Academy Award-nominated producer and documentary filmmaker Jessica Sanders has turned her lens towards female directors, and the results are glorious. The activist has assembled a group of twenty emerging female filmmakers from around the globe for a new short film, “Fox Directors.”
The project is a collaboration with Refinery29 and Fox’s inaugural Global Directing Initiative: The women featured in the short also participated in the directors’ lab — including Sanders herself. Women and Hollywood nominated two of the filmmakers who took part in the Initiative, Meera Menon (“Equity”) and Susan Youssef (“Habibi”).
The short seeks to redefine “what a director looks like” — it’s not just white men who sit in directors chairs (though a disproportionate number of them do). A press release reads, “In light of the ongoing initiatives and conversations about the unequal hiring practices and lack of opportunities for female filmmakers in Hollywood, Sanders’ piece serves to engage, educate, and support inclusive filmmaking with so many talented voices and films that the world needs to know about and see.” Women accounted for only 9 percent of directors on the top 250 highest-grossing films of 2015.
“Fox Directors” features the Fox Initiative directors discussing their projects, filmmaking styles, and career trajectories. “My work has always been about intimacy,” says “Echo Park” helmer Amanda Marsalis. I really like the things that people say and do when they don’t think people are watching.” Youssef shares, “I’ll never forget my parents saying to me, ‘There’s no place in Hollywood for an Arab girl.’”
Sanders’ directing credits include Sundance winner “After Innocence” and “March of The Living.” She received an Oscar nomination for her work as a producer on “Sing,” a doc short about a children’s chorus.
Check out “Fox Directors” below, as well as a list of all of the directors seen in the short, courtesy of a press release.
- Jennifer Arnold — “The Diplomat,” “TableTop”
- Shaz Bennett — “Alaska Is a Drag,” “Top of the Circle”
- Bert & Bertie — “Worm,” “Random Acts: Big Dance 2014”
- Gabriela Cowperthwaite — “Blackfish,” “City Lax: An Urban Lacrosse Story”
- Marta Cunningham — “Valentine Road”
- Cherien Dabis — “May in the Summer,” “Amreeka”
- Hannah Fidell — “A Teacher,” “We’re Glad You’re Here”
- Sydney Freeland — “Drunktown’s Finest”
- Rachel Lee Goldenberg — “Love at the Christmas Table,” “Escape from Polygamy”
- Steph Green — “Run & Jump,” “New Boy”
- Maggie Kiley — “Dial a Prayer,” “Brightest Star”
- Kimberly Levin — “Runoff”
- Isidora Maras — “I Am Not Lorena”
- Anja Marquardt — “She’s Lost Control”
- Amanda Marsalis — “Echo Park”
- Catalina Aguilar Mastretta — “The Hours With You”
- Meera Menon — “Farah Goes Bang”
- Vanessa Parise — “The Wedding Chapel,” “ Jack and Jill vs. the World”
- Jessica Sanders — “After Innocence,” “March of the Living,” “Bunion”
- Susan Youssef — “Habibi Rasak Kharban”
