MONDAY UPDATE: Jan Lisa Huttner here, the morning after the 2017 Tony Awards. Congratulations to Cynthia Nixon, winner of the 2017 Tony Award for "Best Actress for a Featured Role in a Play" in the role of "Birdie" in Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes. Kudos as well to Jane Greenwood who also won a Tony for…
Category: Features
2017 Human Rights Watch Film Festival to screen 'remarkable' films by women
Sexual exploitation, domestic violence, civic duty, and the rights of indigenous people are just some of the resonant topics that will be tackled in the films to be shown at NYC's 2017 Human Rights Watch Film Festival (June 9-18). The festival will screen 21 topical and provocative feature documentaries, along with panel discussions that showcase courageous resilience…
Paint It Black and L’Attesa use male characters to drive female relationships
A typical tactic to further a male character’s development, especially in the tidal wave of male superhero movies we’ve been getting for the past five years or so, is to take the guy’s girlfriend or daughter, and have her die. His resulting “manpain” is then milked at the dead female character’s expense to give an…
The Powder and The Glory: From PBS Doc to Tony-Nominated Broadway Musical!
The Powder & The Glory -- a PBS documentary now available on DVD -- depicts the feud between esteemed makeup icons Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein. Why is this relevant now? Because War Paint -- the new Broadway musical that has been nominated for FOUR Tony Awards -- is based on this doc 🙂 The tale of these…
DocAviv '17: Sneak Peeks from Israel's world-renown documentary film festival
FF2 Media is proud to introduce Eti Or -- our new Israeli contributor -- with her report on Israeli women filmmaker screenings at this year's DocAviv (Israel's world-renown documentary film festival). Here are sneak peaks of Eti's Top Picks from DocAviv '17. Hopefully some of these films will make their way to festivals and theaters worldwide…
Does the future of films by women lie in shorts?
This year’s Tribeca Film Festival marvelously demonstrated new platforms for women filmmakers outside of conventional feature films, particularly those eligible for the Nora Ephron Prize. The continuously blurring the lines of shorts, web series, apps, sponsors and “television” could mean more opportunities for women directors. Since the inaugural collection in 2014, the women-directed N.O.W. (New…
Swiss filmmaker Petra Volpe wins prestigious Nora Ephron Prize at 2017 Tribeca Film Festival
Petra Biondina Volpe from Switzerland is the winner of the 5th annual Nora Ephron Prize at this year's Tribeca Film Festival! Volpe is the writer/director of The Divine Order (Die Göttliche Ordnung), which also received the Audience Award in the “Narrative” category, as well as a nomination for the Jury Award for Best International Narrative Feature. In addition, Marie Leuenberger…
First-time screenwriter finds comedy, closure in ‘The Women’s Balcony’
When first-time screenwriter Shlomit Nehama wrote The Women’s Balcony, she anticipated that making a universal film would be a losing battle. In order to capture the emotions of the characters and daily lives of a close knit Mizrahi community, she needed to use detail and specificity. The approach worked and Balcony become the number one…
TFF's Nora Ephron Prize Winners: Where are they now?
The Tribeca Film Festival just gave its 5th annual Nora Ephron Prize to Petra Biondina Volpe from Switzerland. Volpe is the writer/director of The Divine Order (Die Göttliche Ordnung), which also received two additional awards at TFF: Audience Award--Narrative and Best Actress (Marie Leuenberger) in an International Narrative Feature. The Divine Order was also nominated for…
'The Drowning' director talks dark, ambiguous psychological thriller
After a private screening of The Drowning, Peter Travers, from Rolling Stone, gives a brief Q&A with director Bette Gordon. ***********Warning! Spoilers!*********** Bette Gordon, best known for her film Variety (1983), is a film director and professor at Columbia. In her new film, The Drowning, she goes deep into the psyche of a middle-aged psychiatrist as…