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

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Blog Roll

The Ugly Intricacies of Desire in Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights

Features

Tackling a beloved and classic piece of literature to interpret into film is not an easy task and one that director Andrea Arnold typically doesn’t like to do. But after the idea to direct an adaptation of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights got stuck in Arnold’s head—it stayed there.

By Kerensa Cadenas
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October 5, 2012 9:11 AM
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1 Comment

Video

The brilliant director of Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold has adapted Emily Bronte's classic novel, Wuthering Heights starring Kaya Scodelario and James Howson. Co-written by Arnold and Olivia Hetreed, the film follows the intense and volatile relationship from childhood to adulthood between orphan Heathcliff and his foster sister Cathy. Wuthering Heights opens in New York on October 5 and Los Angeles on October 12.

By Kerensa Cadenas
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September 12, 2012 9:25 AM
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1 Comment

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

Blogs

One of the things I am proud of regarding the work many people have done to raise awareness about the lack of opportunities for female directors is how we were able to interrupt the narrative which is usually all about the clothes, stars and the glamour. For example, look at what the women of La Barbe did last night. They got up in the rain before the premiere of the evening and staged a protest in their beards and showed again that this issue is not going away.

By Melissa Silverstein
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May 21, 2012 12:30 PM
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5 Comments

Blogs

It's been very interesting to watch the opening of the Cannes Film Festival. In light of the fact that there are no women directors in competition and the great work of La Barbe, at the opening press conference the jury as well as the directors of the festival were confronted with a barrage of questions about the issue.

By Melissa Silverstein
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May 18, 2012 12:14 PM
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13 Comments

Blogs

Cannes is kicking off right now. I've spent the last two days putting together a petition that will be sent to the festival about the lack of female directors in competition. You can sign the petition here. (Just so you know every signature generates an email to the Cannes officials so hopefully this will go viral and they will have full email boxes.)

By Melissa Silverstein
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May 16, 2012 3:07 PM
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2 Comments