#Women Writers
Weekly Update April 5: Women-Centric, Directed and Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend Free Angela and All Political Prisoners – Directed by Shola Lynch (doc) Review from the Toronto Film Festival: Sunday, a bit of history was explored...
Award Winning Screenwriter and Novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Dies
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, an Oscar winning screenwriter and celebrated novelist, has died at the age of 85 from complications caused from a pulmonary condition. Jhabvala was a prolific writer. She wrote...
Playwright’s Horizons Stands Up and For Women Playwrights
Playwright’s Horizons, one of the most important institutions that supports new plays and musicals, has announced it’s upcoming season and it is full of women. Five of the six plays...
New Trailer: The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones – Written by I. Marlene King and Jessica Postigo
Based on the YA series by Cassandra Clare, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones follows Clary Fray (Lilly Collins), your typical teenage girl until she finds out she’s not so typical. After...
Watch This: Amy Poehler Interviews Irma Kalish – Pioneer Comedy Writer
For her super smart web series for girls, Smart Girls at the Party, Amy Poehler interviews Irma Kalish, a pioneer female comedy writer, who wrote for iconic shows such as Good Times, All in the...
Weekly Update March 29: Women-Centric, Directed, Written Movies Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend The Host From Stephenie Meyer (author of the Twilight Saga) comes “The Host,” a love story set in the future, where earth is occupied by a species...
Hall of Shame – The Producers of Dr. Who
Building on the report that the US Writer’s Guild recently released about the lack of momentum in increading women writers on US based TV shows, there has been a bit of a brouhaha over the...
WGA Releases Annual Writing Report And Women Make Small Progress
The Writers Guild West released its annual diversity report on the status of women, minority and older writers. Hollywood continues to make incremental, pathetic, baby steps towards diversity....
Peabody Award Winners Include Switched At Birth, Girls, Southland
The Peabody Awards announced the winners for their 72nd annual awards. The Peabody Awards recognize “distinguished achievement and meritorious service by broadcasters, cable and Webcasters,...
Women Written Pilots Roundup
As pilot season continues to pick up, we wanted to bring to your attention a couple of more women-written and women centric pilots that are getting some excellent talent attached to them. Annie...
Interview with Karen Croner – Writer of Admission
Women and Hollywood: I read that you started in the documentary world? Can you talk about how you shifted into writing? Karen Croner: When I first started writing, I was very interested in true...
Weekly Update March 22: Women-Centric, Directed, Written Movies Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend Admission – Written by Karen Croner Comedies today seem to always go for the broadest, raunchiest laughs. The audience is not trusted to get the...
Admission Gives Us Some Real Feminism On Screen
Comedies today seem to always go for the broadest, raunchiest laughs. The audience is not trusted to get the comedic nuances in everyday life. That is not the case with the new film...
Guest Post: Screenplay Design with Diane Drake
Diane Drake is a professional screenwriter, creative consultant, and screenwriting instructor with the UCLA Extension Writer’s Program. Her produced original screenplays include Only You,...
Watch This: Awkward Season 3 – Created by Lauren Iungerich
Awkward is hands down one of the best teen shows airing right now. Created by Lauren Iungerich, the show follows Jenna (Ashley Rickards), an unpopular girl, who gains sudden notoriety after an...
Interview with Katrin Benedikt – Co-Writer of Olympus Has Fallen
Hollywood is such a crazy place that this year there are two films that focus on the White House being taken over. The first one out of the gate is Olympus Has Fallen starring the terrific...
Annie Baker Wins Susan Smith Blackburn Prize
Annie Baker has won the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for her play, The Flick, an exploration of love, friendships and work. New York Times theater critic, Charles Isherwood spoke highly...
movieScope Launches Women in Film Issue
In super cool news, movieScope, a magazine looking at the film industry, has launched their inaugural Women in Film issue. The 64 page, March/April 2013 issue will look at women working in all...
Weekly Update March 15: Women-Centric, Directed, Written Movies Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend Ginger and Rosa – Directed by Sally Potter After the dust settles, Ginger and Rosa is going to turn out to be one of my the highlights of...
Tribeca Film Festival Announces Lineup Pt. 2: Women Writers
We previously focused on women-directed films in the Tribeca Film Festival lineup. There are also a huge number of women-written or co-written scripts at the festival, so we wanted to highlight their...
Weekly Update March 8: Women-Centric, Directed, Written Movies Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend Electrick Children – Written and Directed by Rebecca Thomas Rachel is a rambunctious teenager from a fundamentalist Mormon family in Utah. On...
Trailer Watch: Frances Ha – Co-Written by and Starring Greta Gerwig
Check out the trailer for Frances Ha starring (and co-written by) Greta Gerwig and directed by Noah Baumbach. The film is about a young woman living in New York who is an aspiring...
Trailer Watch: What Maisie Knew Co-Written by Nancy Doyne
Based on the acclaimed Henry James novella, What Maisie Knew focuses on a young girl, Maisie (Onata Aprile) who is caught in between the bitter divorce of her parents (Julianne Moore and Steve...
Weekly Update March 1: Women-Centric, Directed, Written Movies Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Weekend Stoker – Starring Mia Wasikowska and Nicole Kidman Director Park Chan-Wook’s first English language film (fitting in well with his revenge trilogy...
6 of WGA’s 101 Greatest Screenplays Written by Women
Another list and with that another sad feeling about women being underrepresented in film. This time around it’s the Writers Guild of America’s 101 Greatest Screenplays. The list has many...
Emily Spivey Signs Deal with 20th Century Fox TV
Emily Spivey has signed a two year overall deal with 20th Century Fox Television. Spivey recently left the NBC sitcom, Up All Night, which she created. The ongoing mess, of Up All Night continues...
Weekly Update February 22: Women-Centric, Directed, Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Currently Playing Beautiful Creatures Lore – Directed by Cate Shortland Side Effects Mama Zero Dark Thirty – Directed by Kathryn Bigelow Rust and...
Barbara Hall Joining Homeland as Co-Executive Producer
Homeland showrunner Alex Gansa has picked the woman (hopefully she won't be the only woman) to replace Meredith Stiehm who last year was the lone woman writer on staff. Stiehm left to work on...
The 2013 Writers Guild Awards
At the annual Writers Guild Award’s, women writers did well this year — in television. Film, not so much. Lena Dunham’s Girls won best new series, one of Mad Men’s best...
Weekly Update February 15: Women-Centric, Directed, Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Beautiful Creatures Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich) longs to escape his small Southern town. He meets a mysterious new girl, Lena (Alice Englert). Together, they...
WGA Awards to Hold Tribute to Nora Ephron
On Sunday, February 17, the Writer’s Guild of America, East will hold their annual awards ceremony. They’ve just announced that included in the ceremony will be a tribute to Nora Ephron,...
SXSW Adds More Women Directed Films to Schedule
SXSW has announced another round of films to their lineup, adding more films directed by women. They have also added many films written by women, such as Sundance favorite The East, co-written and...
Weekly Update: Women-Centric, Directed, Written Films Playing Near You
Films About Women Opening This Week Side Effects Emily (Rooney Mara) and Martin (Channing Tatum) are a successful New York couple whose world unravels when a new drug prescribed by Emily's...
Melissa McCarthy Developing Three New Films and Directing Tammy
The very funny Melissa McCarthy announced three movies that she and her writing partner/husband, Ben Falcone will be developing with their production company, On the Day. They have also signed on to...
Athena Co-Chair Diablo Cody Helps Kicks Off The Athena Film Festival Tonight
As we here at Women and Hollywood gear up for the Athena Film Festival starting tonight at Barnard College, we are so excited and thankful for the press that has been circulating about the festival....
SXSW Line Up: Not Great for Women Directors
Fresh on the heels of Sundance is SXSW’s film line up. While there are some awesome women-directed films featured such as Sini Anderson's documentary, The Punk Singer, about Kathleen Hanna,...
2013 Women-Created TV Pilots
It’s prime pilot season for the networks. After all the news that’s been coming out in the last six months or so about women-created shows, we wanted to see how that’s holding up...
Countdown to 2014: Amy Poehler is Writing a Book
Get your phone alerts ready, Amy Poehler is writing a book that will drop in 2014. This should also be known as your new favorite book of all time. Poehler signed with It Books, an imprint of Harper...
For the First Time Women are the Majority on Berlin Film Festival Competition Jury
The 2013 Berlin International Film Festival announced this year’s competition jury. In a first for the festival, women are the majority of the voting body—comprising 4 of the 7 jury...
Jill Soloway and Lake Bell Take Home Major Awards at 2013 Sundance Feature Film Awards
Sundance wrapped up over the weekend and announced their 2013 Film Awards. Women filmmakers took away some of the bigger prizes of the festival including Jill Soloway winning the directing award for...
Noemie Lvosky Receives 13 Nominations for France’s Cesar Awards
The nominations for France’s César Awards were announced and women, specifically one in general, are dominant. Noémie Lvovsky received 13 nominations for her film, Camille...
Women-Created, Sitcom Voices Silenced: Apartment 23 and Ben and Kate Pulled From Line Up
This was a sad week in television for me. Two of my favorite sitcoms, Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23 and Ben and Kate were pulled from ABC and Fox’s schedules effective immediately. As...
Sundance Diary Part One: Mother of George and After Tiller
I arrived in Sundance on Friday morning totally freaked out about the Sundance flu and the cold. But now I'm on day 2 and so far so good. I hear there are people stuck in their hotels...
Anticipating Sundance: Using Sundance to Shift the Narrative on Women Directors
I am heading to Sundance for the first time. I am looking forward to seeing a bunch of women directed movies over the next couple of days. There are also several women's events...
Abi Morgan to Adapt ‘Taming of the Shrew,’ Anne Hathaway to Star
Brit Abi Morgan is taking on the master and adapting Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. Morgan, who created the BBC series The Hour and has written Shame and The Iron Lady, is supremely...
Anticipating Sundance: Sundance Lineup is a Win for Women Directors and for Everybody Who Cares About Movies
This post was originally published on November 29, 2012. For the last couple of years (the time that I have written this blog) I have lived in a world full of disappointment when it comes to...
Lucy Alibar and Doris Kearns Goodwin Nominated for USC Scripter Award
USC announced their 2013 Scripter award nominees this week. The Scripter award celebrates both the screenwriter and the author of the original text that the film was adapted from. This year, due to a...
Watch This: New Trailer for Athena Film Festival – February 7-10
Check out the new trailer for the Athena Film Festival (co-founded by our own Melissa Silverstein), hosted at Barnard College, on February 7-10. The new trailer incorporates clips from the films...
Why Girls Still Matters in Season 2
Last night was a huge lady-centric night for television with the delightful Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hosting the Golden Globes, the premiere of season two of the criminally underwatched Enlightened...
Good and Bad Surprises Come with 2013 Oscar Nominations
Oscar nominations were announced this morning and per usual there were the surprises, both of the good and bad variety. Nine year old Quvenzhané Wallis becomes the youngest Best Actress...
Interview with Callie Khouri – Creator of Nashville
Women and Hollywood is a big fan of Nashville (we love Connie Britton) and Callie Khouri. We were excited to get an opportunity to talk with Ms. Khouri as the show returns with a new episode...