Women at the Box Office This Weekend

Desire, sex and sexuality across generations is on tap from two new female writer/directors this weekend. Georgina Garcia Reidel brings us the story of three generations of women exploring their desires in How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer. America Ferrera (pre- Ugly Betty) plays Blanca a young woman coming of age on summer break with nothing to do all day but sit around with her girlfriends; Elizabeth Pena plays Lolita, Blanca's divorced mom with a ton of pent-up sexual frustration; and Lucy Gallardo plays Dona Genoveva a 70-year-old woman who knows what she wants and goes after it surprising herself and her family.

The French film Water Lillies tells the coming of age story of three very different 15-year-old girls also on summer break with nothing to do except hang out at the pool. They live in the bizarre world of synchronized swimming, training like competitive swimmers, yet forced to look like little princesses. This film allows the girls to explore their own sexual desires, both heterosexually and homosexually, as an organic part of life in a way few films have before.

American films are not as bold as European films especially dealing with sex and sexuality and Water Lillies is another indication of how limited the American film landscape is when dealing with girls. The Garcia Girls was slow at times (and could have been cut by 30 minutes), but I was impressed that Garcia Reidel wasn't afraid using silence to get her point across. Sciamma let the girls bodies and desires lead the story and exhibits a strong and impressive directorial vision.

Both films have received accolades, Water Lillies was screened at Cannes last year, and How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer played at Sundance several years ago. Water Lillies opens today in LA and will be playing in different cities throughout the summer. DVD will be available in September.
Read my interview with Sciamma: http://womenandhollywood.blogspot.com/2008/05/interview-with-cline-sciamma-director.html

How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer opens in 11 cities today including LA, Chicago, SF, Dallas, Houston, Miami
More info: http://www.garciagirlsmovie.com/index.html

Films Remaining in Theatres:
Then She Found Me - if you haven't seen this yet, this should be at the top if your list
Baby Mama
Nim's Island
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Under the Same Moon
Jellyfish (Seattle)
Falling for Grace (Phoenix)

Interview with Céline Sciamma, director of Water Lillies

I missed Water Lillies when it was in New York recently but I was able to screen this very interesting film of young girls exploring their burgeoning sexuality in advance of the film opening this weekend in LA at the Nuart. (The film will be playing in a variety of cities throughout the summer and will be on DVD in September.)

First-time French director Céline Sciamma answered some questions about her debut film.

Women & Hollywood: There are so few films that realistically deal with girls coming of age that your film is like a breath of fresh air. Why do you think this is a topic is not explored more when boys coming of age films are so common?

Céline Sciamma: Cinema has been celebrating women for a century now but men have mostly done the talking. I think you have to be a woman to be truly genuine and committed to the subject and to tell that particular story, especially when it comes to coming of age stories. Hopefully, the rise of a generation of women filmmakers means that the topic will be explored.

W&H: You said that it's a tough job to be a girl. What do you mean by that?

CS: It's a tough job because of the many things that are expected girls that are often contradictory. Being strong but hiding your strength, being in charge but not being officially the boss. It’s a tough job because girls live in a man’s world.

W&H: Synchronized swimming is such a bizarre feminine activity. It's hard and athletic so you need to train but its also about beauty and smiling and looking pretty. Why did you choose to use synchronized swimming as the focal point of so many of the film's activities?

CS: The thing that interested me mostly about synchronized swimming is the way it tells a lot about the girl’s condition. Synchronized swimmers are soldiers who look like dolls. On the surface they have to pretend that they don’t suffer, with all the makeup and the fake smiles, whereas underwater/underneath they painfully struggle with the element. Synchronized swimming is about pretending, it’s about hiding the pain and the sacrifice you go through to be officially gracious. Those two levels you can find in ordinary teenagehood.

W&H: You said that Floriane's character gave you the opportunity to explore the tragedy of being a pretty girl. What do you mean by that?

CS: Films usually celebrate the beauty of girls like it’s an achievement. But being beautiful is an issue just as being unattractive is. It’s something you have to deal with, something you have to face. The lust that it generates. It’s one of the problems of femininity.

W&H: There seems to be a disconnect (especially here in the US) between the taboo of discussing the reality of girls sexuality and the constant push towards sexualizing girls through clothing, ads and images in the media. Do you have any thoughts on that?

CS: That’s one of the illustration of the tough job of being a girl! That’s the kind of contradiction girls have to deal with everyday. They have to lift up to the fantasy and in the meantime be discreet about their feelings and their urges. They must trigger desire but they don’t have the right to express theirs.

W&H: Why did you pick the title Water Lilies?

CS: I didn’t pick it myself actually. It’s the international title. The original french title is "Naissance des pieuvres" which means "Birth of the Octopussies". Rather different as you can see! But I really like the title "Water Lilies", it’s more smooth than the french title and it has that poetic feeling. One can say that the three characters are like waterlilies, beautiful flowers on the surface but hiding deep roots…

W&H: Do you think its easier for women directors in Europe and if yes, why?

CS: I don’t know if it’s easier, but this year –and I hope it’s not a coincidence- a lot of the first time french directors were women. France has a tradition of women filmmakers that really began in the 90’s and keeps blooming. But one cannot talk about Europe. I don’t know any women directors in Italy, nor Spain… When I came to New York for the release, film teachers at NYU were telling me that there most promising student were women… Something might be happening here…

W&H: Do you think your film is a feminist film?

CS: When a public woman is asked if she is a feminist, she tends to answer "no", as if it was some kind of an insult. I think the film is feminist. That doesn’t mean that the film is made for a woman audience, that doesn’t mean that it’s an exposé. It’s a story that I wanted to be generous, catchy, and touching. It’s feminist because it goes beyond the fantasy, because it goes against the folklore of teenage girl’s in cotton underwear. Water Lilies goes in the locker rooms of girls not to eye-drop, but to see the crude reality. It allows everyone in the audience to experience what it’s like to be a girl.

Sex and the City Part 2: Feminism and Backlash

As the opening of Sex and the City gets closer I've noticed a bunch of articles asking whether you can be a feminist and still like Sex and the City. Give me a break. Of course you can be a feminist and like Sex and the City.

While some feminists may now want me to turn in my feminist card (and yes, we do have a card...it's called a brain) I just want to take a step back. I understand that many feminists have trouble with the show's obsession with clothes, shoes, skinniness and men. I, too, couldn't understand how those women wore those shoes without falling over.

But honestly, I am so happy that we are even having this conversation. When was the last time a fictional film (and remember this is FICTION and FAKE) caused such a stir and encouraged a debate about feminism? Just the fact that people put the words Sex and the City and feminism in the same sentence makes me excited.

But the point is Sex and the City wouldn't exist without feminism. Sarah Jessica Parker herself sees Carrie on the same continuum with Erica (played by Jill Clayburgh) in the classic feminist flick An Unmarried Woman (a must-see); and to me, she also couldn't exist without Erica Jong's Isadora Wing of Fear of Flying.

The Guardian had some good points about the feminist messages in Sex and the City Can a Feminist Really Love Sex and the City?

And to dismiss the programme entirely on the basis of its shortcomings as a feminist text would also be to lose out on what it does deliver. Just to take the most headline-grabbing example, that includes some pretty frank discussion of sex, in which female sexual pleasure and agency is obviously considered a fundamental right, rather than a privilege. McCabe says, "The way they spoke, and the things they talked about, were revolutionary. And it was also a great study of female friendship.

And I think the relationship between the women and all the questions women have about how we fit into the culture is what sold the show and what makes women excited about seeing the film. (Remember it is the top requested film on Fandango)

From the NY Magazine cover story on Sarah Jessica Parker:

And despite the gobbling consumerism of its characters, the show has unsettling insights into women and money: the way bodies function as currency; the degree to which a woman alone can truly be autonomous of free; the marriage hunt as negotiation disguised as romance.

The Backlash
But since we are talking about women, sex, feminism and movies it was only a matter of time before the backlash started. For some reason (which I don't understand) the film premiered in London. But overexposure has set in and the knives are now out with still two weeks to go. The press made fun of the Sarah Jessica Parker's hat at the premiere, and then I did a double take when I saw the cover of Time Out NY (to the left) which had duct tape over the four women's mouths with the headline: No Sex! Enough Already- we love 'em, but it's just too much.

I'm sorry, isn't doing press a requirement for all movies these days? Is it these women's fault that there is such overwhelming and unprecedented interest in their film? The culture demands that they appear everywhere yet it criticizes them for being everywhere. Robert Downey Jr. was everywhere promoting Iron Man and there was never a picture on a cover of a magazine with his mouth covered in duct tape? That picture is beyond unacceptable and blatantly sexist.

And now the LA Times has a story this morning entitled Sex and the City movie may lack wide appeal which talks about whether there are enough women in this county over 30 interested in seeing this movie to make it a hit. (News flash to the studios- there are a lot of women in this country over 30, we have money and we go to the movies.)

Some box office prognosticators are predicting that it could make as much as $40 million on its opening weekend, others see it more in the $20 million range. Let's keep in mind that only one film starring a woman made more than $40 million on its opening weekend -- Angelina Jolie in the first Tomb Raider movie. That was an action movie (that appealed to boys more than women). Next is Charlie's Angels, another action flick that grossed $40 million. The Reese Witherspoon starrer Sweet Home Alabama has the highest grossing numbers at $35 million for a romantic comedy.

Let's not let this growing backlash put this film in a no win situation. It's not going to make as much money as an action film because it's not an action film. I also would love for Hollywood to take a pause and look at the numbers for this film beyond the first three days to see if women are coming out during the first week in larger numbers than usual.

We started off the movie season two weeks ago with the NY Times discussing the lack of films coming out this summer that have any women in significant roles. I find it very easy to be reconcile my feminism my love for movies on this one. This film needs all of our support. This feminist for one will be there supporting Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda. Hope you join me.

The LA Times Obits the Careers of Cameron Diaz and Gwyneth Paltrow

Yesterday morning's article in the LA Times was a lament on the lack of films that appeal to women but morphed into an obit on the careers of Gwyneth Paltrow and Cameron Diaz, two thirty something actresses who in any other industry would be still on an upwards career trajectory. More than anything else the story is just another indication on how pathetic a world it is for women working in Hollywood today.

It wasn't too long ago that Paltrow was the reigning queen of class. She has an Oscar, yet she's made some bad choices (I still can't forgive her for Shallow Hal), had some kids, and did the most horrible thing possible and actually aged. Now she's back, not as the star but as the sidekick assistant of Robert Downey Jr. (a guy who was written off so many times yet still get chances to come back). I can't necessarily blame her for taking the job, since she probably got paid pretty well and didn't have to work much. But still. She's a very good actress and she's still relatively young...so is Pepper Potts the roles she's doomed to play?

Cameron Diaz has been in some very funny movies and is very charming and likable onscreen. As the article says her new movie What Happens in Vegas with Ashton Kutcher has them evenly matched as co-stars. It probably helps the case that the script was written by a woman, Dana Fox. But an agent told Rachel Abramowitz (who wrote the article) that Diaz' problem is that she is stuck in the "woman-girl syndrome" like Melanie Griffith and Meg Ryan before her.

What the fuck is that? A "woman-girl syndrome?" I can't believe that someone could say that with a straight face and that a reporter would let them get away with that. That's just a load of crap. Would anyone say that about a male actor? He's caught in the man-boy syndrome? Oh right, yeah they are. They're all caught in the boy-male syndrome! And you know what? the boy-man syndrome seems to pay off in dividends for the guys. Have you been to a comedy recently where the guy acts like a man? Please, the double standard is beyond pathetic.

When the box office fire cools, what are actresses like Gwyneth Paltrow and Cameron Diaz to do?

The Tony Nominations

It's Tony Awards time, that time of the year to take a look at the theatre world and how women are doing in it. The news as you would expect is mixed to bad. Women still lag very far behind as playwrights -- none of the best play nominees were by women. Only two women figured into the creative teams on the best musical nominees, Heidi Rodewald was nominated as composer for Passing Strange and Quiana Alegria Hudes was nominated for writing the book of In the Heights. The good news is that two out of the four nominees for best director of a play were women -- Maria Aitken, The 39 Steps and Anna D. Shapiro, August: Osage County.

So while women might not be involved enough creatively, we make up a majority of the Broadway audience (62%) and are more likely to make the purchasing decisions (data from the Broadway League) Then why aren't there more women's stories being produced if we are the majority of the theatregoers?

On another note, I heard Elizabeth Vincentelli, the Arts & Entertainment editor of Time Out NY talking on NPR yesterday about the nominations and how we are in a golden age for women in musical theatre. She said "the breadth of the talent pool is staggering." My take is that there has always been amazing female talent available (how about Betty Buckley and Bernadette Peters?) There's just never been enough vehicles to display their talents.

Two musicals which I have not seen A Catered Affair and Gypsy boast two generations of talented women. Patti Lupone as Mama Rose with Laura Benanti in Gypsy; and Faith Prince and Leslie Kritzer in A Catered Affair. Fun fact: Lupone who is nominated this year last won a Tony 28 years ago in Evita.

Other nominees:
Best Performance By a Leading Actress in a Play
Eve Best, The Homecoming
Deanna Dunagan, August: Osage County
Kate Fleetwood, Macbeth
S. Epatha Merkerson, Come Back, Little Sheba
Amy Morton, August: Osage County

Best Performance By a Leading Actress in a Musical
Kerry Butler, Xanadu
Patti LuPone, Gypsy
Kelli O'Hara, Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific
Faith Prince, A Catered Affair
Jenna Russell, Sunday in the Park With George

Best Performance By a Featured Actress in a Play
Sinead Cusack, Rock 'n' Roll
Mary McCormack, Boeing-Boeing
Laurie Metcalf, November
Martha Plimpton, Top Girls
Rondi Reed, August: Osage County

Best Performance By a Featured Actress in a Musical
de'Adre Aziza, Passing Strange
Laura Benanti, Gypsy
Andrea Martin, The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein
Olga Merediz, In The Heights
Loretta Ables Sayre, Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific

Thoughts from Martha Plimpton on her nomination: (Best Performance By a Featured Actress in a Play, Top Girls): "I haven't had my coffee yet, so I'm a little bleary-eyed, but I'll tell you this...I'm really delighted and surprised, to be perfectly honest, and just very proud that I get to represent the ladies in our show at the big party. What an awesome year for women! Let's hope every season from now on is as lush with great women doing their thing." (Variety)

Karen Allen is Back in the New Indiana Jones Movie

One of the most exciting things I'm looking to this summer is seeing Karen Allen onscreen returning in the Indiana Jones movie. Her character Marion Ravenwood was a much more realistic foil and partner for Indy than the women who followed. (Granted the film was made in 1981 when there were many more strong roles for women in the movies -- think Silkwood, Norma Rae, 9 to 5, Yentl)

It's smart and bold for Steven Spielberg and George Lucas to team their 65 year old male star (Harrison Ford) with a female contemporary rather than following the trend and giving him a younger girlfriend.

Here's a sneak preview at the new issue of More magazine which features Karen Allen on its cover.


Here are some excerpts from the piece:

About getting the call from Steven Spielberg:

“What’s funny is that his wife, Kate Capshaw, had just bought a lot of my knitwear for Christmas presents. I though he was going to tell me he loved the presents! He said, ‘Haven’t you been watching television? We’re doing another film, and you’re in it.’ And it wasn’t a cameo, it was a big, beautiful part and I was jumping up and down.”

Life on the Indy set:

On the first day of filming, she and Ford, who turned 65 during the shoot, had to leap from the back of a moving truck into its cab. “Harrison and I were laughing in between takes, saying ‘Here we go again.’ It just felt really seamless.

About the second time around:

“Now, we’ve all grown up, we all have kids: Steven has seven children; Harrison has several families. As a younger actor, I had a harder time enjoying the process. I was so serious about it all, there was more ego involved. I’d never worked on big action things where you spend you entire day navigating through snakes or having corpses fall on your head, and I was overwhelmed."

Harrison Ford on Karen:

“Karen has this sort of girlish streak to her, even as a mature woman. And yet it’s not a coy thing. It’s not a weak thing. She has a sense of adventure.” On the first day of filming, “there I was in a fedora and a leather jacket and she showed up up looking like the Karen of old. Or of young.”

Women over 40 in Hollywood:

“There just aren’t that many wonderful roles for women over 45. I come from a generation of fantastic actresses, most of whom are not working at all and I don’t think it’s because they stopped wanting to.”

About the TV offers she’s turned down:

“For actors over a certain age, everybody thinks you’re going to work in television. It seems to me there’s one good show a year – like right now I love In Treatment. But most television I find unbearably bad. So, if an acting job comes along that I want to do, fantastic, and meanwhile, I have this really full, rich, interesting life.”

About her life now:

“Honestly, I have to say, 56 is my favorite age ever. I’ve raised my son, and I’ll never stop being his mother. But now he’s moved on in his life, and that opens up mine as well. It’s taken me this long to figure out how to create a life that’s diverse and interesting and balanced.”

The divorced star and her future loves:

“I feel that if I’m going to get involved at this point, I’m looking for a person I’d spend the rest of my life with. And short of that, I honestly like being on my own. Every once in a while, I’ll see a really romantic movie and think, why can’t I find somebody like him? But I’m kind of reconciled to the possibility that I might not.”

You can read the full story next week.

Fall TV Preview- Women's Shows Axed

Because of the prolonged writer's strike this TV season was totally messed up. Some shows have ended, some shows never came back and some shows just got screwed by the scheduling.

The TV powers said that things are going to be different post-strike and have announced their fall lineups, and one thing that looks really different to me is how many women's shows are not making it back next season.

ABC which boasts the best women's shows has just lost its mind by axing the wonderful Men in Trees, and Women's Murder Club. They also axed Cashmere Mafia but that show was so terrible that I can't cry and boo boo tears for that one. But I am pissed about the other two.

I have to say that ABC totally screwed Men in Trees over and over again. It seems that they wanted that show to fail. I think they changed its time slot six times and twice it disappeared for months. They were so stupid not to keep it on after Grey's Anatomy and embrace the night as a night for great women's TV.

Regarding Women's Murder Club, ABC declared it dead when they fired the creators Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain during the writer's strike. When the show came back post strike they really toned down the Angie Harmon character and made her giggle around a potential guy she liked. This woman was a sergeant in the SFPD and they reduced her to giggling. Putzes! I just don't get it. ABC renews the unwatchable Eli Stone but ditched Men in Trees and Women's Murder Club. Come on!

I also thought the the Judy Greer show Miss/Guided had a chance to come back on ABC but it doesn't seem to be on the schedule. CBS was also on the verge of dumping the great The New Adventures of Old Christine starring Julia Louis-Dreyfuss but as of this morning it looks like its been renewed but without a time slot or airdate.

Looking at the new shows coming next fall here are some that look halfway decent:

NBC
Kath and Kim- based on the Aussie comedy of the same name starring Molly Shannon and Selma Blair

CBS
The Ex List- based on an Israeli series about a woman who is warned by a tarot card reader that she needs to get married soon to a man who she's already known in her life. Written by Diane Ruggiero and starring Elizabeth Reaser (who I guess will have been finished with Alex on Grey's Anatomy since she now has her own series. I'm happy for her since she is a great actress.)

CW
Surviving the Filthy Rich - a Yale-educated woman serves as the live-in tutor to two wealthy heiresses. Written by Rina Mimoun.

Fox
Fringe- follows the exploits of a young female FBI agent who tackles unexplained medical and scientific phenomena.

Doesn't it seem that this fall seems kind of lackluster for women on TV?

Hollywood Feminist of the Day: Kristin Davis

At the premiere of the Sex and the City movie in London, Davis responded to the continued gossip that the four costars don't get along by saying:

"It's a sexist thing really," she told Reuters, complaining that magazines "don't talk about how the Sopranos all fought or whatever."

"We've got a woman running for president, we need to get with the times. Not all women are bitchy to each other," (Reuters)

Photo: Wireimage

Interview with Jennifer Fox, Director, Producer and Subject of Flying: Confessions of a Free Women

Parts 3 and 4 of the six part series Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman airs tonight (Monday) on the Sundance channel. The series focuses on Jennifer Fox's questions about gender issues, motherhood, marriage and in the parts airing tonight she asks these questions of women activists working on issues in countries around the world.

Women & Hollywood was able to ask Jennifer Fox about making the film and how it has changed her.

Women & Hollywood: Each episode starts off with the following resonant statement: "I never wanted to be a girl in the way a girl was supposed to be. I wanted to be a boy. They could do anything they wanted to do." Why was it important to begin each episode that way?

Jennifer Fox: I think it really sums up the dilemma of our lives -- boys can do everything and girls can do very little. Remember, I grew up in the late 50s but I have a feeling that girls grow up not so different today…the gender lines have not been broken. And on this iconographic issue of raising children in some ways its like we are back in the 50s.

W&H: In the beginning episodes you are focused on having a child after many years of ambivalence. You question whether you are real woman in our culture without having a child.

JF: We define women as being married mothers actually. It's marriage plus children.

W&H: Do you feel you are in a different place from where you started the film?

JF: You are looking at a woman who has run away screaming from a female identity, saying I will not be controlled by the rules, I will live as men live. At the beginning of the film I am a long way from being a feminist because I completely sided with my father. I arrive at the end of the film siding with my mother and realizing that I am a part of a fabric that I didn't know I was part of before. At the end of the film [which was two years ago] I was still much more focused on having a child than I am now. I certainly feel that you can be woman and not have children, but I don't think society feels that.

W&H: Do you think that if you would have had more of a feminist identity you have come to the film from a different place?

JF: Oh yeah, but I think the film would not have been as good. I think that if I would have talked as politically as I do now it wouldn't have made for a good film. What's good about the film is that I was in a crisis of identity; I couldn't speak the language because I couldn't identify. What you see is someone searching for who they are. That was real. The good news about the film is that you follow my journey and that made a better film and one that younger women highly identify with.

W&H: Because you are not self-identified as a feminist?

JF: Right, and just like when I was a kid a lot of people still see feminist as a bad word.

W&H: Your film is heterosexually focused. Did you think about having lesbian stories as part of the film?

JF: I did really want to have a lesbian story but all of my attempts failed. I always thought that at the end of the film I would break up with these 2 guys and go out with a woman as a way to investigate my bisexuality. It didn't happen. I think the problem is because there are so few films like this that we want it to cover everything. It's actually quite a narrow. It's about sexual freedom and control internationally. The main thing was that the film had to go around the world, not that it had to cover all female identities.

W&H: What was so interesting was that you are taking people on a journey and exposing them to the international women's movement that many people here in the US are so unfamiliar with.

JF: I think what's really important about Flying is issues of representation. We are used to looking at the third world in a kind of object-oriented way when the camera points at them and hides the filmmaker. What I was trying to do was to say that we (US) who think we are so different from them are actually in the same frame. That's why it was so important for me to put a white affluent, western woman in the same frame as a woman from Pakistan or Cambodia or India to visually shift the representation. I wanted to say these women are like us. That's why the issues of my sexual abuse and sexuality were so important to unravel in the film because they are so common and that totally breaks down the wall between us.

W&H: Your film was financed internationally? How did you make that happen?

JF: I have quite an international reputation in the documentary film scene. The reason why this was a Danish co-production is because the film making strategies -- the one person one camera -- and the intimacy is something they've done very successfully in Denmark. A producer approached me and we decided to partner. Doing a co-production is always quite hard. I lived in Denmark for a year and a half and my Danish editor was here and its hard and always more expensive. In our case it was successful because there was a creative reason to work together.

W&H: Why do you think that women are drawn to documentaries?

JF: They are just so much fun to make and they are hands on. Of course politically, [docs are more welcoming to women because of the smaller crews, smaller budgets, and less power] but at the same time it's also about having direct contact with a subject and people and I think women thrive on that. We are relationship beings.

There are very few women making series and when I made American Love Story I was the only woman I knew in PBS land who made a series. I'm probably still the only woman to have directed and produced a ten-hour series for public TV. One of the issues I had to deal with [at the time] was how a thirty something woman could be trusted with the scope and the money this would take. Those issues of money, power and responsibility are always the same for women.

W&H: Why do you think your film is resonating with people?

JF: I see this film is resonating so differently and it generates profound dialogue. Women and men say to me: "this is my life and nobody has put it on screen before and it's such a relief." I don't think that I've made a film that speaks so universally and directly before. My films have been successful but this is something different. Screening after screening I see this other reaction. I see it as a movement. You have to let people talk.

W&H: Do you embrace feminism now?

JF: I do. A lot of the effort is to get people to talk about gender in a new way and to see that sexism and gender issues are so ingrained in us and you have to do the daily work. It means don't capitulate to the idea of giving up your job because you have kids. There is a point where we have to demand gender equality and you have to start with yourself.

More info: Flying
Order the DVD

Women & Hollywood on the Radio and on the Web!

Women & Hollywood (aka Melissa Silverstein) appeared Friday on the segment "Does Hollywood show a Gender Bias with Summer Movies?" on the Patt Morrison show on KPCC (the southern CA NPR station). Listen to it here: Does Hollywood show a Gender Bias with Summer Movies? (Scroll down to the last segment)


A big shout out to Debbie Zipp, who is trying to make movies for women over 40 at her In the Trenches Productions for the great blog post on Women & Hollywood. Check out the post here: Women Over 40 on a Roll