News
Liz Garbus takes a well worn subject — Marilyn Monroe — and brings a whole new substance and understanding to this woman through her own words. Using material that has never before...
Yesterday was a good day with the Sundance numbers news. But we were reminded not to get overexcited about those numbers since women directors only made up 17% of the worldwide competition and...
Smash creator and former showrunner, Theresa Rebeck recently revealed some of the reasons why she stepped down as showrunner in March (replaced by Gossip Girl’s Josh Safran). Mind you...
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 film festivals which you can also extrapolate to a world full of...
Women Make Movies, an incredible New York based non-profit that supports and distributes women directed documentaries from around the world, is one of the 25 finalists for the 2012 American Giving...
Stacie Passon has had a big couple of weeks. First on November 20 she won this year’s IFP Labs/Adrienne Shelly Foundation Director’s Grant for her film Concussion at the...
The third annual Athena Film Festival, co-founded by our own Melissa Silverstein, has announced the recipients for this year’s Athena Film Festival Awards, which honor actors, directors,...
Features
Last week, The Hollywood Reporter released their annual Actress Roundtable issue. This year the list was all white and included Sally Field, Anne Hathaway, Naomi Watts, Marion Cotillard, Helen Hunt,...
The 28th Annual Film Independent Spirit Award nominees were announced yesterday. And while some of the results are less than stellar (zero women directed films for best feature (seriously!), no women...
We saw Susanne Biers' follow-up film to her Academy Award winning In a Better World at the 2012 Toronto Film Festival where we interviewed the director. Here is a new trailer. As of...
Kathryn Bigelow talked with Martha Raddatz of ABC News about the making of her new film Zero Dark Thirty. Bigelow and screenwriter, Mark Boal, discussed how the project originally focusing...
Kale and dust. Hummus and radishes. Two squares of dried oatmeal paste a day. If you recognize any of these phrases, then you've probably been hit by the Anne Hathaway...
We have another contender to add into the post-Twilight YA film adaptation pool. This time it's Cassandra Clare's insanely popular The Mortal Instruments series. Adapted by Pretty Little...
Right after Thanksgiving Kathryn Bigelow's long awaited follow-up to her Oscar award winning film The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty (which I will see next week) started screening and the word has...
Capote. Ray. Malcolm X. Nixon. Milk. Ali. Chaplin. Do these ring a bell? They are the names of famous politicians, filmmakers, activists, authors and athletes who inspired biopics that were...
Wake up and smell the latte. Opportunity knocks all over the world, and the common passport is talent. We live in an era where casting directors can cast internationally from their own laptops and...
Geena Davis's commitment to gender in the media is truly inspiring. See Jane, an affiliated program with her Institute on Gender in the Media, focuses specifically on making sure that...
The Heat, written by Katie Dippold and directed by Bridesmaids director Paul Feig brings together two stars Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock as a tough Boston cop and uptight FBI agent...
We’re constantly striving to push ourselves further. When we couldn’t see far enough, we invented the telescope. When we needed to speak with people who weren’t within shouting...
Women are not yet on equal footing with men politically, financially, or culturally. If you have a pulse and a sense of right and wrong, there is a moral imperative to do something about this,...
There has been a ton of women centric TV news, some of which we haven't had the chance to cover. Here's a round up of some recent women in TV news. Diablo Cody Developing Romantic Comedy...
The Hunger Games franchise is taking up the Thanksgiving slot now vacated by the Twilight saga. One year from today the second film – Catching Fire – will be released. Here's the...
I had the opportunity to speak with the hugely successful and very interesting screenwriter and TV writer Melissa Rosenberg last week while she was on the set of her new show Red Widow. Women...
There have been so few shows and events that truly reveal what it is like to be a girl that when you see truth – the good and the bad – you immediately know that you are seeing something...
Tina Fey stars in Admission, adapted by Karen Croner from a novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz, a film that looks to be more of a dramatic foray for Fey. She plays a college admissions officer who receives...
Bryce Dallas Howard is following in her dad's footsteps and getting into directing. The two teamed up when Dallas Howard directed the short film, when you find me based on eight user...
I’m a scriptwriter who writes scripts that tell stories about women. Scriptwriting’s a solitary activity most of the time and it’s arduous, but the voices of other scriptwriters...
Unsurprisingly, Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 killed it at the box office this weekend. Overseas it grossed $340.9 million, making it the best global opening of the franchise. Back on US shores it...
This weekend, the fifth and final installment of the Twilight franchise opened, and to no one’s surprise, killed at the box office. Conversations about the film will undoubtedly focus on the...
Here's some recent women in film news. Emmy Rossum to Star Opposite Hilary Swank in 'You're Not You' (The Hollywood Reporter) Jennifer Garner Near Deal To Star in Drama...
Well, this looks amazing. Restless, stars Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey) as Ruth, a woman who discovers that her mother, Sally (the iconic Charlotte Rampling) was a spy during World War II....
I started working on my first feature film Fully Loaded in 2007. It was like climbing a mountain four times as high as it says in the damn guidebook. It was like changing churches. It was...
Anne-Marie Slaughter’s controversial article, “Why Women Can’t Have it All,” discusses the challenges facing working women and moms. While I do not yet have children, having...
We have finally reached the end of an important moment in film history. I know that many people dismiss the Twilight saga for a multitude of reasons – it's about vampires, it is...
Did you know that November is Add Female Characters Month? It is according to Geena Davis, who took over the back page of Variety to declare it such. The ad ran on Tuesday, November 13, the...
Let’s celebrate the female winners of the National Book Award. Louise Erdrich won the fiction award for The Round House, her fourteenth novel, about a teenage boy’s effort to...
In my favorite Anne Sexton poem “Rowing,” one line in particular always sticks out to me: “I wore rubies and bought tomatoes/and now, in my middle age/about nineteen in the head...
The Host is not Twilight and that might be a good thing. Based on Stephenie Meyer's novel, the film follows Melanie (Saoirse Ronan), who is inhabited by an alien. Set in the future, this alien...
Festivals, News, Women Directors
We are gearing up for the 3rd Athena Film Festival from February 7–10, 2013. We are very excited to be partnering with the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women for a day of...
Features, News
Skyfall, the newest 007 blockbuster, is a fabulous, almost win-win-win for women! The film has three significant female characters and Bond himself is portrayed as a humbled, post-modern anti-hero...
FAIR WARNING: Do not read this if you don’t want to know how the new James Bond movie Skyfall ends. Although, if you were disappointed by last week’s election results, it might give...
News, Television
Alexandra Wallace, senior vice president of NBC News, was just announced as the new executive in charge of the Today show. At a whopping four hours, the program is one of the most profitable of...
As consumers of media we know that things are biased. That's why it is so important that we have data to backup what we are seeing and feeling. And it's great that we have people...
Diane Keaton will receive The Hollywood Reporter’s Sherry Lansing Leadership Award. The award recognizes a woman who works in the entertainment industry who is a leader, pioneer and...
News, Women Directors
New York Women in Film and Television have announced the recipients of their annual Muse awards. Actresses Mariska Hargitay (of Law and Order fame) and Lucy Liu (currently starring on Elementary)...
Women in Film Los Angeles (WIF) is already well known for its foundation’s scholarship programs and its unique Film Finishing Fund which helps women filmmakers from around the world to finish...
News, Videos
Flying Lessons follows 25 year old Sophie (Maggie Grace), who returns to her hometown when her life hits a crossroads. When she arrives home, Sophie must face a complicated relationship with her...
From November 15th-17th, eighteen films by The New Generation of Polish Filmmakers will screen at the Tribeca Film Center. New York Women in Film and Television is the event partner alongside Munk...
Awards, Features
Women’s rights made a major impact on Hollywood in the 1970s. Feminism, now a dirty word, was such a force to be reckoned with that you didn’t dare depict a woman in a film who didn’t have, at...
Documentary, News
Last week in LA, in a star studded event to celebrate the DVD release of The Invisible War that included Senator Barbara Boxer, the filmmakers and executive producers launched a new program that was...
Academy Award nominated composer Alexandre Desplat who has scored Zero Dark Thirty spoke with Steve of Collider.com about another film he worked on Rise of the Guardians, and Desplat took the...
Join our weekly newsletter to stay up-to-date on women centric, directed, and written films and news. Newsletters are sent on Fridays at noon EST.