Nominations for the 91st Academy Awards were announced early January 22. For the 87th time in Oscar history, no women are nominated for Best Director; only five women have ever been nominated in this category and Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, 2010) is the only winner. No Best Picture nominees are directed by women this…
Category: Awards/Prizes
This is a place for posts that celebrate awards & prizes received by women artists, & also a place where we bitch about the fact that women artists still do not receive their fair share of awards & prizes. We are especially irate about “Blue Oscar” = the fact that Oscar nominations overwhelmingly celebrate male achievement behind-the-camera & continue to ignore female achievement. We firmly believe that all awards & prizes (especially Oscars) should be “gold.” You can’t claim that awards & prizes are truly about “merit” if most of the world’s population is systematically excluded from the pool of nominees. So if awards & prizes continue to be disproportionately allotted to white males, then they are not about merit. They are reflections of residual misogyny and racism. ’nuff said!
Oscar shortlist features female documentarians
Eight of the 15 films advancing in the Documentary Feature category for the 91st Academy Awards are directed by women. Oscar voting ended January 14 and official nominees are announced January 22.
DGA nominates zero women for feature film directing
The Directors Guild of America announced nominees for its annual awards, to be held February 2. Five directors (five men and zero women) are nominated.
WGA nominates one woman and 20 men for feature film writing
The Writer’s Guild of America announced nominees for its annual awards January 7. Writers of 10 feature films are nominated for best screenplay, but Can You Ever Forgive Me? co-writer Nicole Holofcener is the only woman of 21 writers. The documentary screenplay category is a slight improvement, with Lauren Greenfield (Generation Wealth) and Dava Whisenant…
Nobel Peace Prize winners the focus of award-winning documentaries
Both winners of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize are the subject of recent documentaries from female filmmakers. Dr. Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad are recipients of the 2018 award, according to Thursday’s announcement from the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Mukwege is a gynecologist who co-founded a treatment center in the Congo to help women in post-rape…
Directing with Chi Energy—Patricia Chica chosen for TIFF Filmmaker Lab 2018
Following our interview with Director Patricia Chica about Morning After, and upcoming feature Montréal Girls, it was announced today that she has been selected as one of the 10 Canadian directors to be part of the TIFF Filmmaker Lab 2018. The Filmmaker lab is a highly curated creative development program and will be held during…
AAIFF Panel—Women in Film: on the screen and behind the camera
The Asian American International Film Festival is running between July 25th - August 4th and one of the first events was a panel talking about women in film. Gathered together were four female Asian directors who discussed their experiences in creating their films, as well as their views on how women are navigating in the…
70th Emmy Awards: Female creative nominees down 18 percent from last year
The nominees for the 70th Emmy Awards were announced July 12 in Los Angeles with a lower number of female writers and directors recognized than last year. Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series nominated the most women in creative categories, with 43 percent female nominees. Stefani Robinson, the only woman on the writing staff of…
Patricia Chica talks cheeky short 'Morning After'
“Life is a box of chocolates” is a phrase that has been spread far and wide since we heard it first from Forrest Gump’s mother. Put that box in the center of a welcome home party, replace ‘life’ with sexuality, add lots of French kissing, and here you have the start to Director Patricia Chica’s…
HBO APA 2018 Short Film Competition Finalist: From Short to Feature
In the spirit of celebrating women directed shorts with potential, we have interviewed Feng-I Fiona Roan, director of short film Jiejie, about her recent win at HBO’s Asian Pacific American Visionaries 2018 short film competition. HBO has provided a platform that is now fueling her current and future works. This includes a series pilot, Lady Luck,…
An appreciation of Carla Simón's 'Summer 1993'
It’s so impressive to me, the delicacy with which filmmaker Carla Simón presents these facts of the human heart. In Summer 1993, people hardly talk about anything directly: they feel things out, they rely on the constancy of each other’s company that allows for problems never to be fully acknowledged.
Nora Ephron Award Shines a Spotlight on Women Filmmakers at 2018 Tribeca Film Festival
Manhattan’s 17th annual Tribeca Film Festival (April 18 – April 29) touted that 46 percent of the feature films in 2018 were directed by women (including special one-time screenings), the highest percentage in the festival’s history. The anticipated centerpiece for us at FF2 Media each year is the Nora Ephron Award which “recognizes a woman…
How women nominees fared at the 90th Academy Awards
Although there was talk and hype of “Time’s Up” and female equality in film, this year’s winners were a washout, with each female winner working as a co-writer with their male counterpart. Even the female actress winners won for roles in films that were written and/or directed by men. Here’s hoping next year’s Oscars will…
BAFTAs barely acknowledge female filmmakers
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced its BAFTA winners February 18 at the Royal Albert Hall in London, with very little recognition for female nominees in major categories. I Am Not a Witch writer-director Rungango Nyani (above, with producer Emily Morgan) is the only woman winner recognized outside of the acting categories,…
Joelle Touma: Spotlight on Oscar-Nominated Lebanese Screenwriter
Though The Insult is now an Oscar-nominated film – a first for Lebanon – it seems that the mainstream media is focusing primarily on Ziad Doueiri (the director) and his contributions to the film, making for another case where the female filmmaker is left in shadows and receives no recognition for the work she put…
A Common Thread: A look at this year's Oscar noms
Throughout this season, we have noticed one thing about a lot of the films coming out that have something in common: passionate women. From Lady Bird to The Post, from Three Bilboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri to I, Tonya, films this year have featured women front and center.
Mixed reactions to Oscar noms at Siskel Center panel
The Gene Siskel Film Center held its annual film critics reaction panel for the 90th Academy Awards Nominations Panel on Tuesday, January 23 with contributor Pamela Powell.
Women win big at 49th NAACP Image Awards
The 49th NAACP Image Awards were held in Pasadena last night, recognizing people of color making strides in film, music, literature and television.
AWFJ honors women in film with ‘female focus’ category
The Alliance of Women Film Journalists (AWFJ), made up of professional female film critics, announced winners in three categories at their annual EDA Awards last week.
Best Performance: Is It Time For Gender Neutral Acting Awards?
First of a Series for FF2 Media by Giorgi Plys-Garzotto As many of you probably saw, the Golden Globe nominations were announced on Monday. You know what that means—time for this year’s gauntlet of award shows! And when I say “gauntlet,” I mean it in the medieval sense. For those of you who don’t know, a…
Film Independent Spirit Awards nom women filmmakers
The following nominations are by women filmmakers, both writers and directors whose work has been critically reviewed and covered by FF2 Media.
NYC's Film Society of Lincoln Center presents “Jane Campion’s Own Stories” Retrospective
Jane Campion, the pioneering New Zealand-born filmmaker known for her Oscar-winning film The Piano (1993) and now Sundance TV’s “Top of the Lake” series, is being honored with a retrospective look at her innovative film career. “Jane Campion’s Own Stories,” will run from September 8th through September 17th at the Film Society of Lincoln Center…
AFI honors the incomparable Diane Keaton
Jan Here. Honestly, I turned on AFI's tribute to the incomparable Diane Keaton last night as "filler" between the end of the PBS News Hour & the beginning of The Rachel Maddow Show, but I ended up watching the entire tribute. I have always loved Diane Keaton in her dramatic roles as well as her…
Women Make Movies nominated for News Documentary Emmy Awards
Congratulations to Women Make Movies’ Distribution and Production Assistance Program films nominated for the 38th Annual News Documentary Emmy Awards! Director Beth Murphy’s What Tomorrow Brings, a story about the first girls’ school in a small Afghan village, is nominated for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary. Directors Hemal Trivedi and Mohammed Naqvi’s Among the Believers is…
FF2 Media applauds diversity in new AMPAS Class of '17
FF2 Media applauds AMPAS (The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) for inviting inviting 774 new members from 57 countries. The class of 2017 has an increased number of women and POC (People of Color) in its effort to boost diversity in each of its seven branches. Of the 64 directors invited this year,…
The Wedding Plan & The Woman's Balcony: A Tale of 2 Screenplays
FF2 Media Editor-in-Chief Jan Lisa Huttner explores the implicit misogyny of religious fundamentalism in a compare/contrast of two recent Israeli films. It can't just be that I was no fan of Rama Burshtein's first film Fill the Void. I had heard raves about her second film -- The Wedding Plan -- from people I love and respect,…
UPDATE: Sly 'Foxes' wins well-deserved Tony Award for Cynthia Nixon
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…
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…
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…
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…