Wellywood Woman

1. 'could I do that? Lisa Gornick gets to me with almost every one of her film drawings. Sometimes (today) her drawing leads to a blog post. Here, in Big Picture , the little figure, even from the back, seems full of wonder at the image on the wall. I related immediately to her wonder, and to the question it prompts. Another drawing a few weeks ago took me back to the novel chapters I lost when my laptop died. & the lower case titles help, too: they remind me that I'm quiet & curious wellywoodwoman at heart, weeding and mulching (sweet-pea straw, seaweed, untreated wood chips from a son’s carpentry) and waiting for another son to deliver horse manure. Not Wellywood Woman with Wellington Boots on, Kicking Bus Tires in Courtenay Place, Cocktail Glass in Hand. Big Picture also reminded me that I write this blog because I asked 'could I do that?' Could I explore my experience as a woman within filmmaking culture(s), write about it, make up a screenplay about...

Well, that was quick---   FilmDirecting4Women have set up a petition. You can sign it now ,  alongside women like Kay Armatage and venerable filmmaker Su Friedrich , and enjoy the comments (my favorite so far is Agata Nowakowska's "Pfff, this is ridiculous!") AND you can j oin the Facebook site  and follow the tweets . You can also follow Melissa Silverstein’s tweets and her  blog posts  at Women & Hollywood. And you can  buy a protest Tshirt . All profits from t-shirts sales go to Film Directing 4 Women's soon-to- be-launched production fund which will back short films directed by women directors. And here's another blog post about the issue. And another tweet, referring to a Telegraph article  (with a closeup of radiant Kathryn Bigelow with her Oscar): "@ CampbellX  Should women really bother making films anymore? Unless of course they are testosterone soaked? #feminism #cannes". (I've noticed that #cannes10 Twitter conv...

A little while ago, my copy of There She Goes: Feminist Filmmaking and Beyond went missing in the mail, so I've read it only recently (hungrily), including a chapter by Kay Armatage , who was an international programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival from 1982-2004. And then yesterday, melsil ( Women & Hollywood ) sent out a tweet re Cannes, where yet again women writers and directors are poorly represented. "The rumblings have started. Women are organizing for Cannes. Can't wait to see what happens," she wrote. I can't wait either. In the meantime though, I'm celebrating Kay. In the Fashioning a feminist community section of her chapter she wrote: Although my beat also developed as a low-budget independent, New York 'underground', formalist documentaries, avant-grade, 'new narrative', new Black British, and queer cinema, I was primarily known internationally...as a dedicated programmer of women directors in many cinematic...