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

Happy Friday: Watch Tilda Swinton's Ebertfest 2013 Dance Party

Video

The marvelous and flawless Tilda Swinton alongside the late Roger Ebert's wife, Chaz led a dance party to Barry White at this year's Ebertfest.

By Kerensa Cadenas
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April 26, 2013 12:30 PM
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1 Comment

Blogs

By Melissa Silverstein
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March 8, 2012 12:22 PM
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Awards

In a year when we will probably not see a female director nominated for any major awards here in the US, the Brits have been smart enough to recognize the Lynne Ramsay did do one of the best directing jobs of the year and nominated her for best director and We Need to Talk About Kevin for Best British Film.

By Melissa Silverstein
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January 17, 2012 11:07 AM
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1 Comment

Video

Meryl Streep won best actress in a drama for The Iron Lady. In her speech she acknowledged all her fellow nominees and the other terrific female performances from this year. And how about her shout out to Adepero Oduye.

By Melissa Silverstein
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January 16, 2012 10:10 AM
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4 Comments

This film is clearly being better recevied overseas as a full body of work than it is here in the US. Here, Tilda Swinton has gathered some nominations and could be on her way to an Academy Award nod (which in itself will be a miracle), but the film...not so much. The Iron Lady did not get much love at all with only one nomination for Olivia Colman for British Actress of the Year but I suspect that she was acknowleged more for Tyrannosaur than for The Iron Lady.

The London Film critics Circle gave We Need to Talk About Kevin a nomination for best British film of the Year, gave dierctor Lynne Ramsay a nomination for best director where she will compete against the top guys who are in Oscar contention.

Other female nominees include: Bridget O’Connor for co-writing Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 21, 2011 9:50 AM
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1 Comment

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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Brigitte Lacombe

Yesterday, the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild nominations were announced. Both The Help and Bridesmaids scored best ensembles nominations (which is their top award) which could be an indicator of potential Oscar love because the actors (a percentage of the SAG members pick these nominees) are the largest voting branch in the Academy. The Help actually scored the most nominations with four including both Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain in the supporting category.

Maybe being a movie about women won't hurt The Help, and the Bridesmaids nod along with the rising Melissa McCarthy makes me think it could potentially sneak in with a best picture nod because both men and women really love this movie. (As they should.)

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 15, 2011 9:29 AM
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I saw We Need to Talk About Kevin co-written and directed by Lynne Ramsay at the Toronto Film Festival. It was one of the best movies I saw there and it is still one of the best movies that I have seen this year. My thoughts (which I wrote at the festival) on the film are below. Not only have they not changed, they have actually gotten stronger as I have seen some of the other movies in the Oscar race.

There is no good reason why this film and this director is not a part of the year end conversation. The only reason why I can think of is because the film is by a woman about a woman, a mother who has raised a monster. The movie scares the crap out of people and it touches nerves and makes people uncomfortable. But isn't that one of the things that makes a great movie?