Wellywood Woman

Yes, champions can come from anywhere. And New Zealander Niki Caro's a champ, director of McFarland USA . But she's the only woman director on the  Disney list for 2015 , which includes Pixar films. Furthermore, there's only one film on the list with a female protagonist, Pixar's Inside Out , an animation 'told from the perspective of the emotions inside the mind of a girl' and written and directed by men. This is no good for those of us who enjoy films by and about women and girls. But on this first day of 2015 – happy new year to all! – I'm delighted to celebrate a new film by Niki Caro, her first since A Heavenly Vintage (2009). McFarland USA is based on a true story about Jim White, a teacher (played by Kevin Costner) who noticed that young Latino farm workers ran great distances each day just to get from their exhausting jobs to school and back home. He creates a cross-country team and transforms the team into a state cham...

It's always exciting when a New Zealand woman-directed feature comes out. There's been a big gap between Dana Rotberg's White Lies/Tuakiri Huna , in early 2013, and Michelle Joy Lloyd's Sunday ,   which premiered last weekend. In what's believed to be a world first, in a carefully designed multiplatform release by Dustin Clare and Michelle as distributors (Fighting Noise),  Sunday opened simultaneously across more than twenty New Zealand cinemas, on television and the internet, on DVD and on airlines. Until now, Michelle was best known as producer of the internationally acclaimed Open Source film project Stray Cinema , which she founded in 2006 while living in Wellington. She produced and directed the first round of Stray Cinema film footage shot in London and screened at the first Stray Cinema screening event in London, 2007. Starring Dustin Clare and Camille Keenan, two award-winning Australasian actors, Sunday 's a relationship drama in the v...

I feel very proud that a New Zealand film, Kimbap , written and produced by Sapna Samant and directed by Alex Kyo Won Lee, won Best in Show and the Audience Choice Award for the best film by a male director at the Bluestocking Film Series this year and then travelled with the Bluestocking selection to the LadyBug Festival  in Sweden. This all feels special, because Bluestocking is the influential showcase for provocative, well-produced short fictional films featuring complex female protagonists – and the only film event in the world to require female protagonists. Submissions must also pass the Bechdel Test and Bluestocking is the first United States film event to receive Sweden’s A-Rating, which informs consumers that films pass the test. Best in Show judge, Thuc Doan Nguyen from The Bitch Pack , which advocates better representation of women ‘on the page’, said this about Kimbap – I chose the film because of the excellent acting, the relationship between mother an...

So Mockingjay had a big opening.  And here's @licoricehazel's immediate response– That' s all terrific. And as a New Zealander, I'm especially proud and delighted because 'our' Lorde curated the music. And wrote and performed some of it too. But I'm also remembering that men wrote almost all the Hunger Games scripts and directed all of the films. And I'm reflecting on that depressing data on women who make films and about the (mis)representation of women and girls in films. It continues to pour out. A storm. A flood. A tsunami. It's almost overwhelming. In September, the  European Audiovisual Observatory   released  Female Directors in European Films: State of Play and Evolution Between 2003 and 2012   –  the first substantial study to measure the director 'gender divide' at pan-European level. Since then I've been thinking about the various recent reports and their interrelationships, in an attempt to understand wh...

Jacqueline Kalimunda Jacqueline Kalimunda's Single Rwandan Seeks Serious Relationship asks ‘How do people love after genocide?’ It uses new technologies to explore the rebirth of love in a society that’s coming out of conflict and will introduce us to Rwanda’s new generation, using the internet to find love and enhance resilience. In three languages –  Kinyarwanda (Rwanda's official language) English and French – it's the first participatory film on love in Rwanda. I found  Single Rwandan' s crowdfunding campaign  on Twitter. And then watched Jacqueline's pitch clip and some clips she’s shared from the project (below). Jacqueline and the clips enchanted me, made me think and feel deeply. As an exploration of the 'rebirth of love in a society that’s coming out of conflict’, Single Rwandan is extraordinary, I believe, something profoundly important for all of us. In the English-speaking world, we’re most familiar with Rwanda through films made by othe...

Emma Rozanski, writer/director Papagajka I’m convinced that it’s essential to follow crowdfunding campaigns to learn what’s new and exciting about women in film, that women-directed and crowdfunded films are the most likely to change the gender imbalances, not films that women direct for Hollywood, with its profound ambivalence (at best!) towards women who make films and towards women and girls in films. Crowdfunded and women-directed films are where we’re most likely to experience complex women and girls and exciting stories about them. That's also where we'll be challenged and engaged by experimental work that makes us think and feel, I reckon. For me, it's easiest to access crowdfunding campaigns on Twitter. That’s where I first heard of Afia Nathaniel, whose Dukhtar ( Daughter ) premiered at Toronto this year, because she created such a beautiful campaign. I first heard and loved Ana Lily Amapour’s distinctive voice when she tweeted about A Girl Walks Home Alon...

All the Cunning Stunts  (2010-11) Detail. A while back, in Courtenay Place Wellington, All the Cunning Stunts   installed a series of frames that made me smile. Juxtaposed with the Reading Cinemas complex, it provided me with a short film experience as I walked by, pausing often. All the Cunning Stunts  (2010-11) Detail. I love it that at home we can now watch films at our own pace, pause on individual images, replay sequences. It's like turning the pages of a book. And at the  All The Cunning Stunts installation,   instead of clicking on my computer I 'walked' what felt like an experimental film.   With drama.   Read text that felt like poems. Reflected on the ideas. Delighted in this elegant manifestation of media convergence, complete with reference to the Topp Twins (remember The   Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls ?) All the Cunning Stunts  (2010-11) Installation view. So imagine my delight when Pip Adam suggested th...

Melissa Dopp People come and go on Twitter. And Melissa Dopp, of Hanover, Virginia, had lots in her life beyond her energetic @reellives Twitter account and her Pinterest boards, many of them about women's filmmaking. Party politics, life with her partner Pattie (including visits to mountains, wine trails), extended family and friends. And work .  So I didn't notice that she was missing. It was a shock to receive a beautiful email from her sister Liz telling me that Melissa died on 27 August, from complications following surgery, two days after her 51st birthday. It was a struggle to understand that vibrant Melissa was gone. I don't remember how we met. But it was online, where Melissa made many friends, as she did In Real Life. And it was probably on Twitter, where the @reellives account no longer exists. We also emailed, DM'ed, shared Pinterest boards and briefly met in person, when she flew to New Zealand for Jane Campion's masterclasses . On Melissa...

Jill Golick , President Writers Guild Canada, at the Women's Resolution presentation Hard data about women screenwriters and directors continues to flood in. And some amazing responses. This Women's Resolution for instance, from the World Conference of Screenwriters held in Warsaw at the beginning of the month. The conference is major, attended by by representatives of guilds and professional bodies from around the world , like the Writers Guild of America West, so its resolutions matter to us all. Here's the full text– Statistics from writers' organizations around the world show clearly that women writers are under employed. We write fewer scripts, receive fewer commissions, have shorter careers and earn less than our male colleagues. Women have the talent, experience and ambition to participate as equals in every aspect of the industry. What stands in our way is institutional gender bias. We the 30 guilds and writers organizations present at the Warsaw Confe...

One day last week I got up early, to watch the stream of presentations at the Washington session of the 2d Global Symposium of the Geena Davis Institute of Gender in Media (LA session coming  soon) . It was great to see and hear people I'd only read about and to see the involvement of UN Women . I was especially inspired by activist, filmmaker and philanthropist  Abigail Disney  ( Pray the Devil Back to Hell ,  Women, War & Peace , founder of Peace is Loud  and the outspoken great-niece of Walt.) 'Gatekeepers are wrong 50% of the time', she said, in a fresh version of screenwriter William Goldman's assertion that in the screen industry 'nobody knows anything'.  The other statement that's stayed with me came from Dr Stacy Smith, of the Media, Diversity & Social Change Initiative , who led the Geena Davis Institute research launched at the symposium, Gender Bias Without Borders .   'As money moves in, women are pushed out',...

Kate Sheppard as green light Yesterday was the 121st anniversary of women's suffrage in New Zealand. Yes, we were the first country in the world to give women the vote. And this year the Wellington City Council has commemorated this with some special pedestrian green lights near Parliament, portraying suffragist Kate Sheppard . Also yesterday, I caught up with the British Film Institute (BFI)'s  'three ticks'  policy, 'designed to address diversity in relation to ethnicity, disability, gender, sexual orientation and socio-economic status'. Green-lit in July, the policy went live on 1 September. The BFI is the largest public film fund in the United Kingdom, invests over £27m into film development, production, international sales and distribution, and supports around 30 new film productions each year. From now on, to be eligible for BFI Film Fund support for production, producers who apply must demonstrate their commitment to encouraging diverse represent...

Every so often magic happens. Like this public meeting organised by  Directors & Editors Guild of New Zealand  (DEGNZ) and WIFTNZ . I was sad I couldn't go and look forward to seeing the video that was recorded, as shown in the audience pic below. Many thanks to DEGNZ Executive Director Fiona Copland and to Lucy Stonex, for this brief report of the historic event, including the pics, followed by my response. For those of you not familiar with New Zealand, Annie Goldson is a documentary director and producer and academic, Cushla Dillon is an editor, Gaylene Preston is a director, writer and producer in film and television and Jackie Van Beek is an actor and a writer and director for stage and screen. l. to r. Gaylene Preston, Kim Hill, Annie Goldson, Jackie Van Beek by Lucy Stonex Responding to the release of some concerning international statistics, members of DEGNZ and WIFT gathered in Auckland last week to talk about gender imbalance amongst dire...

The Fledgling Fund is a private foundation 'driven by the passionate belief that film can inspire a better world'. The list of films it's supported is truly impressive, lots by and about women. Here's just a few– Brave Miss World , Budrus , Girl Rising , Leaving the Life , Miss Representation , Mothers of Bedford ,  Saving Face , The Invisible War , The Light in Her Eyes . Other significant projects include The Mask You Live In and  Seed: The Untold Story . And there are many many more. I love it that each project on the Fledgling Fund site has its own social impact page, powered by Sparkwise . On those pages I can read a synopsis and about the filmmakers, see the trailer, get a snapshot of the project's communities and social media reach, find out who its main supporters are. Learn about how I can become a supporter and/or viewer. There are graphs! There are maps even! I can't show you a full screenshot of any of the pages, many of them rich and c...

Just over a month ago, Pledgeme and Snowball Effect became New Zealand’s first equity crowd funders , licensed to act as intermediaries between entrepreneurial companies wanting to sell shares and investors wanting to buy them. This week, The Patriarch , through Snowball, became the first feature film to seek equity crowdfunding in New Zealand. It may not be the first feature in the world to be equity crowd funded but it’s close. New Zealanders have engaged with equity crowdfunding before, when Spanner Films, led by New Zealander Lizzie Gillett, produced Franny Armstrong’s The Age of Stupid in the United Kingdom and later provided a step-by-step guide to their model. Also in the United Kingdom, Simon West ( Tomb Raider , Con Air ) is using equity crowdfunding to raise money for his Salty . The Patriarch , from the novel Bulibasha , is the fourth feature from a Witi Ihimaera story. It follows Whale Rider (2002, wr/dir Niki Caro), Kawa (2010, from Nights in the Garden of...

The New Zealand Writers Guild has announced the Finalists for the Script Writer Awards NZ 2014. Fantastic to see so many women's names. Warm congratulations to you all! BEST FEATURE FILM SCRIPT Max Currie – Everything We Loved James Napier Robertson – Dark Horse Gerard Johnstone – Housebound Sophie Henderson – Fantail BEST TELEVISION ONE-OFF DRAMA Fiona Samuel –  Consent: The Louise Nicholas Stor y  Donna Malane & Paula Boock –  Field Punishment No.1   Donna Malane & Paula Boock –  Pirates of the Airwaves UNPRODUCED FEATURE FILM SCRIPT COMPETITION Gillian Ashurst –  Gnats   Dianne Taylor –  The Last Hippie Trail   Tania Wheeler –  Umbrella Man Richard Goodwin –  Immortal Diamond Jackie Owens –  Three Gardens

I fell over Ally Acker’s work via this tweet. Not Ally’s tweet, you’ll notice, because she doesn’t engage with social media, which may be why I missed her before. I was immediately curious about Ally's extraordinary magnum opus, Reel Women , the two-volume revised and expanded book and the 10 discs (see below) and the forthcoming Reel Herstory: The REAL Story of Reel Women . Introduced by Jodie Foster, Reel Herstory is a feature-length documentary that runs two and a half hours. It's in two parts. The first covers The Silent Era and the second Talkies Through Today (first ten minutes below).

Kano – outside Gidan Almajirai, the House of Scholars I love quest movies. Why don't we have more movies about women's quests, beyond romance-quests? I love road movies, too. There aren't enough of them with women protagonists. That's one reason I'm so excited by Afia Nathaniel's Dukhtar , debuting at Toronto, released in Pakistan soon and here on Facebook. When Fiona Lovatt and I re-met on Facebook, after thirty years of no contact, she sent me an image for my Keeping An Eye On The Washing board. Then she arrived at my place and I asked her probably too many questions. And when I heard her stories, their quest elements and their road elements enthralled me.  Before Fiona left for Nigeria, for a third period living in Kano, an ancient northern city with a population of over 4 million, I asked her a few more questions. I'm delighted that she transcends them and that her Facebook page contributes fragments of dialogue with others – persevere with t...

Eleven photo: Jimena Murray Children play in safety on the beach beyond my window. Some aren't safe at home, but they do not die in rocket attacks. Along our promenade, this year’s most sustained sirens wailed from motorbike cavalcades, as they escorted royalty to and from the airport. At school, our children may arrive hungry. But they're safe from abduction. The closest I’ve ever been to a war is my parents' silence about 'their' war, refuge women's stories about men returned from wars and Bruce Cunningham’s stories, after I met him selling Anzac poppies. (He was a Lancaster pilot in World War II and then a prisoner-of-war and I’m making a short doco about him.) Yes, in many ways Wellington, New Zealand is paradise and I’m blessed to live here and to benefit from love and generosity from women and men, my beautiful sons now among those men. But in an interview with Matthew Hammett Knott earlier this year,  I found myself saying– We have to deal wit...