I ♥ Female Directors

Dear Reader,

Every year there are studies and lists and think pieces about the lack of female directors working in television and film. And hey, we love studies and lists and think pieces as much as the next gal, but the numbers are soooo depressing and the problem is soooo entrenched and unchanging that reading about it starts to feel a lot like eating your vegetables if vegetables tasted like futility which they do.

We started iheartfemaledirectors.com because we think the biggest thing missing from the conversation about female directors is some good old-fashioned gushy fandom. We will not have achieved true equality until every film school student who ever jizzed himself talking about the exploration of violence and masculinity in Fight Club has also needed a change of pants after discussing the exploration of violence and masculinity in Beau Travail.

Yes, there are historically fewer female directors than male, but there have still been hundreds (thousands?) of great ones. And new female directors are being born and dismissed every minute! So while the major studios’ scientists toil away in their under-the-lot labs, manufacturing the single perfect, hireable female director*, we’ll be swooning over the ones who have already put amazing, love letter-worthy things into the world.  

So here’s our plan: every week we’ll put up a new love letter to a female director we’re obsessed with. And look, maybe that won't solve all of sexism in Hollywood. But it might get you to watch an Agnes Varda movie, and isn't that a close second?

Love,
Annabel, Laura & Charley

 

*Criteria:
• Experienced (but also fresh!)
• Works Constantly (but is always available)
• Commanding (but not emasculating)
• Will represent the wokeness and feminism of the studio (but won’t complain about institutionalized sexism)
• Has a unique voice (but wants to direct mediocre tentpoles)
• A visionary (but takes all notes)

Dear Reed Morano,

During a meeting last week I visualized flipping over a desk, smashing a Perrier bottle on the window sill, and holding its glinting, jagged points millimeters from the throat of man who said he “didn’t love” Margaret Atwood and had “less than no interest in watching The Handmaid’s Tale.” Reed, I tell you this not just to illustrate how a verdant imagination can help one survive Hollywood meetings, but also to say how much I’m enjoying The Handmaid’s Tale.

I had heard the show would be “pretty” and that a director-née-cinematographer would be doing the first three episodes and I thought, “okay fine just mainline Margaret Atwood into my veins I don’t care how it looks.” But then I watched and WOW. It’s beautiful, but not always. It’s funny, which I didn’t expect. And it’s brilliant at conveying the whole point of The Handmaid’s Tale – that oppression isn’t just our past and maybe future, it’s very much our present. Props to the writers OF COURSE but you created a world that’s the perfect mix of naturalism and formalism— beautiful airy memories contrasted with lenses so wide and oppressive Elisabeth Moss must have hit her head on them four times a day.

When I looked you up I realized I already knew you from the “You Are Not Safe” episode of Halt and Catch Fire which is very, very good. Aside from writing gushy letters to female directors, my other life’s work is to get people to skip season 1 and dive into seasons 2 and 3 of Halt and Catch Fire with their whole hearts. I haven’t yet seen your feature Meadowland because I can’t handle bad-things-happening-to-kids movies anymore but co-founder Laura says it’s excellent and she’s the one who told me about Halt and Catch Fire. Reed, have you ever fallen so hard for someone you can’t wait to see what they’ll be like in 5, 10, or 20 years? Because that’s how I feel about you.

Annabel

Source: https://www.iheartfemaledirectors.com/reed...