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

Quvenzhane Wallis is All of Our Daughters

News

I thought I was done with all the Oscar postscripts but there is still have one more thing to write about. I am going to take a mulligan on not getting to this sooner, but I was off last week, and am only now really digesting all the blog posts and news stories.

By Melissa Silverstein
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March 5, 2013 12:33 PM
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4 Comments

News

Oscar nominations were announced this morning and per usual there were the surprises, both of the good and bad variety. Nine year old Quvenzhané Wallis becomes the youngest Best Actress nominee for Beasts of the Southern Wild, Kathryn Bigelow shockingly did not receive a Best Director nomination for Zero Dark Thirty and the much lauded film about sexual assualt in the military The Invisible War received a Best Documentary nomination.

By Kerensa Cadenas
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January 10, 2013 12:10 PM
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0 Comments

Features

A.O. Scott in the lead story of the NY Times Magazine this past weekend wrote a very interesting piece on how Hollywood has finally embraced women, well not exactly women, heroines. The piece "Hollywood's Year of Heroine Worship" delves into many very great points about the unique female characters seen onscreen this past year. He focuses on the characters from Snow White and the Huntsman, Brave, The Hunger Games, Beasts of the Southern Wild and even adds in Twilight since Bella is much more heroic in the final film of the saga.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 11, 2012 2:00 PM
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23 Comments

News

The nominees for the 22nd Annual Independent Filmmaker Project’s Gotham Independent Film Awards were announced today. A total of 26 Films were nominated in six categories. Actress Marion Cotillard will be honored with a career tribute. And for the second year in a row, the IFP will present the euphoria Calvin Klein Spotlight on Women Filmmakers ‘Live the Dream Grant.’ The grant consists of a $25,000 award to help support the first feature project of a woman filmmaker. The awards ceremony will take place on November 26th in New York.

By Kerensa Cadenas
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October 18, 2012 6:07 PM
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0 Comments

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

Video

I saw this film last night. I was totally and completely blown away. I can't even articulate my reaction to it right now. One of the most interesting, different and without a doubt one of the best films I have seen in a long, long time. The lead of this film is an amazing 6-year old girl, Quvenzhane Wallis. The film opens on June 22.

By Melissa Silverstein
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June 8, 2012 9:22 AM
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0 Comments

Video

This is the film that won the top narrative prize at Sundance. It stars newcomer Quvenzhané Wallis. I don't think I've ever seen a trailer quite like this. I am looking forward to this one. It will also play in Cannes this month.