Tag / women behind the camera

by JENDEAN

Bite-sized blog post: Elaine May

mayshooting

 

Known for her comedy, ELAINE MAY was one of very few women in Hollywood to direct films in the 1970s. An actor and director she has helmed now classic films such as Neil Simon’s The Heartbreak Kid (1972).

After the financial and critical disaster of Ishtar May has acted in several films but hasn’t directed since (arguably a fate that would not have befallen an equally skilled male director). She is slated to direct a documentary on her comedian partner Mike Nichols who passed away in November 2014.

More to add to this “bite-sized blog” – please send us a comment!

Where to watch her films:

FANDOR

AMAZON (PRIME-STREAMING)

AMAZON (DVDs for PURCHASE)

Read more about her:

ONLINE
The Autobiography of a Soul
Elaine May to Direct Mike Nichols Documentary for PBS
Jewish Women’s Archive
Film Directors’ Site
Unpacking the short but prickly filmography of Elaine May
Wikipedia

FILMOGRAPHY (from imdb):

 1987Ishtar
by JENDEAN

Bite-sized blog post: Chantal Akerman

Chantal Akerman

 

I had the opportunity to study with CHANTAL AKERMAN right before she left this world in October 2015. She was definitely eccentric in her brilliance and never filtered her points of view … which sometimes caused for controversy… nonetheless she clearly cared about film and those studying it and her passion for it never dulled.

Best known in academic and art house circles for her feminist epic Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) which she directed at the young age of 25 Akerman vacillated between documentaries and fiction but always remained faithful to expressing the truth as she saw it.

 More to add to this “bite-sized blog” – please send us a comment!

Where to watch her films:

FANDOR

HULU

AMAZON (PRIME-STREAMING)

AMAZON (DVDs/BluRays for PURCHASE)

CRITERION COLLECTION

Read more about her:

ONLINE
Chantal Akerman: extraordinary artist of the everyday who we will miss for ever
Travelling Shots in Chantal Akerman’s D’est (aka From the East, 1993)
Then as Now, the Terrors of the Routine
New York Times Obituary
The New Yorker
Sense of Cinema
Wikipedia

FILMOGRAPHY (from imdb):

2015No Home Movie (Documentary)
 2009À l’Est avec Sonia Wieder-Atherton (TV Movie documentary)
 2007State of the World (segment “Tombée de nuit sur Shanghai”)
 2006Down There (Documentary)
 2003Avec Sonia Wieder-Atherton (TV Movie documentary)
 2002/IFrom the Other Side (Documentary)
 1999Sud (Documentary)
 1997Cinéma, de notre temps (TV Series documentary) (1 episode)
 1993From the East (Documentary)
 1993Monologues (TV Series) (1 episode)
– Le déménagement (1993)
 1991Lest We Forget (segment “Pour Febe Elisabeth Velasquez, El Salvador”)
 1986La paresse (Short)
 1986Le marteau (Short)
 1986Mallet-Stevens (Short)
 1986Seven Women, Seven Sins (segment “Portrait d’une Paresseuse”)
 1984Paris vu par… 20 ans après (segment “1 “J’ai faim, J’ai froid”)
 1983L’homme à la valise (TV Movie)
 1983On Tour with Pina Bausch (TV Movie documentary)
 1983Les années 80 (Documentary)
 1980Dis-moi (TV Movie)
 1977News from Home (Documentary)
 1975Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels (as Chantal Anne Akerman)
 1973Hanging Out Yonkers (Short)
 1973Le 15/8 (Short)
 1972Hôtel Monterey (Documentary)
 1972La chambre (Short)
 1968Saute ma ville (Short)
by JENDEAN

Bite-sized blog post: Dorothy Arzner

Dorothy Arzner

After returning home from the first World War  where she worked in the ambulance corps DOROTHY ARZNER decided against medical studies and chose to pursue a career in film directing. She began her career as a writer and editor at Paramount Pictures and eventually leveraged her success in those arenas by telling the powers that be at Paramount if they didn’t give her a directing opportunity she would move to rival studio Columbia.

Paramount gave her Fashions for Women (1927)  to direct which was a financial success and led to her being the only woman working as a director in the studio system at the time.

Tying a microphone to a pole during a scene in an attempt to get better sound she invented what is now known as the boom!

More to add to this “bite-sized blog” – please send us a comment!

Where to watch her films:

FANDOR

AMAZON (PRIME-STREAMING)

AMAZON (DVDs/BluRays for PURCHASE)

Read more about her:
BOOKS
Directed by Dorothy Arzner by Judith Mayne

ONLINE
Columbia University Women Film Pioneers Project
Dorothy Arzner is the focus of a retrospective by UCLA Film and Television Archive
UCLA
Sense of Cinema
Sophisticated: The Hollywood Story of Miss Dorothy Arzner
Wikipedia

FILMOGRAPHY (from imdb):

 1937The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (uncredited)
 1934Nana
 1930Galas de la Paramount (sequence director)
 1930Behind the Make-Up (uncredited)
 1922Blood and Sand (additional footage, uncredited)
by JENDEAN

Bite-sized blog post: Lynn Shelton

Lynn Shelton

Seattle-based filmmaker LYNN SHELTON directed her first film We Go Way Back (2006) in her late-thirties after being inspired by a lecture with French director Claire Denis where Denis informed the audience she hadn’t made her first film until she was forty proving it was possible.

Shelton has continued to write and direct indie features including Humpday (2009) and Your Sister’s Sister (2011) which have both been remade by French filmmakers.

 More to add to this “bite-sized blog” – please send us a comment!

Where to watch her films:

NETFLIX

AMAZON (PRIME-STREAMING)

AMAZON (DVDs/BluRays for PURCHASE)

HULU

Read more about her:

ONLINE
Find her on Facebook
Find her on Twitter
Director Lynn Shelton on Her Female Quarter-Life Crisis Film, Laggies
Lynn Shelton on Whether to Call Herself a ‘Woman Director’
‘Laggies’ Director Lynn Shelton on the Need for More Flawed Women on Screen
Wikipedia

FILMOGRAPHY (from imdb):

Fresh Off the Boat (TV Series) (6 episodes)
– The Big 1-2 (2015)
– Shaquille O’Neal Motors (2015)
– Family Business Trip (2015)
– Showdown at the Golden Saddle (2015)
– Persistent Romeo (2015)
Show all 6 episodes
 2015 Master of None (TV Series) (2 episodes)
– Ladies and Gentlemen (2015)
– Old People (2015)
 2014-2015 The Mindy Project (TV Series) (2 episodes)
– Danny Castellano Is My Nutritionist (2015)
– I Slipped (2014)
 2012-2014 New Girl (TV Series) (5 episodes)
– Dice (2014)
– Mars Landing (2014)
– First Date (2013)
– Pepperwood (2013)
– Injured (2012)
 2014 Laggies
 2013 Touchy Feely
2012 Ben and Kate (TV Series) (1 episode)
– The Trip (2012)
 2011 Your Sister’s Sister
 2010 Mad Men (TV Series) (1 episode)
– Hands and Knees (2010)
 2009 $5 Cover: Seattle (TV Series)
 2009 Humpday
 2008 My Effortless Brilliance
 2008 What the Funny (Video)
 2006 We Go Way Back

by JENDEAN

Nadia Munla – Making Movies about women with women

Want to celebrate women making movies. Check out Hannah has a Ho-Phase. Nadia Munla with screenwriting partner Jamie Jensen directed the female-driven movie Hannah Has a Ho-Phase  and made the movie with an all-female crew. I met Nadia after contacting USC about my female filmmakers project – and got the opportunity to shoot the interview above, edited by Dana Hayes.

HOPHASE POSTER May 30

Nadia and Jamie shopped around the script for Hannah in the traditional fashion and struggled with the consistent note, “It’s really funny. Like a female Hangover – but where is the male perspective?” …. So, Hollywood … here is the female perspective for a change!

Hannah production shot

Check out Nadia’s movie Hannah has a Ho-Phase on hulu – http://www.hulu.com/watch/527807
and the movie’s website – http://ho-phase.com/