#Festivals
Trailer Watch: A Doctor Takes on Local Politics — and Sexism — in “The Perfect Candidate”
The protagonist of Haifaa Al-Mansour’s “The Perfect Candidate,” a young female doctor in Saudi Arabia, is getting fed up. She’s not receiving the funding she needs at her...
Venice 2019 Women Directors: Meet Mattie Do – “The Long Walk”
Mattie Do is Laos’ first, and only, female filmmaker. Her feature debut, “Chanthaly,” was the ninth feature film produced in the country since the 1975 revolution, the first Lao...
Venice 2019 Women Directors: Meet Shahad Ameen – “Scales”
Writer-director Shahad Ameen was born and raised in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Her short films include 2009’s “Our Own Musical” and 2011’s “Leila’s Window.” The...
Venice 2019 Women Directors: Meet Gitanjali Rao – “Bombay Rose”
A self-taught animator and filmmaker, Gitanjali Rao emerged into the international stage with her animated short “Printed Rainbow,” which premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week in 2006....
“Blow the Man Down” Acquired by Amazon Studios Ahead of TIFF Premiere
The 2019 Toronto International Film Festival is still a few weeks away, but one of its titles has already found a home. According to a press release, Amazon Studios has snagged the worldwide rights...
Lily Tomlin to Receive Traverse City Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award
Lily Tomlin is returning to her hometown to collect an honor. The five-time Emmy winner is set to receive Traverse City Film Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Detroit. Tomlin is...
EIFF 2019 Women Directors: Meet Mary McGuckian – “A Girl from Mogadishu”
Mary McGuckian is an Irish writer, director, and producer known for her collaborative approach to working with actors. She has worked on 12 films, including “The Price of Desire,” “The Bridge...
EIFF 2019 Women Directors: Meet Lydia Dean Pilcher – “Liberté: A Call to Spy”
Lydia Dean Pilcher is an Academy Award-nominated and two-time Emmy-winning producer, with over 35 feature films with directors including Gina Prince-Bythewood and Mira Nair. Her credits include...
EIFF 2019 Women Directors: Meet Emily Harris – “Carmilla”
Emily Harris is a visual storyteller spanning film, theater, exhibition, and installation. Her work has been shown at major film festivals and museums worldwide including the V&A Museum London,...
EIFF 2019 Women Directors: Meet Ásthildur Kjartansdóttir – “The Deposit”
Ásthildur Kjartansdóttir is a director, writer, and producer. Her films have screened at film festivals around the world. Two of her documentaries were nominated for Best Documentary by the...
EIFF 2019 Women Directors: Meet Susanne Heinrich – “Aren’t You Happy?”
Susanne Heinrich is a German filmmaker and author. She published four books between the ages of 19 and 25 and was nominated for the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize. Following her first short film,...
EIFF 2019 Women Directors: Meet Greta Bellamacina – “Hurt By Paradise”
Greta Bellamacina is an actress, filmmaker, and poet. She was born in London and made her acting debut in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” at the age of thirteen. She trained at The...
EIFF 2019 Women Directors: Meet Ruth Platt – “The Black Forest”
Ruth Platt co-created a theater company which was nominated twice for Time Out Critics Choice runs. Her short film featuring Maxine Peake, “The Heart Fails Without Warning.” was selected...
Number of Women Directors, Writers, & More at U.S. Film Fests Reaches Historic High
The number of women at film festivals such as SXSW, Tribeca, and AFI Fest is reaching a critical mass. Dr. Martha M. Lauzen and the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film have published...
Sundance London 2019 Women Directors: Meet Alison Klayman – “The Brink”
Alison Klayman’s directorial debut, “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry,” won a U.S. Documentary Special Jury Prize for Spirit of Defiance at Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for the...
Inside Out 2019 Directors: Meet Neelu Bhuman – “Transfinite”
Neelu Bhuman was born in the South Indian small town of Madanapalle. As an independent artist filmmaker, they explore social and political themes as they play out in close relations. Their films...
Edinburgh Film Fest’s 2019 Lineup Includes “Go Back to China,” “The Black Forest,” & More
Nearly 43 percent features and shorts screening at the 2019 Edinburgh International Film Festival are directed or co-directed by a woman, the BBC reports. Slated to take place June 19-30, this...
Inside Out 2019 Women Directors: Meet Almerinda Travassos – “Dykes in the Streets”
Almerinda Travassos was born in Portugal and is now based in Canada. Her work primarily explores issues of history, memory, and family within the context of the Portuguese-born, Lesbian identity....
Cannes: “Bull” Director Annie Silverstein on Rodeo Culture and the Realities of On-Set Childcare
Interview by Becca Harrison Annie Silverstein won the Cinéfondation jury prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival for “Skunk,” a short about a 14-year-old girl whose pit bull is stolen by...
Cannes 2019 Women Directors: Meet Alice Furtado – “Sick, Sick, Sick”
Alice Furtado is a Brazilian filmmaker and editor. She worked as an editor on Eduardo Williams’“El auge del humano,” and Tiago Mata Machado’s “Os sonâmbulos.” She directed the short film...
Cannes 2019 Women Directors: Meet Maryam Touzani – “Adam”
Maryam Touzani is a director, screenwriter, and actress. Her first short film, 2012’s “When They Slept,” was selected by a number of prestigious international festivals and received...
Cannes 2019 Women Directors: Meet Sofía Quirós – “Ceniza Negra”
Sofía Quirós is a director and writer. Her short film “Selva” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival Critic’s Week in 2017. Since then, it has screened in more than 40 cities around the world...
Cannes 2019 Women Directors: Meet Shahrbanoo Sadat – “The Orphanage”
Shahrbanoo Sadat is an Afghan writer and director based in Kabul. Her first feature film, “Wolf and Sheep,” was developed with the Cannes Cinéfondation Residence in 2010. Twenty years old at the...
Cannes 2019 Women Directors: Meet Danielle Lessovitz – “Port Authority”
Danielle Lessovitz is a New York-based writer and director in film and advertising. Her most recent screenwriting effort, “Mobile Homes,” which she co-wrote with Vladimir de Fontenay,...
Swedish Film Institute CEO Anna Serner to Be Honored at Mill Valley Film Fest
The Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF) is set to celebrate Anna Serner’s commitment to gender parity in the biz. According to a press release, Serner, CEO of the Swedish Film Institute, will...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Heddy Honigmann – “Buddy”
Heddy Honigmann is a director and writer who is best known for “Forever,” “The Underground Orchestra,” and “Metal and Melancholy.” “Buddy” premiered at...
Newport Beach Film Festival Women Directors: Meet Stephanie Turner – “Justine”
Stephanie Turner is an actress, writer, and director. Her acting credits include “First Man,” “Monster-in-Law,” and “Surrogate.” She is developing a television...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Rama Rau – “The Daughter Tree”
Rama Rau is a writer-director. Rau’s debut fiction feature, “Honey Bee,” won the EDA Best Film Award at the Whistler Film Festival. Her film “League of Exotique Dancers”...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Baljit Sangra – “Because We Are Girls”
Baljit Sangra uses documentary and factual entertainment to explore social and cross-cultural issues. A three-time Leo Award nominee, Sangra’s films have premiered at festivals around the world....
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Pachi Bustos – “Haydee and the Flying Fish”
Pachi Bustos is a journalist and documentary filmmaker. She has worked as a director, writer, and researcher for prestigious Chilean television programs and nationally and internationally renowned...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Tülin Özdemir – “Red Moon”
Tülin Özdemir’s work asks the question, “Who is today’s modern woman?” The filmmaker made her first short documentary, “Our Wedding,” in 2008 and expanded on its...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Phyllis Ellis – “Toxic Beauty”
Phyllis Ellis is a creator, writer, director, producer, and performer in factual and scripted television and film. She was honored at the 2013 Canadian Screen Awards with the prestigious Donald...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Jola Dylewska – “Marek Edelman… and There Was Love in the Ghetto”
Jola Dylewska is a Polish writer, director, and cinematographer. She has worked as a cinematographer on over 25 projects. She won Best Cinematography at the 2012 Polish Film Awards for her work on...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Emily Gan – “Cavebirds”
Emily Gan is a Chinese-Canadian photographer, filmmaker, and video artist born and based in Montréal. Gan has travelled across Canada, the US, India, and Malaysia working on various independent...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Danielle Sturk – “El Toro”
Danielle Sturk is a bilingual multi-disciplinary artist. Sturk’s films have screened at over 30 film festivals, and have been broadcast on most major Canadian English and French networks, such...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Nance Ackerman, Ariella Pahlke, and Teresa MacInnes – “Conviction”
Nance Ackerman is a documentary photographer, filmmaker, and multimedia artist. Her films have won awards for direction and cinematography. Her credits include “Cottonland,” “Four...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Marcela Arteaga – “The Guardian of Memory”
Marcela Arteaga is a Mexican writer and director. Her 2003 documentary “Remembrance” was screened at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, the Festival des Films du Monde, and Hot Docs,...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Shannon Walsh – “Illusions of Control”
Shannon Walsh has written and directed four award-winning feature documentaries, as well as multiple shorts and 360 VR projects. Her work has been released theatrically in Canada, the UK, and South...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Cindy Meehl – “The Dog Doc”
Cindy Meehl is a director and executive producer of documentary feature films. Her documentary feature “Buck” premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Tal Granit – “Flawless”
Tal Granit’s credits include “The Farewell Party,” which won the audience award at the Venice Film Festival and was distributed worldwide, “Summer Vacation,” which...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Nicole Schafer – “Buddha in Africa”
Nicole Schafer is a South African director. She produced award-winning stories for the Reuters pan-African magazine show “Africa Journal.” Her thesis film from the University of Cape...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Pailin Wedel – “Hope Frozen”
Pailin Wedel is a Thai-American journalist and filmmaker who grew up in Asia. She has regularly produced documentary programs for Al Jazeera English, namely for its current events program “101...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Bora Kim – “House of Hummingbird”
Bora Kim is a Korean filmmaker with an MFA in film directing from Columbia. Her debut feature, “House of Hummingbird,” won the Grand Prix for Best Feature Film at the 69th Berlin International...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Sherry Hormann – “A Regular Woman”
Sherry Hormann is a German-American writer and director. Her directorial debut, “Silent Shadow,” won the Bavarian Film Award for Best Young Direction, the Film Award in Silver for Outstanding...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Ani Simon-Kennedy – “The Short History of the Long Road”
Ani Simon-Kennedy is a feature film, documentary, and commercial director. Her first feature, “Days of Gray,” played at top festivals around the world with an original live score by...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia – “Leftover Women”
Shosh Shlam is a director and producer. She has directed several documentaries, including “Last Journey into Silence,” “Good Garbage,” and “Web Junkie.” Hilla...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Karen Stokkendal Poulsen – “On the Inside of a Military Dictatorship”
Karen Stokkendal Poulsen is a writer and director with a background in foreign affairs and political science. Her 2014 documentary “The Agreement” was nominated for Best Nordic Documentary at the...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni – “Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind”
Martha Kehoe is a writer, producer, and director who has worked on and created award-winning documentaries, series, and specials in multiple genres. Her early career focused on music, as she...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Jeanie Finlay – “Seahorse”
Jeanie Finlay is British documentary filmmaker. Her films tell small and intimate stories to international audiences, whether inviting them behind the scenes of Teesside’s last record shop...
Tribeca 2019 Women Directors: Meet Lara Jean Gallagher – “Clementine”
Lara Jean Gallagher is a writer and director. Her shorts and music videos have screened at SXSW, Palm Springs Shortfest, Mill Valley, Portland International, DC Shorts, as well as online via...
Hot Docs 2019 Women Directors: Meet Marwa Zein – “Khartoum Offside”
Marwa Zein is a Sudanese film director and producer. Her graduation project, “A game,” was an official selection of more than 30 international festivals worldwide and was translated into five...