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.

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Blog Roll

Pariah - written and directed by Dee Rees

Most of this review was written after screening the film at the Toronto Film Festival. It has been augmented.

The movie is just so good. Well written, well acted, emotional, devastating and liberating. I gotta say that Dee Rees is the real deal. The film tells the story of Alike an African American high school senior who is struggling with how to make her family come to terms with her being a lesbian. Ailke played with fierceness and vulnerability by Adepero Oduye knows she's gay but she lives two lives. One where she wears t-shirts with sparkles and earrings to please her mother, and one where she wears a baseball cap and baggy shirts. She's two different people but as she is growing up and becoming more comfortable with herself, she doesn't want to play the game anymore. She doesn't want to wear the pink sweater her mom bought because it's not her. But she' s also not comfortable being the hard ass dyke that seems to be the other side of the coin. She's trying to make her way in a world with very few role models for her. [SPOILERS BELOW]