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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The Golden Globe Nominations: The Women

I like the Golden Globe show cause it's always goofy. People drink, say funny stuff and you get TV and film people in one place. People who are awards watchers don't take it too seriously because they have two different film categories -- comedy and drama -- which no other awards do. The also kiss a lot of celebrity butt in order to have a star ladened show rather than a serious awards show. So you must not take anything these people do too seriously.

But they do get coverage and they do get talked about so it matters that with 11 films nominated in the two categories there is not a single woman directed film nominated for best drama or best comedy/musical. The Help and Bridesmaids continued their good week and I think that we will have to settle for one (The Help) or hopefully both of these films representing the chicks at the Oscars. So it will be films about women that will represent women, not films by women. But weirdly, the Bridesmaids writers did not get nominated here, nor did any other female film writers (except for Angelina Jolie who got a best foreign language film nomination).

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 16, 2011 9:49 AM
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1 Comment

I just got back from a meeting and broke open the list of indie spirit nominees for 2012 and I am utterly dispirited at the lack of female voices throughout the categories.

I am looking back at the list from last year and two female directed films -- Winter's Bone and The Kids Are All Right -- got multiple nominations.

This year not so much.

A variety of these lists that will be coming at us over the next months and they will be very male centric. If people were under the illusion that this was a good year for female voices, this list is an indicator of how much work needs to be done. This so makes me want to start the female film awards. Who is in?

By Melissa Silverstein
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November 29, 2011 4:41 PM
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12 Comments