Ida Lupino
Agnes Varda
Lina Wertmuller
Sallie Potter
Catherine Breillat
Deepa Mehta
Kimberly Peirce
Agniezka Holland
Larisa Shepitko
Claire Denis
Lately I’ve been exploring the works of..
Marguerite Duras
Valie Export
Mara Mattuschka
More eperimental type stuff..
I think there’s another thread on this buried somewhere but worth digging up…
Here’s the other thread with a lot of people weighing in
http://www.theauteurs.com/topics/513/comments
I think it’s a shame there are so few. I mean, I don’t think the industry would be much different if there were more women directors, but just imagine the movies we’re missing out on due to living in a man’s world.
Jim, there really are more than you think, if you take a look at the other thread it’s quite exhaustive and informative.
Sofia Coppola
I think the lack of female directors, and I know I may get some flack here, isn’t MAINLY due to sexism. Sexism is only secondary. The real reason is that filmmaking or even film enthusiasm and cinephilia is by and large a MALE pursuit. Look at every film-related message boards, forums and chatrooms, they are predominantly male. Women who pursue filmmaking are few compared to the many males who pursue filmmaking.
unless you have statistical evidence to back that, id say its somewhat of a bold claim.
I agree with C-Monster, it’s always been said historically that women just didn’t “want to do” professions that were mostly male-identified, and then it turned out that when they got the chance women were interested. Women directors have paved the way for intimate and quirky dramas to become more acceptable; a lot of male directors in indie cinema have been influenced by female directors to focus on relationships and family in a more honest way.
I think the pursuit of nerding it up with trainsets and sports facts and pointless argument and cinephilia etc is more a male thing, yeah. But the reasons there are fewer women filmmakers is without question because of the institutionalized sexism at every level of the film industry, and in societies at large. It’s an ideological poisoning. But anyway, this subject was covered better elsewhere. When v2 of the forum gets launched (very soon), it’ll be possible to trace these old threads, and continue debates more thoroughly.
Mary Harron (American Psycho, The Notorious Betty Page)
That Wayne’s World lady.
Lots of good French ones. In addition to the ones already mentioned, how about Catherine Corsini, Diane Kurys, Daniele Thompson and one of my personal favorites: Valerie Le Mercier. There’s Czech Vera Chytilova.
Also, more recently Sarah Polley and Isabel Coixet.
Don’t forget Ida Lupino from Hollywood’s Golden Age. From the silent era: Dorothy Arzner (she also made talking pictures), Ida May Park, and Lois Weber.
Noel – oh sorry you mentioned Ida Lupino! Thanks.
Check out the first two features by the very talented Argentine writer-director Lucrecia Martel: La Cienaga (2001) and The Holy Girl (2005). Her new feature, The Headless Woman, has gotten wildly mixed reviews since showing at Cannes — my bet is a few people who post here have seen it. We’re still waiting for our chance in Toronto. And, on a completely different note, there’s also Kathryn Bigelow (Near Dark, Blue Steel, Point Break, Strange Days), a very rare example of a female director working almost exclusively in the North American studio system (as opposed to crafting films somewhere in the margins of independent production). Her new film, The Hurt Locker, has also gotten some fascinating notices; I missed it in Toronto but it should be getting a commercial release this year.
Lina Wertmuller, Jane Campion, and Barbera Kopple. Honourable mention to porn film director, Anna Span.
Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher is one of my favorite films, she followed the film with another good film Morvern Callar then kind of disappeared.
She is a very talented writer & director who is currently working on projects.
Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy, 2006) and (Wendy and Lucy, 2008)
I’m a sucker for a simple premise. Beautiful films.
Kino Video is going to be releasing a box set soon of early women directors from the silent film era and early sound. I saw it on their website.
agnes varda
Teresa Villaverde, from Portugal
Lynne Ramsay is ace. Well, I’ve only seen Ratcatcher, and a few other short films packed into the film’s Criterion release.
One great female director we’ve left out here is Mira Nair.
JAY’s link has an extensive list. I remember reading that list a few months ago and discovering some gems.
marianna palka. her debut film Good Dick is so good.
Lina Wertmuller is my favorite. Maya Deren is also quite impressive
Isabel Coixet: A Life without me, The Secret Life of Words, Elegy, Paris Je t’aime…
mira nair (sallam bombay)
sofia coppola (lost in translation)
katia lund (city of god -co director)
julie delpy (2 days in paris )
katie woods (looking for alibrandi)
Ning Ying, Ann Hui, Leni Riefenstahl, Gillian Armstrong, Jocelyn Moorehouse, Mimi Leder, Lone Scherfig, Nora Ephron, Gurinda Chadha, Farah Khan, Penny Marshall, Cate Shortland, Diane Keaton, Lisa Cholodenko, Beeban Kidron, Barbara Kopple, Karyn Kusama, Kimberly Peirce, Paula van der Oest, Sherine Salama, Samira Makhmalbaf , Allison Anders, Jennifer Lynch, Salma Hayek, Agnieszka Holland, Niki Caro, Susan Seidelman, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Elvira Notari, Liliana Cavani, Márta Mészáros, Barbara Streisand, Eliane Caffé, Lúcia Murat, Kinuyo Tanaka, Amy Heckerling, Euzhan Palcy, Julie Taymor, Caroline Link, Sarah Watt, Catherine Hardwicke, Maria Luisa Bemberg, Sam Taylor-Wood, Antonia Bird, Patricia Rozema, Jacqueline Audry, Nicole Holofcener, Kimberly Peirce, Chantal Akerman, Patty Jenkins, Suzanne Bier’, Catherine Breillet, Joan Long, Essie Coffey, Rachel Perkins, Nadia Tass, Elissa Down, Cathy Randall, Alice Guy, Martha Coolidge, Joan Micklin Silver, Carol Reed…….I can and will go on (at a later date:-)).
Tanuja Chandra
Yasmin Ahmad
Sylvia Chang
Sadaf Foroughi
Twelve of my current favorite directors who happen to be women are:
Chantal Akerman
Maguerite Duras
Naomi Kawase
Danièle Huillet
Aparna Sen
Maya Deren
Lucrecia Martel
Larisa Shepitko
Claire Denis
Márta Mészáros
Teresa Villaverde
So Yong Kim
I also need to check out the films by those Nohea mentioned, and hope that one day I will get the chance to see Kinuyo Tanaka’s “Love Letter”.
To the distinguished list above, I would add:
Doris Dörrie (“Enlightenment Guaranteed”)
Anne Fontaine (“Coco avant Chanel”)
Agnes Jaoui (“Le Goût des autres”)
Tamara Jenkins (“The Savages”)
Kimberly Peirce (“Boys Don’t Cry”)
Léa Pool (“La demoiselle sauvage”)
Cynthia Scott (“The Company of Strangers”)
Jill Sprecher (“13 Conversations About One Thing”)
Lynne Stopkewich (“Kissed”)
Susanna White (“Generation Kill”)
Gordon Ackerman
Would someone kindly fill me in (briefly) on female film directors, a topic on which I am woefully ignorant?
The only two I know of are the Belgian Chantal Akerman (no relation whatsoever) and Jody Foster. Thanx.