary filmmaker whose work has been supported by Sundance, Tribeca, Netflix, HBO, Film Independent, and the International Documentary...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing – “Midwives”
Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing has worked as a freelance filmmaker in Myanmar since 2006, acting as director, producer, editor, and sound recordist. Her short “Burmese Butterfly” played festivals in...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Maria Loohufvud – “Calendar Girls”
Maria Loohufvud is an art director with a background in music and dance. Her feminist engagement has led to projects on many platforms, such as the equality game Komma Lika. Together with Love...
You’re Invited: Virtual VIP Screening of Rayka Zehtabchi & Shaandiin Tome’s “Long Line of Ladies”
“Long Line of Ladies,” a short documentary that just premiered at Sundance, is hosting a virtual VIP screening and Q&A, and the Women and Hollywood community is invited.* The story of...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Nina Menkes – “Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power”
Nina Menkes is a filmmaker whose works synthesize inner dream worlds with brutal, outer realities. Her work has been shown widely in major international film festivals, including Sundance, the...
Sundance 2022 Women Directors: Meet Violet Columbus – “The Exiles”
Violet Columbus is a writer-director currently living in New York City. She graduated from NYU’s Tisch School Of The Arts in 2016. “The Exiles” is her debut feature film. “The Exiles...
Doc About WNBA Star Sue Bird in the Works from Sarah Dowland
One of the greatest players in WNBA history is getting the doc treatment. Now underway, “Sue Bird: In the Clutch” follows “the final chapter” of the Seattle Storm...
Collective of POC-Centered Documentary Orgs Launches, Set to Award $1.35M in Funding
Color Congress, a new collective dedicated to supporting people of color in documentary filmmaking, has arrived. Described by a press release as “a national collective of organizations led and...
Sundance Adds Docs from Abigail E. Disney, Kathleen Hughes, and Amy Berg to Lineup
Abigail E. Disney and Kathleen Hughes’ “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales” and Amy Berg’s “Phoenix Rising” will screen at Sundance 2022. The documentaries...
Sundance Doc “Calendar Girls” Sells to Juno Films
“Calendar Girls” has secured North American distribution ahead of its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival later this month. Juno Films landed rights to the film, which is screening...
Anna Nicole Smith Doc in the Works at Netflix, Ursula Macfarlane Directing
Ursula Macfarlane is expanding her diverse filmography. With titles such as “Untouchable,” an investigation into Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct, and “The Life and Loss...
CNN Lines Up “Reframed: Marilyn Monroe” Docuseries, Jessica Chastain Narrates
Marilyn Monroe and her legacy will be reconsidered in the latest CNN Original Series. A press release has announced that the four-part docuseries “Reframed: Marilyn Monroe” will premiere...
Trailer Watch: Janet Jackson Reflects on Stardom and Scrutiny in New Doc
Janet Jackson promises to show “a side that no one’s ever seen” in a new extended trailer for “Janet Jackson,” a two-night documentary event from Lifetime and A&E....
January 2022 Film Preview
“The 355” is finally making its way to cinemas. Long delayed due to COVID-19, the star-studded spy movie kicks off 2022 right. Featuring Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger, Lupita...
2021’s Best Documentaries By and About Women
Some of the most notable 2021 docs by and about women introduced us to a legal trailblazer, showed us a different side of music royalty we thought we knew, and followed activists from around the...
A Donna Summer Documentary Is in the Works
A documentary about the chart-topping singer behind iconic hits including “Last Dance,” “Love to Love You Baby,” and “She Works Hard for the Money” is on the way....
Comfortable in Her Own Skin: VOD, Web Series, and Podcast Picks
The burden to live up to social expectations is omnipresent. As such, the struggle to be free of modern society’s demands — from unattainable body standards propagated through social...
Pick of the Day: “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street”
Marilyn Agrelo traces the radical roots of “Sunny Days” spent with Elmo, Bert, and Big Bird in “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street.” The HBO doc examines how creators, artists,...
Over 60% of Sundance’s 2022 Competition Films Are Directed by Women
With the final weeks of 2021 upon us it’s time to start looking onward, and if Sundance Film Festival’s 2022 lineup is any indication, we have plenty of women-helmed films to look forward...
Submit Now: Athena Film Festival’s Works-in-Progress Program
Women and nonbinary filmmakers looking to hone their documentary project pitches, take note: the Athena Film Festival’s (AFF) Works-in-Progress Program is now accepting submissions. An...
“America ReFramed” to Launch 10th Season with World Premiere of “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America”
A portrait of a Mississippi sharecropper-turned-human rights activist will kick off the 10th season of “America ReFramed.” The award-winning documentary series from WORLD Channel and...
Pick of the Day: “The Slow Hustle”
“It’s Baltimore — don’t be surprised by anything that takes place here,” we’re warned early on in “The Slow Hustle.” The HBO doc sees Sonja Sohn, best...
December 2021 Film Preview
The New Year is just around the corner, but there’s plenty to look forward to before we ring in 2022. Besides holiday-themed content, December will also mark the release of an Oscar-nominated...
Pick of the Day: “Adrienne”
I saw “Waitress” at an art-house theater when I was in high school, and it instantly became one of my favorite movies. A few months after seeing the bittersweet dramedy about a pregnant...
Pick of the Day: “Writing with Fire”
“I believe that journalism is the essence of democracy,” announces Meera Devi, the central protagonist of Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh’s “Writing with Fire.” Devi is...
Trailer Watch: Marilyn Agrelo Explores Elmo’s Radical Roots in “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street”
“Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street” examines how creators, artists, writers, and educators teamed up to transform a medium and change lives. Directed by Marilyn Agrelo, the HBO...
Trailer Watch: Sonja Sohn Uncovers Police Corruption in “The Slow Hustle”
Sonja Sohn returns to Baltimore with “The Slow Hustle,” a documentary that sees the “Wire” alumna and “Baltimore Rising” director investigating the 2017 death of...
Nanfu Wang, Jessica Kingdon, Jessica Beshir, & “Once Upon a Time in Uganda” Among DOC NYC Awardees
The in-person portion of DOC NYC 2021 is winding down, and the festival has begun presenting its awards. A press release has announced the juried honors for this year’s edition. “Once...
DOC NYC 2021 Women Directors: Meet Trish Adlesic – “A Tree of Life”
Trish Adlesic is an Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning producer/director. Her producing credits include “Gasland” and “Gasland Part II.” She co-directed and co-produced “I...
DOC NYC 2021 Women Directors: Meet Cathryne Czubek – “Once Upon a Time in Uganda”
Cathryne Czubek is a director and producer based in New York City. “Screw You Cancer,” her award-winning doc series for Condé Nast Entertainment, was the first digital series to receive...
DOC NYC 2021 Women Directors: Meet Diane Tsai – “Be Our Guest”
Diane Tsai is a Taiwanese-American documentary filmmaker and journalist at TIME. Her award-winning documentary series “Firsts,” which she directed and produced with Spencer Bakalar,...
Trailer Watch: “Anonymous Club” Follows the Ups and Downs of Courtney Barnett’s World Tour
Melbourne-based musician Courtney Barnett hits the road in “Anonymous Club.” Filmed over three years, the documentary chronicles the ups and downs of the indie rocker’s world tour...
DOC NYC 2021 Women Directors: Meet Geeta Gandbhir and Samantha Knowles – “Black and Missing”
Geeta Gandbhir is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning director, producer, and editor. Her most recent film, “Apart,” co-directed with Rudy Valdez, is currently playing on HBO Max and her...