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

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Bite-sized blog post: Agnès Varda

Despite being only a few years older than Truffaut and Godard AGNÉS VARDA is known as the Grandmother of the French New Wave. With a background in art not cinema, her first film La Pointe Courte (1955) was made in her hometown without film training but by her simply picking up a camera and making it happen which has proven the inspiration for many of her subsequent films.

Varda did a brief stint in Hollywood where she directed Lions Love a film about New York transplants (including some of the famous Warhol crowd) in Los Angeles and a short documentary about the Black Panthers. Her time in Los Angeles was short lived but she returned to France to continue making movies and just last year at the age of 87 premiered her short Les 3 boutons at the Venice Film Festival.

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Where to watch her films:

FANDOR

HULU

Bite-sized blog post: Lexi Alexander

LEXI ALEXANDER went from being a World Kick-boxing champion to a stunt woman to making an Academy Award nominated short film.

She then took her fighting skills to the screen and directed Green Street Hooligans (2005) and Marvel’s Punisher: War Zone (2008) before writing a scathing article on the hypocrisy of Hollywood liberals and gender discrimination.

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Where to watch her films:

VIMEO

Bite-sized blog post: Debra Granik

Before attending New York University’s MFA program in Film DEBRA GRANIK worked as a videographer for trade unions where she first became interested in characters and sharing their stories.

In 2011 her film Winter’s Bone was nominated for an Academy Award and catapulted Jennifer Lawrence into the category of A-list actor.

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Bite-sized blog post: Nancy Savoca

NANCY SAVOCA graduated with an MFA from NYU and then went on to self-fund her first feature True Love (1989) which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. She then went on to direct Dogfight (1991) for Warner Brothers.

She continues to direct independent films and for television. Her company Cine-Si is a collaboration with her husband, film producer Rich Guay.

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Where to watch her films:

iTunes

Bite-sized blog post: Leslie Harris

LESLIE HARRIS was the first African American woman to win a Special Jury Prize at Sundance with her debut feature film Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. (1992). She got distribution for the film with Miramax for the self-financed, self-produced feature which she edited on her own in her apartment.

Harris teaches at New York University and is fundraising for her feature I Love Cinema.

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Where to watch her films:

VIMEO

Bite-sized blog post: Nicole Holofcener

At the beginning of her studies at Columbia’s MFA program NICOLE HOLOFCENER considered herself a screenwriter but soon realized she liked directing her own work.

After graduating she directed her first feature, a Sundance Film Festival favorite Walking and Talking (1996) and her character driven comedies have led to comparisons with Woody Allen but she has a style all her own.

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Where to watch her films:

HULU

Bite-sized blog post: Lena Dunham

LENA DUNHAM began her career making short films that got tons of hits on Youtube.

Her parents told her that they would pay for her to go to graduate school or fund a feature film. Dunham chose to make her first feature Tiny Furniture (2010).

She went on to utilize social media to gain notoriety and create the hit series Girls for HBO.

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Bite-sized blog-post: Joan Micklin Silver

A producer once told her, “Feature films are expensive to make and expensive to market and women directors are one more problem we don’t need.” In response her husband insisted that they raise the funds and give her the chance to make a movie.

Silver went on to direct Hester Street (1975) and along with her husband and a few others successfully self distributed – before the age of the internet.

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Where to watch her films:

FANDOR

Bite-sized blog post: Ana Lily Amirpour

The feature debut of ANA LILY AMIRPOUR, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), an “Iranian Vampire Spaghetti Western” which includes a graphic comic as supplemental material and is based on a short she made of the same name, premiered at Sundance.

Amirpour moved to the United Stated from England when she was little and first became exposed to movie making and American culture by watching the making of video of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. She then went on to study film at UCLA.

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