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

Angelina Jolie to Direct Unbroken for Universal

News

Angelina Jolie is set to direct Unbroken, her first major studio film. The film is for Universal and Walden Media. Based on Laura Hillenbrand’s best-selling 2010 book, Unbroken looks at the life of Louis Zamperini, Olympic athlete and Air Force officer during WWII. Zamperini survived a plane crash during this period, and survived by floating on a raft for 47 days. He was later found by Japanese soldiers and spent time in a POW camp.

By Kerensa Cadenas
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December 20, 2012 9:39 AM
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0 Comments

Blogs

The woman with the most Oscars is not the highest paid woman in Hollywood. According to Forbes, that honor goes to Kristen Stewart who this year will have two monster hits with the current Snow White and the Huntsman which is now at almost $250 million total and the upcoming Breaking Dawn Part 2. This 21-year-old made $34.5 million. But all the women on the list still earn less than their male counterparts men by over $160 million dollars. The top men earned #61 million compared to women earning $200 million. And I'm guessing the dudes make most of their money from salaries on the films, and women complement their film salaries with endorsements which at times brings in more than the salary for a film.

By Melissa Silverstein
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June 20, 2012 3:14 PM
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2 Comments

Blogs

Here's the first image from the Angelina Jolie starring movie written by Linda Woolverton.

By Melissa Silverstein
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June 19, 2012 12:16 PM
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0 Comments

Blogs

I am extremely ambivalent about the whole princess thing. If I never saw another princess anywhere it would be too soon. But I live in the real world and write about Hollywood and Hollywood is infused with princesses. In fact, we've got two big princess movies coming down the pike this year. This week's Mirror, Mirror and this summer's Snow White and the Huntsman. I will never forget when I heard Geena Davis talk about her research on girls and the media, and how the research showed the most girls believe they can be princesses because that is basically all that they see girls doing onscreen. Of course we all know that princess is not a job description and while there are very few princesses in real life, they seem to dominate girls lives on film.

By Melissa Silverstein
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March 27, 2012 10:57 AM
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21 Comments

Blogs

It's that time of year, The Academy Awards, the "Super Bowl for Women." It's the night where we all get catty about whose dress doesn't work, who's got a new boyfriend or girlfriend, and who looks like they haven't eaten all month.

By Melissa Silverstein
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February 23, 2012 10:54 AM
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11 Comments

Participate in Live Q and A with Angelina Jolie Tonight at 8pm EST

After visiting the President last night to talk about "preventing mass atrocities and combating sexual violence against women" Angelina Jolie is doing a live q and a to talk about In the Land of Blood and Honey, her film tonight at 8pmEST/5pmPST.

By Melissa Silverstein
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January 12, 2012 10:12 AM
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0 Comments

Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award Winners

EDA

EDA ANNUAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

Best Film: The Artist
Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist
Best Screenplay, Original: Midnight in Paris - Woody Allen
Best Screenplay, Adapted: (TIE) The Descendants - Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash; Moneyball - Steven Zallian and Aaron Sorkin
Best Documentary: Buck
Best Animated Film: Rango
Best Actress: Viola Davis as Abileen in The Help
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: (TIE) Janet McTeer as Hubert Page in Albert Nobbs; Octavia Spencer as Minny Jackson in The Help
Best Actor: Michael Fassbender as Brandon Sullivan in Shame
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Christopher Plummer as Hal Fields in Beginners
Best Ensemble Cast: Bridesmaids
Best Editing: Hugo - Thelma Schoonmaker
Best Cinematography: The Tree of Life - Emmanuel Lubezki
Best Film Music Or Score: (TIE) The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Original Score; Hanna - The Chemical Brothers, Original Score
Best Non-English-Language Film: A Separation - Ashgar Farhadi, Iran

By Melissa Silverstein
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January 11, 2012 9:42 AM
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0 Comments

Top L-R: Lynne Ramsay, Larysa Kondracki, Susanne Bier; Bottom L-R: Dee Rees, Angelina Jolie, Celine Sciamma

It goes without saying that women made all kinds of films this year. But the reality is that most made indie films. Only a couple made studio films. And the numbers of women directing films is still abysmally low.

But even in their small numbers women are making waves. Here are some highlights:

Jennifer Yuh Nelson made a hugely successful animated film Kung Fu Panda 2 and now she is the highest grossing female director taking the title from Phyllida Lloyd who this year gave us Meryl Streep's tour de force in The Iron Lady.

Several actresses went behind the camera for the first time including Vera Farmiga (Higher Ground) and Angelina Jolie (In the Land of Blood and Honey). Jodie Foster made The Beaver which unfortunately was stuck with the Mel Gibson whose baggage dragged down a very interesting film.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 26, 2011 11:59 AM
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11 Comments

A couple of months ago the description of Angelina Jolie's writing and directing debut was that it was a love story set in the time of the Bosnian war. I walked out of the film realizing that no matter how they want to describe it, this is a film about war. It is about a war that most American don't know or understand and sadly, a war that most people here in the US don't care about.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 23, 2011 11:19 AM
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1 Comment

There has been a bit of a controversy last week over the Producer's Guild nominees. Karin Chien, the producer of Circumstance learned that her film was disqualified from the PGA Awards because the film is not in English.

The PGA says that at this time they do not accept foreign language films at all for consideration. They do not distinguish between foreign produced films and foreign language films produced by people in the US. To me there is a big difference. This is an organization where a producer can qualify to join based on the work you do on any film no matter what language it is, but you can't get any awards unless the film is in English.

By Melissa Silverstein
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December 19, 2011 11:15 AM
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3 Comments

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