Women and Hollywood

Melissa Silverstein is the founder and editor of Women and Hollywood, one of the most respected sites for issues related to women and film as well as other areas of pop culture. Women and Hollywood educates, advocates, and agitates for gender parity across the entertainment industry.

She is also the co-founder and Artistic Director of The Athena Film Festival. The 4th annual festival will take place from February 6-9, 2014 at Barnard College in NYC.

Melissa recently published the first book from Women and Hollywood, In Her Voice: Women Directors Talk Directing, which is a compilation of over 40 interviews that have appeared on the site.

Email Melissa

Purchase In Her Voice

Blog Roll

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Reviews

Beasts of the Southern Wild is the perfect example of how to make a movie in this new post recession world. Take a great script, make it for a price and then let the movie stand on its merits. And yes, the awards and great reviews it has received since the premiere at Sundance earlier this year are all right -- this is one seriously spectacular and special film. Run, don’t walk to the theatre to see it. The film tells the story of 6-year-old Hushpuppy -- played by Quvenzhané Wallis, a girl who had never acted before – and the people who live with her and her dad in the Bathtub, a place below the levees in the Bayou of Louisiana one storm away from destruction. The location is not exactly real but it is also not exactly fictional. You are supposed to be reminded of the Lower Ninth Ward and what happened during Katrina. This is about people who are everywhere in our society who live on the edge, extremely poor, with no resources except their own spit and guts.

By Melissa Silverstein
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June 29, 2012 11:30 AM
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2 Comments

Features

By Melissa Silverstein
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June 29, 2012 10:59 AM
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0 Comments

Features

By Melissa Silverstein
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June 28, 2012 1:05 PM
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11 Comments

Features

What kind of “princess” is better off in the woods than at home? A princess who is more like the archetype of Artemis than of Aphrodite. In three recent films, we’ve seen a shift in the “princess” archetype in popular culture. In the past, the princess, a key character in fairy tales and myths, was depicted in films as a love interest, or even as a prize to be won, such as in Tangled, Enchanted, Shrek, and The Princess Bride, to name a few. The main focus of the princess’ sphere and her agency was in regards to love, relationships and marriage. But in The Hunger Games, Snow White and the Huntsman, and Brave, the heroine-protagonists are not interested in courtship; they have much more pressing problems to solve, and they all involve an exile or escape through a “enchanted” wilderness.

By Laura Shamas
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June 28, 2012 12:15 PM
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8 Comments

News

So tired of reading these lists that don't include any women. This time it is AMC's film site which offers up a list of the 50 top directors of all time.

By Melissa Silverstein
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June 28, 2012 11:00 AM
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3 Comments

Features

When I heard that Nora Ephron passed away I sent an email out to a bunch of people in the business asking them to send me their thoughts. Some knew her, most didn't, but still loved her.

By Melissa Silverstein
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June 28, 2012 10:29 AM
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0 Comments

Features

The world has moved on but I’m still obsessing about why, for the second time in three years was there no films directed by a woman in the main competition at Cannes this year. I mean I know it’s only one festival but it’s by far the most prestigious and really that kind of omission is much more than the sum of its parts. It really does beg the larger question of why? Why are there so few females being recognized for excellence? This is 2012 for God’s sake, we’ve been writing books, winning literary awards, hung in national galleries, directing operas and ballets, running theatre companies for years now so what is it that is denying us a larger quota of recognition of film-making?

By Rachel Ward
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June 27, 2012 12:01 PM
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2 Comments

News

This is from her book I Remember Nothing

By Melissa Silverstein
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June 27, 2012 11:00 AM
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4 Comments

News

Here are some of the pieces on the death of Nora Ephron.

By Melissa Silverstein
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June 27, 2012 10:20 AM
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0 Comments

Television

Finally Connie Britton is out front and center in this new show from Thelma and Louise writer Callie Khouri

By Melissa Silverstein
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June 27, 2012 9:49 AM
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0 Comments

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