#gender equality
Sundance Institute Announces New Inclusive Filmmaking Fellowship, Names Inaugural Class
Sundance is continuing to up its inclusion game ahead of its 2019 festival. As previously reported, the fest has agreed to make its submissions data transparent and is working to ensure a more...
Study: Women Directors and Women Playwrights Reached New Highs Off Broadway in 2017-18
The League of Professional Theatre Women has released a new report on the status of women in Off Broadway theater. “Women Count: Women Hired Off Broadway,” written by Martha Wade...
Women In the Director’s Chair Announces 2018 Story & Leadership Participants
Women In the Director’s Chair (WIDC), the Canadian organization helping advance women filmmakers, has selected eight directors for its 2018 Story & Leadership program. Anna Cooley, Penny...
Kiersey Clemons to Topline and Produce Film About Youngest Woman on NY Stock Exchange
Kiersey Clemons is headed to Wall Street. The “Transparent” actress has signed on to portray Lauren Simmons, the youngest woman in the history of the New York Stock Exchange and the...
Apply Now: Birds Eye View Future Leaders in Distribution Program
Listen up, UK-based female distribution executives: Birds Eye View wants to support you in breaking through the glass ceiling of the distribution sector. ScreenDaily reports that the gender equality...
Hope, Solidarity, and Support at TheWrap’s Power Women Summit
No matter the results of today’s election, I have a good feeling about the future of feminism and inclusion thanks to TheWrap’s inaugural Power Women Summit. Held November 1 and 2, the...
WeForShe Names 2018 DirectHer Program Participants
WeForShe has announced the participants for this year’s DirectHer Program. The nine female directors will pair up with seasoned TV directors, who will guarantee the participants’ work on...
Rome Film Festival Signs Gender Parity Pledge
Rome Film Festival has followed in the footsteps of fests such as Cannes, Venice, and TIFF by signing a gender parity pledge. Introduced at Cannes earlier this year, the Pledge is a way to hold...
Quote of the Day: Shonda Rhimes on Why Women Should Brag
Thanks to Imposter Syndrome, the societal expectation that they be humble and polite, and the patriarchy’s general dismissal of their accomplishments, women can find it hard, even distasteful,...
Melora Walters’ “Waterlily Jaguar” to Open DTLA Fest, Feature Lineup Is 68% Women-Directed
The 10th Annual DTLA Film Festival promises to be a memorable one for women filmmakers. A press release has announced that the fest will screen 30 features, 68 percent of which are from women...
Tribeca Announces Through Her Lens’ 2018 Participants
Tribeca Film Festival and Chanel have partnered once again for Through Her Lens: The Tribeca Chanel Women’s Filmmaker Program. A mentorship program “created to provide a balance of...
Martha Plimpton on How Non-Profit A is For Goes to Bat for Reproductive Rights
Six years ago, Emmy-winning and Tony-nominated actress Martha Plimpton co-founded A is For, a non-profit dedicated to advancing women’s reproductive rights and ending the stigma against abortion...
DGA Report: Women-Directed Eps Up 14% in 2017-18, POC-Directed Eps Stagnant
The good news: women directed 25 percent of all TV episodes in the 2017-18 season and people of color helmed 24 percent, up from last year’s 21 and 22, respectively. The bad news: in terms of...
Keira Knightley and More to Celebrate Women in Film with London Fest Group Photo
About 70 women in the film industry are expected to gather at the London Film Festival (LFF) Friday in celebration of the contributions women have made in the field. According to The Guardian,...
New Study Finds Women-Driven Superhero and Sci-Fi Stories Empower Girls
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: representation matters. A major reason — if not the major reason — “Wonder Woman” and “Hidden Figures” are...
A Year of Reckoning in Hollywood
I’m not going to say his name because he doesn’t deserve shit. He was one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood, and now he’s one of the most reviled men in the business...
Upcoming Docuseries “Ink & Paint” Will Spotlight Unrecognized Women of Disney Animation
The New York Times has been writing better-late-than-never obits for some of history’s most notable, yet previously ignored, women. Now Deadline reports that Disney is set to give its...
Trailer Watch: RBG Uses Her Anger to Reform the Law in “On the Basis of Sex”
“One interviewer told me they hired a woman last year and what in the world would they want with two of us?” an exasperated young Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Felicity Jones) tells a mentor in...
Join Women and Hollywood for a #MeToo Panel Discussion at Hamptons Film Fest
The Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) is commemorating the #MeToo movement. It’s been nearly a year since the Harvey Weinstein stories broke and #MeToo became part of our everyday...
#TimesUp Names Lisa Borders as President and CEO
#TimesUp has locked in its first-ever President and CEO. Former WNBA President Lisa Borders will take on the position effective November 1. A press release announcing the news emphasized that the...
Emma Watson Pens Letter to Woman Who Died Due to Ireland’s Anti-Abortion Law: “Rest in Power”
In 2012 Savita Halappanavar died in Ireland after suffering a septic miscarriage. The 31-year-old Indian-born dentist was under medical supervision for seven days and could have survived had doctors...
ReFrame Is Accepting TV Submissions for Gender Equality Stamp
Having already bestowed its stamp of approval to 34 films, ReFrame is now setting its sights on the television landscape. According to The Hollywood Reporter, ReFrame is asking for TV submissions for...
Poland’s Gdynia Film Festival Takes the Gender Parity Pledge
Poland’s Gdynia Film Festival is the latest fest to sign the 5050×2020 Pledge for Gender Parity, Variety reports. The pledge — which was signed Friday by Gdynia general director...
The Met Is Finally Commissioning Operas by Women
Today in this-is-2018-WTF?! news, the Metropolitan Opera has announced several new ventures intended to draw in audiences, including commissioning women to write operas for the first time ever. Yep,...
France Launches Financial Incentives for Productions with Gender Parity
France is launching a state funding bonus for productions in which the director and key crew members are women, ScreenDaily reports. Earlier this year the country’s — and arguably...
Women and Hollywood Is Here for Your Consulting Needs
Over the last decade Women and Hollywood has created a community of people dedicated to supporting content created by and about women. Our community includes press, influencers, activists,...
Foreign-Language Oscar Picks: Indonesia Selects “Marlina the Murderer,” Lebanon “Capernaum”
Another two women-directed films have been selected for the foreign-language Oscar race. Indonesia has chosen Mouly Surya’s “Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts” as its submission...
International Documentary Association Awards $850,000 to Journalistic Documentaries
Documentary filmmaking is all the more important in the era of “fake news.” So the fact that the International Documentary Association (IDA) has announced a cohort of 12 films that will...
San Sebastian Festival Expected to Sign Gender Parity Pledge
Yet another major festival is set to sign a gender parity pledge. Following the lead of Cannes, Venice, TIFF, and IDFA, among others, Spain’s San Sebastian Festival is expected to sign the...
Emmys 2018: Amy Sherman-Palladino Makes History and Hannah Gadsby Calls Out #NotAllMen
“Gilmore Girls” was repeatedly and egregiously snubbed by the Emmys, but show creator Amy Sherman-Palladino finally got the last laugh. Her latest series, “The Marvelous Mrs....
IDFA Signs the 5050×2020 Pledge for Gender Parity and Inclusion
The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) has taken the 5050×2020 Pledge for Gender Parity and Inclusion in Film Festivals two months ahead of its 31st edition. By signing...
Research: Losses for Women Onscreen and Off in 2017-18 TV Season
Despite the premieres of series such as “Vida,” “She’s Gotta Have It,” “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” and “Killing Eve,” the 2018-17 TV season...
TIFF Becomes Latest Fest to Sign the Gender Parity Pledge
Women and Hollywood — alongside 5050×2020, Le Deuxieme Regard, and TIME’S UP — is excited to report that the Toronto International Film Festival has signed the Gender Parity Pledge....
Study: Women Wrote Only 21% of Reviews on 2015-17’s Top Films, POC Just 17%
A new study from Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative shows that, unfortunately, the severe underrepresentation of women critics and critics of color found in...
Director Jacques Audiard Speaks Out About Gender Inequality at Fests
French filmmaker Jacques Audiard is speaking out on behalf of his female peers. Rather than standing idly by as women fight for better representation at fests, the director is using his voice to add...
BIFA Holding Mandatory Unconscious Bias Training Ahead of 2018 Awards
The British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) is addressing its own prejudices. Screen Daily reports that the organization is requiring its voters to complete unconscious bias training before its 2018...
Female UK Playwrights Call for More Women-Written Plays to Be Commissioned, Included in Canon
Charlotte Jones, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Tanika Gupta, and more playwrights are calling time’s up on UK theater’s exclusion of women writers. According to The Stage, they are demanding...
“Crazy Rich Asians” & “The Wife” Among 22 Films to Receive ReFrame’s Gender Equality Stamp
ReFrame has bestowed its stamp of approval to 22 more films. Introduced earlier this summer, the stamp is given to films and TV projects that hire female-identifying individuals on both sides of the...
Amidst Backlash Over Lack of Women Directors, Venice Film Fest Signs Gender Parity Pledge
The Venice Film Festival is finally taking tangible steps toward gender equality. The festival signed the 5050×2020 Pledge yesterday, in spite of Artistic Director Alberto Barbera previously...
Quote of the Day: Guillermo del Toro Says Important Voices in the Biz Aren’t Being Heard
Guillermo del Toro is speaking out about the sexism plaguing the film industry. “I think the goal has to be 50-50 by 2020. If it’s 50-50 by 2019, that’s even better,” he said, referring...
BBC America & Women’s Media Center Team Up to Increase Women’s Onscreen Representation
BBC America and Women’s Media Center (WMC) are working together to improve the media’s depictions of women. A press release has announced that the TV network and the feminist organization...
Camden International Film Fest’s 2018 Lineup Is Over 50% Women-Directed
This year’s Camden International Film Festival (CIFF) promises to be a good one for women filmmakers. According to a press release, the documentary fest boasts full gender parity among its...
Forbes’ Highest-Paid Actresses 2018: Scarlett Johansson Is No. 1, Gal Gadot Makes the Cut
Black Widow is kicking ass all the way to the bank. Forbes has published its World’s Highest-Paid Actresses list of 2018 with “Avengers” mainstay Scarlett Johansson at the top. The...
Quote of the Day: Rachel Brosnahan on Why “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Resonates Today
It’s tempting to look at the world of the ’50s-set “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and tell ourselves that the world is a different place for women now. It is and it isn’t....
Sarajevo Film Festival Signs 5050×2020 Pledge
The Sarajevo Film Festival has followed Cannes, Annecy, and Locarno’s lead and officially committed to gender equality among its filmmakers and leadership. Fest director Mirsad Purivatra...
Quotes of the Day: Sarah Paulson and Sandra Oh Reflect on How Roles for Women Have Changed
Sarah Paulson and Sandra Oh joined forces to talk about how far Hollywood has come — and how far it has to go — for a feature in Variety. Both are up for an Emmy Award this year —...
EWA Pens Open Letter to Venice Film Festival About Lack of Women Directors
European Women’s Audiovisual Network (EWA) has shared an open letter to Paolo Baratta, President of the Venice Biennale, about the lack of women-directed films screening in Venice International...
TIFF Announces Sisters March to Spotlight “Systemic Inequality”
The Toronto International Film Festival is rallying the troops. The fest announced that a rally will be held during its upcoming 43rd edition, a sisters march intended to spotlight “systemic...
Severely Gender Imbalanced Venice Fest Will Screen a Dude’s Doc About Women in Film
In news that could either be an attempt to rectify its exclusion of women directors or a simple fuck-you, Venice Film Festival is premiering the first four hours of an epic 16-hour doc about women...
Locarno Fest to Sign Pledge for Parity and Inclusion
Locarno Festival is committing to change. A press release from the Switzerland-based fest announced that President Marco Solari and Vice President Carla Speziali will sign the Programming Pledge for...
WGA West Survey: 64% of Female Writers Have Encountered Workplace Sexual Harassment
A month after WGA East released the findings of a sexual harassment survey given to its members, its sister union, WGA West, has published the results of its own survey. Unfortunately, the West...