Women-loving women IV: Sydney Levine, Margaret von Schiller, Ines Paris, The Female Factor & The Compostela Declaration (an intermission)
There are so many strategies available to support women’s participation in feature filmmaking. I love them all. Some people record, analyse and write about the numbers, provide the evidence: Martha Lauzen, the Writers Guild of America West and some government funding agencies. Others analyse how women and girls are represented in film, and show where there are opportunities to develop new ideas: the Geena Davis Institute, academics. There are state funders who develop gender policies: the Swedish Film Institute, Scottish Film. Bloggers who talk about the issues with women writers and directors: Women & Hollywood, HerFilm are my faves. Journalists like Manohla Dargis sometimes provide sharp analysis. Some women experiment with funding structures and new ways of distribution—the classy Afia Nathaniel and makers of webseries hold my attention at the moment. There are organizations with programmes that support women directors: AFI, Women in the Director’s Chair, filmdirectin...