Wellywood Woman

Maria Giese Photo: Reggie Burrows Hodges for the  Bluestocking Series   About a year ago, I interviewed American director Maria Giese about her campaign to end discrimination against women directors in the United States. It's a collective human rights-based action that’s globally unique and significant for all of us who watch and are influenced by Hollywood entertainment.  Here’s the next chapter of Maria's story, in  two parts: a summary for everyone, followed by the deep nitty gritty for women directors and our allies. Summary WW What have you been up to? MG It’s been quite a year. After 20 years, I left LA and moved to Connecticut with my husband and two children to write a book, Troublemaker . It tells the story of my Hollywood insurgence and my battles in the Directors Guild of America (DGA) during the past 5 years, with a bold group of other women directors. It also describes my journey getting the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to launch...

Maria Giese Maria Giese, a director and a member of the powerful Directors Guild of America (DGA), spoke out about discrimination against women directors in Hollywood long before the those interviewed by Maureen Dowd for a major  New York Times article , published a couple of weeks ago – in interviews, through articles on her blog and in other social media. Like Lexi Alexander , Maria is a hero. She began challenging the DGA back in 2011and in 2013 moved on to ask the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California to investigate discrimination against women directors. The ACLU set up a webpage,  Tell Us Your Story , where it issued a warm invitation– If you are a director who has been discriminated against, excluded from directing jobs in television or get less TV work than your male peers, we’d love to hear your story to learn more about the experiences of women in the directing industry. Please tell us your story below. Women ...