THE 2ND SEX &amp; THE 7TH ART: WOMEN DIRECTORS IN FILM

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Bite-sized blog post: Mary Harron

MARY HARRON began her career as a music journalist after studying at Oxford. Her first feature film I Shot Andy Warhol (1996) screened at Cannes Film Festival.

Harron went on to direct American Psycho (2000)which brought both her and Christian Bale into the spotlight.

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Bite-sized blog post: Nina Menkes

NINA MENKES studied film at UCLA where she first began collaborating with her sister Tinka Menkes who served as her actress and muse on several projects. As a director she has worked in all areas of production, writing, editing, working camera and sound on her projects.

Menkes’ films have been known to challenge the viewer (especially the male viewer) nonetheless films including Phantom Love (2007), The Bloody Child (1996) and Queen of Diamonds (1991) have found a home at mainstream festivals such as Sundance because of their boldness and craft. Sundance also embraced her New Media project The Crazy Female Bloody Center (2000).

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VIMEO

Bite-sized blog post: Michelle MacLaren

MICHELLE MACLAREN began her career as a production manager and producer. While producing X-Files she directed an episode and then went on to direct for critically acclaimed series including Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead.

MacLaren was originally slated to direct the Warner Brothers feature film Wonder Woman.

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Bite-sized blog post: Dee Rees

DEE REES began studying business and then went on to get her MFA from NYU. She interned for Spike Lee before making her first feature film Pariah (2011) based on the short she directed of the same name. The film premiered at Sundance and she then went on to write and direct the Emmy award winning HBO film Bessie (2015).

She is currently developing a television series with Shonda Rhimes.

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AMAZON (PRIME-STREAMING)

Bite-sized blog post: Amy Seimetz

AMY SEIMETZ began her career producing and directing shorts. Her first feature film Sun Don’t Shine (2008) was simultaneously released theatrically and digitally by Factory 25.

She has gone on to direct for the television series The Girlfriend Experience based on the film by Stephen Soderbergh.

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Bite-sized blog post: Maya Deren

MAYA DEREN began her career studying literature and as a photographer and then went on to make her mark as an experimental filmmaker with films such as Meshes of the Afternoon (1943).

Deren was the first filmmaker to receive a Guggenheim grant in 1947. She died in 1961 at the age of 44 of a brain hemhorrage.

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Bite-sized blog post: Penny Marshall

Penny Marshall began her career as an actress who became famous for her role as Laverne on Laverne & Shirley. She directed a couple of episodes of the long-running sitcom and then went on to direct the feature film Big (1988), the first film directed by a woman to gross over $100 million.

Her film Awakenings (1990) was nominated for Best Picture by the Academy, however she was not nominated for Best Director for the film.

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AMAZON (PRIME-STREAMING)

Bite-sized blog post: Cheryl Dunye

After directing and producing several shorts CHERYL DUNYE made her first feature film The Watermelon Woman (1996) exploring sexuality and race and film, funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts.

After the success of The Watermelon Woman and the HBO movie Stranger Inside (2001) Dunye directed the Hollywood vehicle My Baby’s Daddy (2004) written by Eddie Griffin. She continues to write and direct as well as teaching at various Universities in California.

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FIRST RUN FEATURES

VIMEO

Bite-sized blog post: Barbara Kopple

BARBARA KOPPLE began her career working with the Maysles brothers and has gone on to win two Academy Awards for her documentaries, the first for Harlan County, USA (1976) and for American Dream (1990).

She has directed numerous documentaries and for the Emmy award winning television series Homicide: Life on the Streets.

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