Guest Post: Women in Film Los Angeles Gets Busy

Women in Film Los Angeles (WIF) is already well known for its foundation’s scholarship programs and its unique Film Finishing Fund which helps women filmmakers from around the world to finish their movies. This year, it’s expanding its services and is on a roll with new programs to benefit women filmmakers.

Back in January, WIF agreed to collaborate with the Sundance Institute to support independent women filmmakers working in both narrative and documentary feature film. It has also re-designed its Mentoring Program and will be introducing a series of new mentoring initiatives for the rest of this year and throughout 2013.  First in the series is a Speed Mentoring program where participants had twenty rounds of five-minute encounters with experienced industry professionals who listened and gave advice on how to advance in the Media Arts.

Now WIF and Venevision International have announced a new partnership that provides an opportunity for WIF members to pitch ideas to a panel of Venevision creative experts, for evaluation as potential programming on the Venevision network or pay-TV channels. Venevision’s an entertainment company with fifty years of experience. Its mission is to satisfy the content needs of the growing Spanish language market, so the shows must have a Latin spin and be targeted towards women aged between 25 to 50. If a proposal is selected, the creators will be hired as part of the production crew and/or receive credit for their contribution. The application process will start in January 2013. Is this the first partnership like this? Let’s hope other corporates keep a close eye on this initiative and decide to try something similar.

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Marian Evans has just completed the first draft of “Throat of These Hours”, her play about two women in a New Zealand radio station and the poet and activist Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980).  She’ll present a reading of the play at the Muriel Rukeyser Centenary Symposium at Eastern Michigan University in March 2013. Marian has a PhD in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters, New Zealand's oldest and most prestigious creative writing programme. She blogs as Wellywood Woman.