#Women Directors
Naomi Watts Will Topline and Produce Malgorzata Szumowska’s Survival Story “Infinite Storm”
Malgorzata Szumowska is eyeing an Oscar nomination for “Never Gonna Snow Again,” Poland’s pick for Best International Feature at this year’s Academy Awards, and now word comes...
Oscars 2021 International Feature Contenders: Meet Zaida Bergroth – “Tove”
Zaida Bergroth is a Finnish director and screenwriter. Her films include 2019’s “Maria’s Paradise” and 2017’s “Miami.” Her film “Skavabölen Pojat” (“Last Cowboy...
Céline Cousteau on “Tribes on the Edge,” Her Doc About Indigenous Peoples Protecting Their Land and Lives
Céline Cousteau is a humanitarian and environmental activist working with a variety of media, ranging from documentaries to art, from consulting with corporations and foundations, to public...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Kristina Lindström – “The Most Beautiful Boy in the World”
Kristina Lindström is a filmmaker, journalist, and author. She has directed highly acclaimed documentaries including “Astrid Lindgren;” “Palme” with Maud Nycander, awarded two Guldbagge...
Sundance Deal: Jamila Wignot’s Alvin Ailey Doc “Ailey” Goes to Neon
Jamila Wignot’s portrait of iconic dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey has found a home. Following its world premiere at Sundance this weekend, Neon acquired “Ailey,” a documentary...
Lena Dunham & Julia von Heinz Team Up for “Iron Box,” a Drama Exploring the Legacy of the Holocaust
Julia von Heinz has lined up her next project. The German filmmaker will follow up Oscar hopeful “And Tomorrow the Entire World” with “Iron Box,” a family drama set to star...
Jennifer Lopez Will Topline and Produce “The Mother” at Netflix, Niki Caro in Talks to Direct
Jennifer Lopez may be teaming up with another woman director. The multi-hyphenate collaborated with Lorene Scafaria on 2019’s “Hustlers,” and her upcoming film slate includes Kat...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Debbie Lum – “Try Harder!”
Debbie Lum is an award-winning filmmaker whose projects give voice to the Asian American experience and other unsung stories. “Seeking Asian Female,” her feature-length directing debut,...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt – “Cusp”
Parker Hill’s thesis film, “One Good Pitch,” premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. Her short films “Homing In” and “Sanderson to Brackettville” have...
February 2021 Film Preview
By Kara Headley and Vicki A. Lee This is the first Black History Month since the tragic deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others sparked a new wave of activism in the Black Lives...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Natalia Almada – “Users”
Natalia Almada is the recipient of the 2012 MacArthur Genius Award. Her directing credits include “Al Otro Lado” (2005 Tribeca Film Festival), “El General” (2009 Sundance Film...
Siân Heder’s “CODA” Scores Record-Breaking $25 Million Apple Deal Out of Sundance
“CODA” has set a record at Sundance Film Festival. The worldwide rights to Siân Heder’s coming-of-age drama were acquired by Apple “for a number just north of $25 million,”...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Marilyn Agrelo – “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street”
Marilyn Agrelo’s directorial debut, “Mad Hot Ballroom,” enjoyed a theatrical run of 24 weeks and became the 25th highest-grossing documentary film. A Broadway version is currently in...
Watch: News Anchors Downplay COVID-19 in Chilling Clip of Nanfu Wang’s “In the Same Breath”
“Eight people were punished for spreading rumors about an unknown pneumonia,” various anchors tell us over and over again, sharing a January 1, 2020 announcement from the Wuhan police....
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Betsy West and Julie Cohen – “My Name is Pauli Murray”
Betsy West is the Academy Award-nominated director and producer of “RBG” along with Julie Cohen. She is a 21-time Emmy Award winner for her work as an ABC News producer and executive...
Claire Foy Will Topline Gillian Robespierre’s Adaptation of “The Pisces”
Claire Foy’s next project is taking her very far from Buckingham Palace indeed. The Emmy winner is following up her cameo in the latest season of “The Crown” with an adaptation of...
Pick of the Day: “True Mothers”
A sensitive and nuanced exploration of motherhood and adoption, Naomi Kawase’s “True Mothers” tells the story of two women whose lives collide. We’re first introduced to...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Nikole Beckwith – “Together Together”
Writer and director Nikole Beckwith made her feature film debut at Sundance 2015 with “Stockholm, Pennsylvania,” which earned her a Nicholl Fellowship, Satellite Award, Women’s Image Award, and...
Pick of the Day: “The Long Song”
Being stolen from her mother as a young girl, being renamed “Marguerite” against her will, and deciding whether having a child of her own is worth bringing another soul into bondage are...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Rintu Thomas – “Writing with Fire”
Rintu Thomas is an independent documentary director-producer based in New Delhi, India. She is a 2018 Sundance Institute, Bertha Foundation Fellow, and a 2019 Sundance Stories of Change Fellow. A...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Salomé Jashi – “Taming the Garden”
Salomé Jashi was born in Tbilisi, Georgia. Her documentary “The Dazzling Light of Sunset” was awarded the Main Prize at Visions du Réel’s Regard Neuf Competition as well as at ZagrebDox,...
Nicole Kidman to Adapt Norwegian Oscar Hopeful “Hope” with Amazon
Norway’s submission to the Best International Film category at the 2021 Academy Awards is being adapted into an Amazon series thanks to a Hollywood heavyweight. Nicole Kidman is bringing Maria...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Jamila Wignot – “Ailey”
Jamila Wignot is a documentary filmmaker whose directing work includes the Peabody, Emmy, and NAACP award-winning series “The African-Americans: Many Rivers to Cross” (PBS), hosted by...
Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter” Lands at A24, Tilda Swinton Stars
A24 has scored worldwide rights to Tilda Swinton and Joanna Hogg’s latest collaboration, “The Eternal Daughter.” Screen Daily confirmed the news. Shot in secret in Wales, the drama...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Siân Heder – “CODA”
Siân Heder is a writer, director, and showrunner. She wrote and produced three seasons of the acclaimed Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black,” receiving multiple WGA nominations for her work....
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Erin Vassilopoulos – “Superior”
Erin Vassilopoulos is a New York-based filmmaker whose short films have screened at Sundance, the Berlinale, BFI London Film Festival, and Tribeca. Her directorial feature debut, “Superior,”...
Trailer Watch: Deirdre Fishel’s New Doc Follows Four “Women in Blue”
The Minneapolis police department has repeatedly made national headlines since spring 2020, when George Floyd was murdered at the hands of law enforcement. Deirdre Fishel’s new documentary,...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Maisie Crow – “At the Ready”
Maisie Crow is a documentary film director, cinematographer, and photographer. “Jackson,” Crow’s documentary exploring both sides of the reproductive health care debate in the Deep...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Karen Cinorre – “Mayday”
Karen Cinorre is a writer/director whose work has shown internationally at such venues as the New York Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, and Opera Centrum Amsterdam. She’s currently...
Eva Longoria, Catherine Hardwicke, Cara Delevingne, & More Team Up for “Women’s Stories” Anthology
Eva Longoria, Catherine Hardwicke, Cara Delevingne, and Marcia Gay Harden are set to tell “Women’s Stories.” The anthology film will be made up of six vignettes starring and directed by...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Mariem Pérez Riera – “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It”
Mariem Pérez Riera’s first documentary, “Cuando lo pequeño se hace grande,” about the Puerto Ricans who fought against the U.S. Navy presence in the island of Vieques, was...
Sundance 2021 Preview: Tributes to Rita Moreno & Pauli Murray, a Queer Romance, “Passing,” & More
Newly reimagined thanks to COVID-19, this year’s edition of Sundance Film Festival is just around the corner. With nearly 50 percent of features directed or co-directed by women, there are...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Sally Aitken – “Playing with Sharks”
Sally Aitken is an Emmy-nominated director and writer, and showrunner of multiple international series. Her award-winning work includes the Camera d’Or-nominated feature documentary “A...
Pick of the Day: “A Woman’s Work: The NFL’s Cheerleader Problem”
Described by director Yu Gu as being at the “intersection of several worlds, including football, women’s rights, and labor rights,” “A Woman’s Work: The NFL’s Cheerleader Problem” sees...
Michelle Williams Reteams with Kelly Reichardt for “Showing Up”
Michelle Williams and Kelly Reichardt are set to make their fourth feature together. Deadline reports that the frequent collaborators are reuniting for A24 title “Showing Up.” Penned by...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Marion Hill – “Ma Belle, My Beauty”
Marion Hill (she/they) is a New Orleans-based director with roots in Vietnam, England, and France. Her direction of the camera is devoted to the nuances of femme power, queer sensibility, and radical...
“Never Rarely Sometimes Always” Leads 2021 Film Independent Spirit Award Nominations
“Never Rarely Sometimes Always'” long list of accolades is growing. Already the winner of the Berlinale’s Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. Dramatic...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Kate Tsang – “Marvelous and the Black Hole”
Kate Tsang is an artist, filmmaker, and Emmy-nominated writer. Tsang’s award-winning shorts have been watched by millions online and broadcast nationally on PBS. Her most notable works are...
Misha Green to Write and Direct “Tomb Raider” Sequel
After tackling secret societies, ghosts, and amorphous blobs in Season 1 of “Lovecraft Country,” creator and showrunner Misha Green has signed on to another genre project. The...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Zoe Lister-Jones – “How It Ends”
Zoe Lister-Jones is an actor, writer, director and producer. She recently wrote, directed, and produced “The Craft: Legacy.” Lister-Jones made her directorial debut with “Band Aid,” which...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Frida Kempff – “Knocking”
Frida Kempff’s films have been screened and awarded at festivals including Cannes, Sundance, Telluride, IDFA, London Film Festival, and Gothenburg. In 2010 she won Cannes’ Jury Prize for...
Chloé Zhao Wins Palm Springs Film Fest’s Director of the Year Award, Is the First Woman to Win the Honor
We’re expecting Chloé Zhao to make history as the sixth woman to receive a nod for Best Director when Oscar nominations are announced March 15 — and are hoping she’s joined by...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Carlson Young – “The Blazing World”
Carlson Young’s first short film, “The Blazing World,” premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Also an actor, she has appeared in “Scream: The TV Series,” “Key...
Sundance 2021 Women Directors: Meet Prano Bailey-Bond – “Censor”
Prano Bailey-Bond is a Welsh director and screenwriter. Commissioned by Film4 to direct an episode of their Halloween focused “Fright Bites,” Bailey-Bond’s short...
Michelle Pfeiffer Will Play Betty Ford in Showtime’s “The First Lady” Series, Susanne Bier Directing
Michelle Pfeiffer and Susanne Bier are teaming up to bring Betty Ford’s story to the small screen. The Oscar-nominated actress and Oscar-winning Danish director will join Viola Davis in...
Pick of the Day: “Identifying Features”
There is no shortage of disturbing images in “Identifying Features,” Fernanda Valadez’s poetic tale of family, violence, and migration. We see an eyeball being operated upon and the...
Trailer Watch: A Jehovah’s Witness Has a Crisis of Faith in Oscar Hopeful “Beginning”
A Jehovah’s Witness reckons with an extremist attack and a crisis of faith in “Beginning,” writer-director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s feature debut. A trailer has arrived for the...
Black Film Critics Circle Winners: “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “One Night in Miami,” & More
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” has been named Best Film of the Year by the Black Film Critics Circle Awards (BFCC). The Netflix drama about the titular blues singer took home a number...
Stephanie Soechtig to Direct Food Safety Doc “Poisoned”
Stephanie Soechtig is uncovering more grim details about the food industry. She examined the effects of bottled water on climate change and pollution in 2009’s “Tapped” and the...
Trailer Watch: “Strip Down, Rise Up” Celebrates the Power of Pole Dance
“Pole can be so many things to so many different people,” we’re told in a new trailer for “Strip Down, Rise Up.” Michèle Ohayon’s vérité documentary follows...
Rachel Givney’s Jane Austen-Inspired Novel “Jane in Love” Headed for the Big Screen
Jane Austen is set to anchor her own love story. Di Novi Pictures and Amazon Studios have acquired Rachel Givney’s novel “Jane in Love” with plans for a feature adaptation....