Female Film and TV Directors
basically female film directors who have at least one feature film in their credits
the sole purpose of this list is to provide database for my Coolest Female Directors list
the sole purpose of this list is to provide database for my Coolest Female Directors list
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Susannah Grant was born on 4 January 1963 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a writer and producer, known for Erin Brockovich (2000), Unbelievable (2019) and The 5th Wave (2016). She has been married to Christopher Henrikson since 1995. They have two children.Catch and Release
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She came to prominence with the much lauded adaptation of Jeanette Winterson's autobiographical novel 'Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit'. Since then she's directed feature films, television dramas and documentaries. In 2008, she founded the charity called Filmclub with Lindsay Mackie. It has since grown to be one of the largest and most influential after-school clubs in the UK, attracting over 150,000 children and young people each week.
Filmclub screens 100 years of film from all over the world to its members. Inspirational, entertaining and with positive outcomes on literacy, social behaviour and cultural awareness, Filmclub members have the opportunity to review, discuss and meet professional film-makers.
In 2006, she was asked to build a web-site for the Guardian newspaper to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Greenham camp.To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar
Used People
Amy Foster
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (tv series)
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Agnès Varda was born on 30 May 1928 in Ixelles, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985) and Faces Places (2017). She was married to Jacques Demy. She died on 29 March 2019 in Paris, France.Cleo from 5 to 7
Vagabond (1985)
Jacquot de Nantes
Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma
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Coline Serreau was born on 29 October 1947 in Paris, France. She is an actress and writer, known for Three Men and a Cradle (1985), Why Not! (1977) and Chaos (2001). She was previously married to Benno Besson.Why Not! (1977)
3 hommes et un couffin
Chaos (2001)
18 ans après (2003)
Saint-Jacques... La Mecque (2005)
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Julie Taymor is an Academy Award-nominated director, known for such films as Frida (2002) and Across the Universe (2007).
She was born on December 15, 1952, in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Her father, Melvin Lester Taymor, was a gynecologist. Her mother, Elizabeth Bernstein, was a teacher of political science. Young Taymor was fond of international folklore and mythology, and also developed a passion for theatre. She spent her formative years living in several countries. As a teenager, during the 1960s, she lived in Sri Lanka and India with the Experiment in International Living program, then studied acting in Paris, at the mime school of Jacques Lecoq. From 1969 to 1974, she studied theatre and mythology at Oberlin College, graduating in 1974 with a degree in folklore and mythology.
During the 1970s, Taymor lived in Japan, studying the art of puppetry and Japanese theatre. Then, she spent five years in Indonesia, working as director of international theatre with Asian, European, and American actors. Back in the USA, she worked on and off Broadway. There, she achieved her first success with staging a fairy tale, "The King Stag", and then toured 66 cities across the world, including Los Angeles, Venice, Tokyo, and Moscow.
In the 1990s, Taymor directed several classic operas. Her 1992 production of Igor Stravinsky's "Oedipus Rex" in Japan earned the Emmy Award. Then, she directed the 1993 production of "The Magic Flute" by 'Wolfgang Mozart', in Florence, with conductor Zubin Mehta, and the acclaimed 1994 production of "Salome" in St. Petersburg, Russia, with conductor Valery Gergiev.
In New York, she continued a stellar theatrical career, directing such productions as William Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus" and "Juan Darién: A Carnival Mass" at the Lincoln Center. In 1997, Taymor directed a massive Walt Disney Company's production of "The Lion King" on Broadway, for which she also co-designed over a 100 costumes and masks of animals, and earned two Tony Awards.
Her film, Frida (2002), received six Oscar nominations, and two Oscars, for make-up and for the music score by Elliot Goldenthal. Taymor continued her success with the 2004 production of "The Magic Flute" at the Metropolitan Opera (which is now in repertoires at the Met), and the 2006 staging of "Grendel" at the Los Angeles Opera and, later, at the Linolcn Center Festival. Taymor's experience with cross-genre and cross-cultural productions came to culmination in her latest film, Across the Universe (2007). It is a musical set in the 1960s England, Vietnam, and America, where a love story and social protest are intertwined with over thirty songs by The Beatles.
Outside of her directing profession, Taymor amassed puppets, masks and folk art from around the world. As an artist, she has been involved in making puppets, masks, costumes and stage sets. Since 1980, Julie Taymor has been a long-time collaborator with the Oscar-winning composer, Elliot Goldenthal, and the couple lives in Manhattan.Titus
Frida
Across the Universe
The Tempest
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Ida was born in London to a show business family. In 1932, her mother took Ida with her to an audition and Ida got the part her mother wanted. The picture was Her First Affaire (1932). Ida, a bleached blonde, went to Hollywood in 1934 playing small, insignificant parts. Peter Ibbetson (1935) was one of her few noteworthy movies and it was not until The Light That Failed (1939) that she got a chance to get better parts. In most of her movies, she was cast as the hard, but sympathetic woman from the wrong side of the tracks. In The Sea Wolf (1941) and High Sierra (1940), she played the part magnificently. It has been said that no one could do hard-luck dames the way Lupino could do them. She played tough, knowing characters who held their own against some of the biggest leading men of the day - Humphrey Bogart, Ronald Colman, John Garfield and Edward G. Robinson. She made a handful of films during the forties playing different characters ranging from Pillow to Post (1945), where she played a traveling saleswoman to the tough nightclub singer in The Man I Love (1946). But good roles for women were hard to get and there were many young actresses and established stars competing for those roles. She left Warner Brothers in 1947 and became a freelance actress. When better roles did not materialize, Ida stepped behind the camera as a director, writer and producer. Her first directing job came when director Elmer Clifton fell ill on a script that she co-wrote Not Wanted (1949). Ida had joked that as an actress, she was the poor man's Bette Davis. Now, she said that as a director, she became the poor man's Don Siegel. The films that she wrote, or directed, or appeared in during the fifties were mostly inexpensive melodramas. She later turned to television where she directed episodes in shows such as The Untouchables (1959) and The Fugitive (1963). In the seventies, she made guest appearances on various television show and appeared in small parts in a few movies.The Hitch-Hiker
The Trouble with Angels
The Bigamist
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After graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in philosophy and literature, she moved to NewYork to study film and has since made Manhattan her home. She has worked as a coordinator, production manager and line producer on both studio and independent features. She studied film directing with Robert Wise and, prior to making her directorial debut with Clockwatchers (1997), she studied improvisational technique in Manhattan. For five years she served as a judge for cable television ACE Awards. _Clockwatchers(1997)_ debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and went on to screen at over a dozen international festivals. It won a Best Film prize at the Torino International Festival of Young Cinema of 1997.Clockwatchers
Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
Thin Ice (2011)
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Betty Thomas was born July 27, 1947 in St. Louis, Missouri, graduating from Ohio University with a BA in fine arts. Initially sidetracked, Betty first taught school in Chicago but found herself restricted and needing more of an open forum for self-expression than a classroom. She found herself drawn inextricably to comedy. After toiling as a waitress, she became part of the Second City improvisational troupe where she made use of her towering (6' 1") imposing features in aggressive routines and sketches. True to form, she made her film debut in the sketch satire Tunnel Vision (1976) which parodied TV programming. The movie is lesser known today for its satirical bite and more for its exceptional cast of up-and-coming comedy artists at the time including Chevy Chase, Laraine Newman, John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Gerrit Graham, Howard Hesseman, and the team of Al Franken and Tom Davis. Other innocuous comedies/spoofs followed such as Chesty Anderson U.S. Navy (1976), Used Cars (1980), and Coming Attractions (1978) which, at the very least, helped to bulk up her comedy resume. She also appeared as a regular on The Fun Factory (1976), which was three parts quiz show, silly sketches, and audience participation.
Ironically, Betty achieved her stardom not in comedy but in hard-hitting drama. Doing a complete about face as tough-talking Officer Lucille Bates on the hit police series Hill Street Blues (1981), she displayed both grit and vulnerability as she stood nose-to-nose alongside the rest of the male-oriented precinct. She was nominated for six Emmys in all and won the "Best Supporting Actress" trophy in 1985. Some equally compelling mini-movie roles came along with this success. In the late 1980s, Betty made an abrupt and concentrated move into TV and film directing, one of her last acting roles being that of the butch, underhanded scoutmaster (and Shelley Long's misery-inducing nemesis) in the obvious comedy film Troop Beverly Hills (1989).
Betty received her bookend Emmy award while directing the cable sitcom Dream On (1990). She never lost her taste for comedy satire, however. One of her major box office successes would come with the spot-on parody The Brady Bunch Movie (1995). She has continued in this lighter vein of late, guiding the one-man promotion machine Howard Stern to a surprisingly entertaining critical hit with Private Parts (1997), which was based on his memoirs, the Jennifer Love Hewitt film Can't Hardly Wait (1998), I Spy (2002), an updated remake of the 1960s TV series, and Surviving Christmas (2004). In recent years she has directed TV movies and episodes of such series as "Audrey" and "Grace and Frankie."Private Parts
Only You
I Spy
John Tucker Must Die
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
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Having graduated from FAMU in Prague film (1971), Agnieszka Holland returned to Poland and began her film career working with Krzysztof Zanussi as assistant director, and Andrzej Wajda as her mentor. Her first feature film was PROVINCIAL ACTORS (1978), one of the flagship pictures of the "cinema of moral disquiet" and the winner of the International Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1980. Subsequently, she made the films FEVER (1980) and THE LONELY WOMAN (1981). In 1981, just before the declaration of the state of emergency in Poland, Agnieszka Holland emigrated to France.
She directed ANGRY HARVEST (1985) which was nominated for a foreign-language Oscar. Her film EUROPA EUROPA (1990) also received a U.S. Academy Award nomination (best screenplay) and IN DARKNESS (2011) was again nominated as best foreign-language film. She also collaborated with her friend Krzysztof Kieslowski on the screenplay of his trilogy, THREE COLOURS (1993).
Holland's other films include TO KILL A PRIEST (1988), OLIVIER, OLIVIER (1992), THE SECRET GARDEN (1993), TOTAL ECLIPSE (1995), WASHINGTON SQUARE (1997), THE THIRD MIRACLE (1999), SHOT IN THE HEART (2001), JULIE WALKING HOME (2001), COPYING BEETHOVEN (2006), IN DARKNESS (2011), BURNING BUSH (2013), SPOOR (2017), MR. JONES (2019) and CHARLATAN (2020). She also directed several episodes of many notable TV series, including THE WIRE, JAG, COLD CASE, TREME (for the pilot of the latter she was nominated for an Emmy) and HOUSE OF CARDS. Agnieszka Holland has also written or co-written screenplays for films made by other directors and directed plays for Polish television. She was elected chairwoman of the Board of the European Film Academy in 2014 and was elected as its President in 2021.To Kill a Priest
Europa Europa
Olivier, Olivier
The Secret Garden
Total Eclipse
Washington Square
The Third Miracle
Copying Beethoven
In Darkness
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Margarethe von Trotta was born in Berlin in 1942. In the 1960s she moved to Paris where she worked for film collectives, collaborating on scripts and co-directing short films. She also pursued an acclaimed acting career, starring in films by well known German directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Volker Schlöndorff. In 1971, von Trotta divorced her first husband Juergen Moeller (with whom she had a child) and married Schlöndorff. She co-wrote many of the scripts for his films, and in 1975 the two of them co-directed The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975). In 1977, von Trotta directed her first solo feature The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (1978). With her third film, Marianne & Juliane (1981), von Trotta's position as New German Cinema's most prominent and successful female filmmaker was fully secured.
Her films feature strong female protagonists, and are usually set against an important political background. Themes in her work include the effect of the political on the personal, and vice versa, as well as the relationships between female characters, often sisters.The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum
Das Versprechen
Rosenstrasse
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Mimi Leder was born on 26 January 1952 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a producer and director, known for The Morning Show (2019), On the Basis of Sex (2018) and Deep Impact (1998). She has been married to Gary Werntz since 26 January 1986. They have one child. She was previously married to Allen Garfield.The Peacemaker
Deep Impact
Pay It Forward
The Code
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Writer/director Lone Scherfig graduated from The National Film School of Denmark in 1984. Her first feature film, THE BIRTHDAY TRIP (1990), was selected for Panorama in Berlin, the New Directors section at MOMA in New York and won the Grand Jury Prix in Rouen. Her next film, ON OUR OWN (1998), received the Grand Prix in Montreal and the Cinekid Prize in Amsterdam. Scherfig then wrote and directed ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS (2000; the Danish 'Dogma' #5), which was a huge audience hit and won her the Silver Bear and the international film critics' award FIPRESCI at the 2001 Berlinale, plus numerous other awards around the world.
Scherfig's first English-language feature, WILBUR WANTS TO KILL HIMSELF (2002), toured the festival circuit and brought home awards from e.g. France, the US and Japan. Her next production, AN EDUCATION (2009), won the Audience Award at Sundance and was nominated for three Oscars and eight BAFTAs. Scherfig has since directed three British films, i.e. ONE DAY (2011), THE RIOT CLUB (2014) and THEIR FINEST (2016) which premiered at TIFF in 2016 and screened in Sundance and London as the Mayor's gala. In 2019, Lone Scherfig's The Kindness of Strangers opened and was in competition at Berlin International Film Festival.
In between features Scherfig has directed a range of TV-series, including TAXA (1997), QUIET WATERS (1999), BETTER TIMES (2004) and, most recently, THE ASTRONAUT WIVES CLUB (2015; conceptualised by Scherfig).Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself
An Education
One Day
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- Script and Continuity Department
Marleen Gorris was born on 9 December 1948 in Roermond, Limburg, Netherlands. She is a director and writer, known for Antonia's Line (1995), A Question of Silence (1982) and Broken Mirrors (1984).De stilte rond Christine M.
Antonia won Oscar
Mrs Dalloway(1997)
The Luzhin Defence (2000)
Carolina
Within the Whirlwind
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Niki Caro is a New Zealand film director and screenwriter, born in 1967. Caro was born in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. She was educated first at the Kadimah College in Auckland, and then the Diocesan School for Girls in Auckland. The School is a private girls' school, and ranks among the top-achieving schools in New Zealand.
In the late 1980s, Caro enrolled in the Elam School of Fine Arts to pursue training as a sculptor. However her interest shifted to film studies. She graduated from Elam in 1988, at the age of 21. For post-graduate studies, Caro enrolled at the Swinburne University of Technology, located at Melbourne, Victoria.
Following the completion of her studies, Caro initially directed television commercials. In 1992, she directed and wrote an episode for the anthology television series "Another Country" (1992). In 1998, Caro directed her first feature film "Memory and Desire". It was an adaptation of a short story by Peter Wells (1950-2019), concerning the depression and apparent suicide of a Japanese married man. The film was critically well-received and won a New Zealand film award.
Caro next directed the feature film "Whale Rider" (2002).. It depicts a young Maori girl, Paikea "Pai" Apirana (played by Keisha Castle-Hughes) , who stands as a candidate for the position of tribal chief. The film earned over 41 million dollars at the worldwide box office, becoming one of New Zealand's most commercially successful films. The film also won an award at the Sundance Film Festival.
In 2005, Caro directed her first American film, "North Country". The film was loosely based on the legal case "Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co.", a class-action sexual harassment lawsuit concerning the treatment of female miners in a Minnesota-based mine. The film earned about 25 million dollars at the worldwide box office, failing to recover its budget expenses. Two of the films actresses (Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand) were nominated for Academy Awards for their performances, but neither of them won.
In 2009, Caro directed the romantic drama "A Heavenly Vintage", an adaptation on the fantasy novel "The Vintner's Luck" (1998) by Elizabeth Knox. The film won three awards at the Sedona Film Festival, but was criticized for toning down the homosexual relationship depicted in the novel.
In 2015, Caro directed the sports drama "McFarland, USA". The film is based on the life of track and field coach James White (1941-), and the first victory of the McFarland High School at a cross-country running championship in 1987. The film won about 46 million dollars at the worldwide box office, the commercially most successful film in Caro's career to that point.
In 2017, Caro directed the World War II-themed war film "The Zookeeper's Wife". The film was based on the lives of a married couple, the zoologist Jan Zabinski (1897-1974) and the children's writer Antonina Erdman ( 1908-1971). During the foreign occupation of Poland in World War II, the Zabinskis used the abandoned buildings of the Warsaw Zoo and their privately-owned villa to shelter hundreds of displaced Jews. They managed to rescue about 300 people. Caro won an award at the Heartland Film Festival for her direction in this film.
In 2017, Caro was hired by the Walt Disney Company to direct a live-action remake of "Mulan" (1998). Caro was reportedly the second female film director entrusted by Disney to direct a big-budget film, following Ava DuVernay (1972-). Caro's remake is scheduled for release in 2020.Whale Rider
North Country
The Vintner's Luck
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Tamara Jenkins was born on 2 May 1962 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She is a director and writer, known for The Savages (2007), Private Life (2018) and Slums of Beverly Hills (1998). She has been married to Jim Taylor since 2002. They have one child.Slums of Beverly Hills
The Savages
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Began her career directing music videos for acts like Tone Loc, Depeche Mode, Indigo Girls, NWA, Hanson and Sonic Youth and made her first feature in 92 with Guncrazy starring Drew Barrymore. Ms Barrymore received a Golden Globe Nomination. She then went on to direct feature films starring Chris Rock-CB4, Adam Sandler in Billy Madison, Dave Chappelle in Half Baked, Britney Spears in Crossroads and most recently, 13: The Musical for Netflix. She is also known for her documentary work on Jean Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child and The Punk Singer about Kathleen Hanna. After having 2 kids with her husband Mike D of the Beastie Boys she started a career in Television has directed on shows such as Grey's Anatomy, Dead To Me, The Politician and P Valley. She directed the pilot for High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. She continues to work in documentaries, episodic television and feature films.Guncrazy
CB4 (1993)
Billy Madison
Best Men
Half Baked
The Wonder of Sex
Crossroads
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Randa Haines was born on 20 February 1945 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is a director and producer, known for Children of a Lesser God (1986), Antwone Fisher (2002) and Something About Amelia (1984).Children of a Lesser God - won Oscar, was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Screenplay
The Doctor
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Elaine May (born under the name Elaine Iva Berlin) is an American actress, comedian, film director, playwright, and screenwriter from Philadelphia. Her professional career started in the 1950s and is still ongoing. She has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. She is best remembered for directing the Cold War-themed action comedy "Ishtar" (1987). She won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director, but the film has had a vocal minority of critics who defend its quality.
In 1932, May was born to a Jewish-American family. Both her parents were theatrical actors. Her father Jack Berlin was also a theater director and led his own traveling Yiddish theater company. Her mother was actress Ida Aaron. May made her stage debut c. 1935, at the age of 3. Her father had decided to include her in his performances. As a a child actress, she was reportedly cast in the roles of boys.
The theater company toured extensively, and May was part of their tours. She kept changing schools, enrolling for a few weeks and then moving to another city. May reputedly hated school, but loved reading books on her own. Her favorite topics were fairy tales and mythology.
Jack Berlin died c. 1942, and May's career as a child actress consequently ended. She was left in the custody of her mother. The duo settled in Los Angeles, and May eventually enrolled in Hollywood High School. In 1946, May dropped out of school. In 1948, she married her her first husband, the toy inventor Marvin May. She was only 16-years-old at the time of her marriage. She would later keep her husband's surname as her professional name.
In 1949, May had her only child, Jeannie Brette May. Jeannie would later become a professional actress in her own right, under the name Jeannie Berlin. May and her husband separated c. 1950, and she received a divorce in 1960. She started supporting herself through a series of odd jobs.
In 1950, May was interested in attending college, but most colleges in California required applicants to have high school diplomas. As a high school dropout, she did not have the necessary diploma. Learning that the University of Chicago did not use this requirement, she hitch-hiked her way to Chicago, At the time her personal fortune consisted of 7 dollars.
Once she arrived in Chicago, May started informally taking classes at the university by auditing, sitting in without enrolling. She habitually engaged in discussions with her instructors. She once had a fight with a philosophy instructor because of their different interpretations of the motives behind Socrates' apology. May was introduced to aspiring actor Mike Nichols (1931-2014),who was also attending the University. They bonded over their shared passion for the theater.
In 1955, May became one of the charter members of the Compass Players, a Chicago-based improvisational theater group. Nichols joined the group shortly after. The two of them formed a working partnership, jointly developing improvised comedy sketches. May helped the Compass Players to become a highly popular comedy troupe, due to her talent for satire. She helped in the training of novice members of the group.
In 1957, Nichols was asked to leave the Compass Players. His popularity had outshone most members of the group, and had caused internal conflicts. May left the group with him. They then decided to form their own stand-up comedy team, "Nichols and May". Their improvisational skills, and ability to come up with fresh material allowed them to impress their audience.
In 1960, the comedy duo made their Broadway debut, with the show "An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May". A recording of the show won the 1962 "Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album". "Nichols and May" became very popular in New York City, performing in sold-out shows. They also started making appearances in radio and television, and even recorded commercials.
May was reportedly surprised with her own success. She had spend much of her adult life in near-poverty, but she was now earning a regular income from show business. She joked in an interview that she was practically barefoot when she arrived in New York, and now had to get used to wearing high heels.
In 1961, the duo was at the height of their fame. But they decided to dissolve their partnership in order to pursue solo careers. Nichols started working as a Broadway stage director, while May started her new career as a playwright. Her most successful play was "Adaptation" (1969), which she also directed. For her work as a theatrical director, she won the 1969 "Outer Critics Circle Award, Best Director".
May made her debut as a film director with the black comedy "A New Leaf" (1971). It was an adaptation of a short story by Jack Ritchie (1922-1983), depicting the story of an impoverished patrician who marries a wealthy heiress for her money. The main character initially considers murdering his wife to inherit her wealth, but first he has to protect her from other predators who were after her money.
Her first film found little success at the box office, but was praised by critics and was nominated for the "Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy". It later earned a reputation as a cult classic, and in 2019 it was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry.
Her second film was the romantic comedy "The Heartbreak Kid" (1972). It concerns a newlywed man who falls madly in love with a younger woman while on his honeymoon. He pursues his romantic interest obsessively despite all signs that his love is unrequited, and despite the disapproval of the woman's protective father. The film was critically acclaimed, and has at times been listed in retrospectives concerning the funniest American films.
In an unusual career move, her third film was not a comedy. It was the rather bleak gangster film "Mikey and Nicky" (1976). It depicts a small-time mobster whose life is in danger, resorting to asking for help from his childhood friend. While creating this film, May got involved in a legal dispute with the film studio Paramount Pictures. The studio eventually decided to only allow a limited release for the film. The film found a niche audience in the home video market, but May's career as a director suffered from this dispute. She was effectively blacklisted.
May decided to focus on her screenwriting career. She found success with the script to the fantasy-comedy "Heaven Can Wait" (1978), about the afterlife of a man who died prematurely. The film was based on a 1938 play by Harry Segall (1892-1975), and also served as a remake to the classic film "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" (1941) which was based on the same play. The film earned about 99 million dollars at the worldwide box office, and was a critical hit. May was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, but the award was instead won by rival screenwriter Oliver Stone (1946-).
During the early 1980s, May mainly worked as an uncredited script doctor. She "polished" scripts by other screenwriters. Her greatest success in this role was the romantic comedy "Tootsie" (1982), for which she wrote several additional scenes. She attempted her comeback as a director with the action comedy "Ishtar" (1987), which became a box office flop for the film studio Columbia Pictures. The film's failure reportedly convinced Columbia's parent company Coca-Cola to sell the under-performing studio to Sony.
"Ishtar" was derided at the time as the worst film of its era by many critics, but was also defended by a vocal minority of critics. It has since attracted a cult audience, who consider this to be a great film. However the film's failure ended May's career as a film director and damaged her reputation. She also ceased working as a screenwriter for several years, reduced to working as an actress again.
May made her comeback as a screenwriter with the comedy film "The Birdcage" (1996), a remake of the European comedy "La Cage aux Folles" (The Cage of Madwomen, 1978). In the film, the openly gay parents to a young man have to pretend to be straight in an attempt to impress their son's prospective in-laws. The film earned about 185 million dollars at the worldwide box office, the greatest hit in May's career up to that point. She was nominated for the "Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay", but the award was instead won by rival screenwriter Billy Bob Thornton (1955-).
May found more critical success with her next screenplay, for the political film "Primary Colors" (1998). It was an adaptation of the roman à clef novel "Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics" (1996) by Joe Klein (1946-). The novel itself was a fictionalized version of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, and depicts an idealistic campaign worker's disillusionment with the politician. The film's cast were nominated for several awards. May herself received her second nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, but the award was instead won by rival screenwriter Bill Condon (1955-).
May largely retired from screenwriting since the end of the 1990s. As an actress, she had a supporting role in the crime-comedy "Small Time Crooks" (2000). The film concerned nouveau riche criminals, who attempt to socialize with the American upper class. For this role, she won the "Best Supporting Actress Award" at the National Society of Film Critics Awards.
May lived in retirement until joining the cast of the television mini-series "Crisis in Six Scenes" (2016), her first television role in several decades. The series was created by Woody Allen (1935-), who happened to be an old friend of May.
In 2018, May made a theatrical comeback in Broadway. She played the elderly gallery owner Gladys Green in a revival of the play "The Waverly Gallery" (2000) by Kenneth Lonergan (1962-). In the play, Gladys shows early signs of Alzheimer's disease, and her family has to deal with her mental decline. May received critical acclaim for this role. For this role, she won the 2019 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. At age 87, she was the second-oldest winner of a Tony Award for acting.
As of 2021, May is 89-years-old. She is no longer very active, but she reportedly has plans to direct another film. She remains a popular actress.A New Leaf
The Heartbreak Kid
Ishtar
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Agnès Jaoui was born on 19 October 1964 in Antony, Hauts-de-Seine, France. She is an actress and writer, known for The Taste of Others (2000), Look at Me (2004) and Family Resemblances (1996). She was previously married to Jean-Pierre Bacri.Le Gout des Autres (2000)
Look at Me (2004)
Let's Talk About the Rain (2008)
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- Additional Crew
Emmy-nominated, BAFTA award-winning director Kari Skogland is CEO of Mad Rabbit, a development and production company. Skogland is committed to producing high-end one-hour dramas for the international market while she continues her award- winning work. Most recently she was Executive Producer and Director of all 6 episodes of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier for Marvel, starring Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan. Before that she was pilot, multiple episode director and an executive producer of Showtime's limited series The Loudest Voice starring Russell Crowe as Roger Ailes. She won several awards for her work as director on the hit series The Handmaid's Tale and is recognized for the pilot episodes of AMC's NOS4A2 starring Zachary Quinto, and the pilot of Starz's The Rook.
Skogland has become one of the world's most prolific female directors of one-hour dramas and feature films. She was named one of The Hollywood Reporter's "Ten Directors to Watch" for her auteur debut, won a prestigious BAFTA award for directing The Handmaid's Tale season one finale, nominated for a 2018 Emmy award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for The Handmaid's Tale season two and most recently the Loudest Voice was nominated for a Golden Globe best mini series and won best actor for Russell Crowe. Kari was also featured in Variety's 2018 Women's Impact Report.
Skogland's additional television credits include the premiere season of Condor (Audience), The Borgias and Penny Dreadful (Showtime), Boardwalk Empire (HBO), The Killing, The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead (AMC), Under the Dome (CBS), Vikings (History Channel), Power (Starz), The Americans (FX), House of Cards and The Punisher (Netflix) and many more. Skogland also directed Sons of Liberty (History), a 6-part event miniseries for which she won the Directors Guild of Canada (DCG) award for best director of a television miniseries.Fifty Dead Men Walking
The Stone Angel (2007)
Liberty Stands Still
4- Director
- Additional Crew
- Producer
Phyllida Lloyd was born on 17 June 1957 in Bristol, England, UK. She is a director and producer, known for Mamma Mia! (2008), The Iron Lady (2011) and Herself (2020).Mamma Mia!
The Iron Lady
4- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
The films of Claire Denis frequently explore the fragile connections between people and the ways in which the most seemingly inconsequential relationship can have life-changing effects. At the heart of Denis' cinema is a fascination with the delights and difficulties of belonging and otherness, the gravity and gift of foreignness. Often revolving around reactions to the intrusion of the other, be it a stranger or foreigner, Denis' films insist on the vital necessity of the unusual to coexist within the "normal" world. In films such as I Can't Sleep (1994) and Nénette and Boni (1996), Denis captures the mercurial and instant shifts in tone, from the pleasurably sensual to the menacing or the simply unaccountable, caused by the intrusion of the strange into the fabric of the everyday. In Denis' films one often feels that all is well even as worlds collide and collapse or, conversely, that a grave challenge underlies the seemingly calm moments. While Denis' childhood in French colonial Africa is reflected most directly in the African setting shared by her debut feature Chocolat (1988) and best-known film, Beau Travail (1999), this encounter with the intimacies and injustices of colonialism resounds throughout much of her work. Also shaping Denis' unique vision are the apprenticeships she served, just out of film school, under a variety of renowned directors, including Jacques Rivette, Wim Wenders, Dusan Makavejev and Jim Jarmusch - an eclectic company that is itself suggestive of the unique juxtaposition of careful craft and seeming casualness within Denis' work. Denis has often spoken of her shock as a young woman at discovering the novels of Faulkner that have exerted such a major influence over postwar French cinema. For Denis, Faulkner "was a plunge into the senses, into terror and the pain of his characters." These words describe Denis' films as well. But whatever terror and pain her characters may sometimes experience is outmeasured by the depths of Denis' deep affection for them and by her curiosity in their experiences of pleasure as well as fear. Even in the unsettling Trouble Every Day (2001), the not-infrequent catastrophes in Denis' films provoke a sense of wonder at, and even delight in, the sheer weight of existence.Beau Travail
Trouble Every Day
35 Shots of Rum
4- Director
- Additional Crew
- Producer
Spheeris is often referred to as a 'rock 'n roll anthropologist'.
In 1974 she formed the first Los Angeles music video production company, ROCK 'N REEL. She concluded her music video work with the Grammy-nominated, "Bohemian Rhapsody" video for "Wayne's World". Spheeris' feature film debut was the 1979 documentary on the Los Angeles punk scene, "The Decline of Western Civilization" which was received with stunning and unanimous critical praise. In 1983 she wrote and directed "Suburbia", produced by Roger Corman. It is a disturbing and prophetic story of rebellious, homeless kids squatting in abandoned houses, trying to make new families, and protecting one another. "Suburbia" won first place at the Chicago Film Festival. Almost 25 years later her documentary, "The Decline of Western Civilization, Part III" would eerily mirror the events she scripted in "Suburbia". In the mid-80s she directed "The Boys Next Door", starring Charlie Sheen and Maxwell Caulfield, then "Dudes" starring John Cryer, Flea, and Daniel Roebuck. Both films have attained cult classic status. "The Decline of Western Civilization, Part II: The Metal Years" was released in 1988, again to spectacular critical acclaim. Commentaries from Ozzy Osbourne, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, Alice Cooper, Lemmy of Motorhead, Poison, etc. make it one of the most memorable pieces of rock film history.
In 1992, Spheeris directed her seventh feature, and first studio film, "Wayne's World" at Paramount Pictures. Subsequently she directed and produced "The Beverly Hillbillies" (Fox), wrote and directed "The Little Rascals" (Universal), then directed "Black Sheep" (Paramount), etc. In 1999, Spheeris documented The Ozzfest, America's most successful summer concert tour, and the reunion performances of the original Black Sabbath. Both as director and one of the cinematographers, Spheeris achieved a remarkable and historic film which offers the audience a unique view of life on the road: "We Sold Our Souls For Rock 'N Roll".
(2016) She is currently touring with her Producer/daughter Anna Fox, screening "The Decline" trilogy in support of the Shout Factory DVD release.Senseless
Wayne's World
4- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Rebecca Miller was born on 15 September 1962 in Roxbury, Connecticut, USA. She is an actress and writer, known for Maggie's Plan (2015), Personal Velocity (2002) and Angela (1995). She has been married to Daniel Day-Lewis since 13 November 1996. They have two children.The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
The Ballad of Jack and Rose
Personal Velocity: Three Portraits
4- Director
- Producer
Antonia Bird was born on 27 May 1951 in London, England, UK. She was a director and producer, known for Priest (1994), Face (1997) and Ravenous (1999). She was married to Ian Ilett. She died on 24 October 2013 in London, England, UK.Ravenous
Face
Mad Love
Priest
4- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Born in 1966 in Salta in the North of Argentina,Lucrecia Martel settled down in Buenos Aires where she attended the ENERC (National Film School). She started by directing a few shorts among which Historias Breves I: Rey muerto (1995), which garnered several awards in the international film festival circuit. From 1995 to 1998, she made a series of documentaries for TV as well as a children's TV programme, hailed by the Argentinian press for its unusual dark humor. From 2001 until today, Lucrecia Martel has managed to make three very personal feature films, The Swamp (2001), The Holy Girl (2004) and The Headless Woman (2008), in which she explores her favorite theme, troubled minds.The Swamp
The Holy Girl
The Headless Woman
4- Director
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Caroline Link was born on 2 June 1964 in Bad Nauheim, Hesse, Germany. She is a director and writer, known for Nowhere in Africa (2001), Beyond Silence (1996) and Annaluise & Anton (1999).Nowhere in Africa
Jenseits der Stille
4- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Susan Seidelman was born on 11 December 1952 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She is a director and producer, known for Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Sex and the City (1998) and Smithereens (1982).She-Devil (1989)
Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)
Making Mr. Right (1987)
4- Director
- Writer
- Composer
Sally Potter made her first 8mm film aged fourteen. She has since written and directed seven feature films, as well as many short films (including THRILLER and PLAY) and a television series, and has directed opera (Carmen for the ENO in 2007) and other live work. Her background is in choreography, music, performance art and experimental film. ORLANDO (1992), Sally Potter's bold adaptation of Virginia Woolf's classic novel, first brought her work to a wider audience. It was followed by THE TANGO LESSON (1996), THE MAN WHO CRIED (2000), YES (2004), RAGE (2009) and GINGER & ROSA (2012).
Sally Potter is known for innovative form and risk-taking subject matter and has worked with many of the most notable cinema actors of our time. Sally Potter's films have won over forty international awards and received both Academy Award and BAFTA nominations. She has had full career retrospectives of her film and video work at the BFI Southbank, London, MoMA, New York, and the Cinematheque, Madrid. She was awarded an OBE in 2012. Her book Naked Cinema - Working with Actors was published by Faber & Faber in March, 2014. Sally Potter co-founded her production company Adventure Pictures with producer Christopher Sheppard.Orlando (1992)
The Tango Lesson
The Man Who Cried
Yes
4- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Isabel Coixet was born on 9 April 1960 in Sant Adrià de Besòs, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. She is a director and writer, known for My Life Without Me (2003), The Secret Life of Words (2005) and The Bookshop (2017).My Life Without Me
The Secret Life of Words
Elegy
4- Director
- Actress
- Writer
Marjane Satrapi was born on 22 November 1969 in Rasht, Iran. She is a director and actress, known for Persepolis (2007), The Voices (2014) and Chicken with Plums (2011). She is married to Mattias Ripa. She was previously married to Reza.Persepolis
Chicken with Plums
4- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Patricia Rozema was born on 20 August 1958 in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. She is a director and writer, known for Into the Forest (2015), Mansfield Park (1999) and Grey Gardens (2009).When Night Is Falling
Mansfield Park
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
4- Director
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Mary Lambert was born in 1951 in Helena, Arkansas, USA. She is a director and writer, known for Pet Sematary (1989), Madonna: Like a Prayer (1989) and The in Crowd (2000). She has been married to Jerome Gary since 28 September 1991. They have one child.Siesta
Pet Sematary
Pet Sematary II
The In Crowd
4- Camera and Electrical Department
- Cinematographer
- Director
Noted adult and exploitation cinema filmmaker Roberta Findlay was born Roberta Hershkowitz in 1948 in New York City. The youngest in a family of three children, Roberta grew up in a tenement apartment in the Bronx. Findlay's Hungarian immigrant parents wanted her to be a pianist. Roberta met her husband Michael Findlay while a student at the City College of New York after she volunteered to be the accompanying pianist for a silent movie program that Michael was running on campus. Roberta married Michael at age eighteen. The couple collaborated on several sleazy and sadistic exploitation features together in the 1960's which include the notoriously nasty "Flesh" trilogy. After parting ways with Michael in the early 1970's, Roberta went on to direct a handful of explicit hardcore movies for producer and distributor Allan Shackleton. Moreover, Findlay also worked on various films as an editor, composer, producer, and cinematographer. Roberta ended her directing career toiling away on low-budget horror and grindhouse fare throughout the mid to late 1980's. In addition, Findlay and her late partner Walter E. Sear founded the recording studio Sear Sound in New York City.Tenement (1985)
Blood Sisters (1987)
Lurkers (1988)
Prime Evil (1989)
the Queen of B-Horror films
4 nee- Director
- Actress
- Writer
Olga Preobrazhenskaya was a Russian theater and film actress, film director, screenwriter and teacher. She studied in the studio of the Moscow Art Theater (1905-1906), then worked in provincial theaters. She made her film debut in 1913. In 1915, she played a number of roles of famous heroines: Liza (Turgenev's Noble Nest), Manya Yeltsova, the first film adaptation of A. Verbitskaya's novel Keys of Happiness, Natasha Rostov (War and Peace of Tolstoy), princess Vera (Garnet Bracelet) Kuprina).
Since 1916 - film director. The first film was put together with Vladimir Gardin - "Baryshnya-krest'yanka (Lady-Peasant Woman)" (according to Pushkin).
In 1918 to 1925, she taught at the (world's) First State Film School (now VGIK).
From 1925 she worked only as a film director.
In 1927-1941 she worked together with director Ivan Pravov on "the most significant directorial work during the years of "silent" cinema" - the film "(The Peasant) Women of Ryazan" (1927).
Together with IK. Legal, she put on films "Ryazan women" (1927), "The Last Attraction" (1929), "The Quiet Don" (1930), "Enemy Paths" (1935), "Stepan Razin" (1939 ), "The guy from the taiga" (1941).(1881–1971)
Baryshnya-krestyanka (1916)
Svetlyy gorod (1928)
Baby ryazanskie (1928)
And Quiet Flows the Don(1931)
Vrazhyi tropy (1935)
Paren iz taygi (1941)
Stepan Razin (1941)
4 nee- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Sharon Maguire was born on 28 November 1960 in Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire, Wales, UK. She is a director and producer, known for Bridget Jones's Baby (2016), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) and Incendiary (2008).Bridget Jones's Diary
4- Writer
- Director
- Editor
Kirsten Sheridan was born on 14 July 1976 in Dublin, Ireland. She is a writer and director, known for In America (2002), Patterns (1999) and Disco Pigs (2001).Disco Pigs (2001)
August Rush
4- Additional Crew
- Director
- Actress
Anne Fletcher was born on 1 May 1966 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. She is a director and actress, known for The Proposal (2009), Step Up (2006) and Hairspray (2007).Step Up
27 Dresses
The Proposal
4- Director
- Writer
- Actress
Chantal Akerman was born on 6 June 1950 in Brussels, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for The Meetings of Anna (1978), I, You, He, She (1974) and A Couch in New York (1996). She was married to Sonia Wieder-Atherton. She died on 5 October 2015 in Paris, France.The Captive (2000)
A Couch in New York (1996)
News from Home (1977)
4- Director
- Writer
- Actress
Lois Weber, who had been a street-corner evangelist before entering motion pictures in 1905, became the first American woman movie director of note, and a major one at that. Herbert Blaché, the husband of Frenchwoman Alice Guy, the first woman to direct a motion picture (and arguably, the first director of either gender to helm a fictional narrative film), cast her in the lead of "Hypocrites" (1908). Weber first got behind the camera on A Heroine of '76 (1911), a silent that was co-directed by pioneering American director Edwin S. Porter and actor Phillips Smalley, who played George Washington. She also starred in the picture.
In 1914, a year in which she helmed 27 movies, Weber co-directed William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (1914) with Smalley, who also played Shylock, making her the first woman to direct a feature-length film in the US. (Jeanie Macpherson, who would play a major role in cinema as Cecil B. DeMille's favorite screenwriter, also acted in the film).
In the spirit of her evangelism, she began directing, writing and then producing films of social import, dealing with such themes as abortion, alcoholism, birth control, drug addiction and prostitution. By 1916 she had established herself as the top director at Universal Film Manufacturing (now Universal Studios), the top studio in America at the time, making her the highest-paid director in the world. The following year she formed Lois Weber Productions.
She directed over 100 films, but her production company went bankrupt in the 1920s as her career faltered. She did not make the transition to sound, although she did make one talkie, White Heat (1934), in 1934.(1879–1939)
It's No Laughing Matter (1915)
had directed about 40 feature films
4 nee- Director
- Writer
- Actress
Larisa Shepitko was born on 6 January 1938 in Bakhmut, Ukrainian SSR, USSR [now Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine]. She was a director and writer, known for The Ascent (1977), Heat (1963) and You and Me (1971). She was married to Elem Klimov. She died on 2 July 1979 in near Redkino, Kalinin Oblast, Russian SFSR, USSR.The Ascent (1977)
Wings (1966)
4- Director
- Producer
- Writer
The world's first female filmmaker, French-born Alice Guy entered the film business in 1896 as a secretary at Gaumont, a manufacturer of movie cameras and projectors who had purchased a "cinématographer" from its inventors, the Lumiere brothers. The next year Gaumont became the world's first motion picture production company when they switched to creating movies, and Guy became its first film director. She impressed the company so much with the output (she averaged two two-reelers a week) and quality of her productions that by 1905 she was made the company's production director, supervising its other directors. In 1907 she married Herbert Blaché, an Englishman who ran Gaumont's British and German offices. The pair went to the U.S. to set up the company's operations there. In 1910 Mme. Guy set up her own production company, Solax, in New York and with her husband built a studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. After a period of critical and financial success, the couple's fortunes declined when Thomas Alva Edison's trust hindered film production in the East coast, and they eventually shut down the studio in 1919. Although her husband secured work directing films for several major Hollywood studios, Guy was never able to secure any directorial jobs there, never made a film again, most of her films were lost, some were credited to other film directors, and she did no receive recognition for her pioneering work in France and the United States. She returned to France in 1922 after her divorce from Blaché, and in 1964 returned to the U.S. and lived in Mahwah, New Jersey - not far from where her original studios were - with her daughter, where she died in 1968.Vampire (1920)
4- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Karyn Kusama was born on 21 March 1968 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She is a director and producer, known for The Invitation (2015), Destroyer (2018) and Yellowjackets (2021). She has been married to Phil Hay since October 2006. They have one child.Girlfight
Æon Flux
Jennifer's Body
4-- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Nicole Holofcener was born on 22 March 1960 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a director and writer, known for Enough Said (2013), Friends with Money (2006) and Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018). She was previously married to Benjamin Allanoff.Walking and Talking
Friends with Money
Lovely & Amazing
Please Give
4-- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Bronwen Hughes is known for The Journey Is the Destination (2016), Breaking Bad (2008) and Better Call Saul (2015).Harriet the Spy
Forces of Nature
Stander
4- nee- Writer
- Director
- Editor
Lucile Emina Hadzihalilovic was born on May 7, 1961 in Lyon, Rhône, France, to Bosnian parents and grew up in Morocco. She studied Art History and Film Directing at the IDHEC. She has been working in film industry since 1980's, as director, editor, writer and actress in both short and feature films. Hadzihalilovic is best known for Innocence (2004), Evolution (2015), her third feature as a director, and La bouche de Jean-Pierre (1996). She also collaborated with her husband, Gaspar Noé, whom she assisted in writing Enter The Void (2009).La bouche de Jean-Pierre
Innocence
4- nee- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Nicole Kassell received a BA from Columbia University in Art History and an MFA from NYU's Film Program, where she was honored with full scholarships for two years. Her short film, "Jaime," won the DGA student female filmmaker prize, and her thesis film, "The Green Hour," premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002. Kassell's first feature film "The Woodsman" premiered in competition at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and was distributed by Newmarket Films. The screenplay, based on the play by Steven Fechter, was co-written by Kassell and Fechter. It won first prize at the 2002 Slamdance Screenplay Competition. The film received numerous accolades: a CACAE (art house award) at the Directors' Fortnight at The Cannes Film Festival; The Jury Prize at the Deauville Film Festival; a Humanitas nomination; and The Satyajit Ray Award at the London Film Festival. Kassell was nominated for a Gotham Award (Breakthrough Director) and Independent Spirit Award (Best First Feature) and was recognized by Variety as one of ten "directors to watch." Kassell is developing an adaptation of the novel "Prodigal Summer" by Barbara Kingsolver. Kassell optioned the rights and is co-writing with Kingsolver. The project was selected for the 2013 Sundance Writer's and Producers Lab, and is being produced by Big Beach films. Kassell also directs episodic television, including "The Killing," "The Americans," "The Following" & "Rectify." Kassell has guest lectured at NYU, mentored for the Cinereach foundation, and serves on the Eastern Director's Council of the DGA. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children.The Woodsman
A Little Bit of Heaven
3+- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Raised in Texas and Kentucky by her doctor father and mother. Went to Purdue University to study landscape architecture but switched to drama. Moved to Nashville after college to be with her family before heading to Los Angeles in 1982 to study at the Strasburg Institute. Worked for a commercials production company as a receptionist before taking a position with them as a music video production assistant. While working at the office, she began work on what would eventually become Thelma & Louise (1991), writing the script in longhand at home and then retyping it on the job.Mad Money
3+- Editorial Department
- Director
- Writer
Christine Jeffs was born on 29 January 1963 in Lower Hutt, Wellington, New Zealand. She is a director and writer, known for Sunshine Cleaning (2008), Rain (2001) and Stroke (1993).Rain
Sylvia
Sunshine Cleaning
3+- Hettie Macdonald was born on 22 June 1962 in Pancras, London, England, UK. She is a director, known for Beautiful Thing (1996), Doctor Who (2005) and Howards End (2017).Beautiful Thing (1996)
3+ - Director
- Producer
- Writer
Dennie Gordon has been a trailblazing female director her entire career; spanning the worlds of feature films, television series, mini-series and branded content. Her range of genre busting entertainment spans an unusual spectrum of comedy and drama. After being one of the first women to graduate from Yale's School of Drama with an MFA in Directing, Gordon first gained recognition when "A Hard Rain" was chosen by Showtime's Discovery Program. Thanks to Steven Spielberg, a rough cut of her film attracted the attention of George Lucas who donated the film's mix at Skywalker Ranch. "A Hard Rain" , which Gordon also wrote, went on to win dramatic awards at the British Short Film Festival and the Hampton's Film Festival. This film also caught the eye of David E. Kelley who enlisted Gordon to helm multiple episodes of his television series including "Goliath", (where she was Co EP) "Picket Fences", "Chicago Hope", "Ally McBeal", and "The Practice". Gordon has directed over 100 hours of network television including such critically acclaimed series as "Legion", which was on many critic's lists as a top 10 show of 2017, with the "astounding direction of Dennie Gordon and her twisted visionary imagery taking the X-Men universe to a whole new level". Her other work includes "Bloodline", "Rectify Empire", "Kingdom", "Power", "Hell on Wheels", "Grace & Frankie", "The Office", "30 Rock", Aaron Sorkin's "Sports Night", and HBO's "Tracey Takes On", for which Gordon won the DGA Comedy Award. Gordon recently completed the mini-series "Waco", "Jack Ryan" Season 2 and "The Hunt" starring Al Pacino. Gordon directed the comedy cult hit "Joe Dirt" starring David Spade, and Christopher Walken, and "What A Girl Wants" starring Oscar Winner Colin Firth, Dame Eileen Atkins, and Jonathan Pryce. Gordon was the first American woman to direct a film for the domestic Chinese market, called "My Lucky Star". The 2013 film starred Oscar nominee Zhang Ziyi and Wang Leehom and was filmed in China and Singapore in the summer of 2012. "My Lucky Star" was the number one film in China for 4 weeks on 5000 screens.
Gordon is a sought after commercial director having completed campaigns for Honda, Toyota, Tsingtao beer and Xcel Energy as well as campaigns with Jimmy Fallon, Betty White, Adam Devine and Don Cheadle. She recently completed a short dramatic film for Huawei, which was shot in Prague. She is represented by CAA.Joe Dirt
What a Girl Wants
New York Minute
3- Actress
- Director
- Writer
After receiving a B.S. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, Moncrieff moved to California to pursue a career as an actress. She appeared in numerous TV shows and B-movies and was a series regular on Santa Barbara (as Cassandra Lockridge) and Days of Our Lives (as Gabrielle Pascal.)
In 1998, Moncrieff completed the certificate program in film studies at Los Angeles City College and discovered her passion for writing and directing. The same year, she received the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' prestigious Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting for Blue Car, which became her directorial debut.
Blue Car, starring David Strathairn and Agnes Bruckner, premiered at The 2002 Sundance Film Festival where it was acquired by Miramax Films. After screening at festivals around the world, including Toronto, Deauville, Montreal, and London Blue Car, opened to widespread critical acclaim. Soon after, Moncrieff was chosen as one of Variety's 10 Screenwriter's to Watch, and Blue Car went on to garner two Spirit Award nominations including Best First Screenplay.
Moncrieff's second feature, The Dead Girl, starring Toni Collette, Josh Brolin, Marcia Gay Harden, Brittany Murphy, Kerry Washington, Giovanni Ribisi, Rose Byrne, and Mary Beth Hurt, was nominated for three Spirit Awards including Best Feature, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress. It premiered at the AFI film festival in 2006 and went on to win the Grand Prix at Deauville in 2007.
Moncrieff's television directing credits include Lifetime's highly rated MOW adaptation of V.C. Andrews beloved novel Petals on the Wind. She also directed The Trials of Cate McCall, (which she also wrote and produced) starring Kate Beckinsale, Nick Nolte, and James Cromwell, and episodes of the Emmy award winning HBO series Six Feet Under, and the short-lived series Touching Evil, starring Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Donovan.Blue Car
The Dead Girl
3- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Jennifer Lynch was born on 7 April 1968 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She is a director and writer, known for Chained (2012), Boxing Helena (1993) and Surveillance (2008).Boxing Helena (1993)
Surveillance (2008)
Hisss (2010)
3- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Anna Boden is an American film director, cinematographer, editor, and screenwriter best known as the co-writer of the 2006 film Half Nelson. She is known for her collaborations with fellow filmmaker Ryan Fleck. While studying film at NYU, Boden met Ryan Fleck on the set of a student film. Soon they began dating and decided to collaborate. Together they made the short documentaries Have You Seen This Man? and Young Rebels before they wrote and he directed the short film Gowanus, Brooklyn, a sample feature aiming to attract potential financiers to their undeveloped script, Half Nelson.Sugar
It's Kind of a Funny Story
3- Director
- Actress
- Producer
Melanie Mayron was born on 20 October 1952 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She is a director and actress, known for Thirtysomething (1987), Girlfriends (1978) and Snapshots (2018).The Baby-Sitters Club
Slap Her, She's French!
3- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Martha Fiennes was born on 5 February 1965 in London, England, UK. She is a director and producer, known for Onegin (1999), The Fatal Lover, Mata Hari and Chromophobia (2005). She is married to George Tiffin. They have three children.Onegin
Chromophobia
3- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Tahmineh Milani (born 1 September 1960) is a professional film director, screenwriter, and producer who came to the limelight by breaking all the traditional and conventional norms about women and their presence in Iran's society. Being sentenced to prison have not stopped her from expressing their feminist ideas freely and finally her style has become a canon against which other feminist works would be evaluated. Milani was born 1960 in Tabriz, Iran. She is the wife of the Iranian actor and producer Mohammad Nikbin.Two Women
The Hidden Half
The Fifth Reaction
Cease Fire
3- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Gina Prince-Bythewood (Writer/Producer/Director) studied at UCLA Film School, where she received the Gene Reynolds Scholarship for Directing and the Ray Stark Memorial Scholarship for Outstanding Undergraduate. She was a member of UCLA's track and field team, qualifying for the Pac-10 Championships in the triple jump.
Upon her graduation, she was hired as a writer on the television series "A Different World." She continued to write and produce for network television on series such as "Felicity," "South Central," and "Sweet Justice" before making the transition to directing.
Prince-Bythewood wrote and directed the widely-acclaimed feature film "Love and Basketball", which premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. Prince-Bythewood won an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay and a Humanitas Prize for her work on the film. She followed that success with the HBO film "Disappearing Acts."
In 2008, she wrote and directed the celebrated adaptation of the best-selling novel, "The Secret Life of Bees." The film won two People's Choice Awards and two NAACP Image Awards. Her third feature "Beyond the Lights" came in 2014 and garnered an Oscar nomination for best song and landed on a number of top critics Best of 2014 lists including the NY Times, Washington Post and Vulture.
She is the first Black woman to direct a superhero film, "The Old Guard," based on the celebrated graphic novel by Greg Rucka for Skydance and Netflix. It premiered on Netflix July 10, 2020 to record ratings, and 6th most popular film of all-time on Netflix.
Prince-Bythewood, along with her husband Reggie Rock Bythewood, created and produced "Shots Fired," a ten hour special event series for Fox, which premiered in 2017. TIME magazine praised, "An achievement...a testament to how ambitious even broadcast television has become."
She directed the pilot for the Marvel series "Cloak and Dagger" starring Olivia Holt and Aubrey Joseph, which debuted to record ratings for Freeform. She directed the pilot for the ABC limited event series "Women of the Movement," about Mamie and Emmett Till which is currently at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
She directed the feature film "The Woman King" for Tri-Star and Sony. The historical epic action drama features an amazing ensemble including Oscar-winner Viola Davis, Thuso Mbedu, John Boyega, Lashana Lynch, Sheila Atim and Adrienne Warren, releasing theatrically September of 2022.
She is proud to fund a scholarship for African American students in UCLA's film program. She resides in Southern California with her husband Reggie and their amazing sons, Cassius and Toussaint.Love & Basketball
The Secret Life of Bees
3- Director
- Writer
Courtney Hunt was born in 1964 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. She is a director and writer, known for Frozen River (2008), The Whole Truth (2016) and Utopia (2020).Frozen River - was nominated for 2 Oscars
3- Actress
- Writer
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Anne Fontaine was born on 15 July 1959 in Luxembourg. She is an actress and writer, known for The Innocents (2016), Coco Before Chanel (2009) and Reinventing Marvin (2017). She is married to Philippe Carcassonne. They have one child.Coco Before Chanel
The Girl from Monaco
3- Director
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- Actress
Debbie Isitt was born on 7 February 1966 in Birmingham, West Midlands, England, UK. She is a director and writer, known for Nasty Neighbours (1999), Confetti (2006) and Nativity! (2009).Nasty Neighbours
Confetti
Nativity
3- Actress
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Sarah Polley is an actress and director renowned in her native Canada for her political activism. Blessed with an extremely expressive face that enables directors to minimize dialog due to her uncanny ability to suggest a character's thoughts, Polley has become a favorite of critics for her sensitive portraits of wounded and conflicted young women in independent films.
She was born into a show business family: her stepfather, Michael Polley, appeared with her in the movie The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and on the television series Avonlea (1990); and her mother, Diane Polley, was an actress and casting director. It was her mother's connections that launched Sarah, at her own insistence, on an acting career at the age of four, following in the footsteps of her older half-brother Mark Polley. A second half-brother, John Buchan, is a casting director and producer.
Her career as a child actress shifted into high gear when she was cast as the Cockney waif Jody Turner in Lantern Hill (1989), for which she won a Gemini Award, the Canadian equivalent of the Emmy, in 1992. Produced by Kevin Sullivan, the film was based on the book by Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables (1985). When Sullivan created a television series based on Montgomery's work, he cast Polley in the lead role of Sara Stanley in Avonlea (1990). The series propelled Polley into the first rank of Canadian TV stars and made her independently wealthy by the age of fourteen.
Her personal life was deeply affected by the death of her mother Diane from cancer shortly after her 11th birthday, a development that ironically paralleled the fictional life of her character Sara. Highly intelligent and politically progressive at a young age, Polley eventually rebelled against what she felt was the Americanization of the series after it was picked up by the Disney Channel for distribution in the US, eventually dropping out of the show. Though she does not blame her parents, she remains publicly disenchanted over the loss of her childhood and, in October 2003, said she is working on a script about a twelve-year-old girl on a TV show.
Polley, who picked up a second Gemini Award for her performance in the TV series Straight Up (1996), subsequently quit acting and high school to turn her attention to politics, positioning herself on the extreme left of Canada's left-of-center New Democratic Party. The publicity ensuing from her losing some teeth after being slugged by an Ontario policeman during a protest against the Conservative provincial government, plus the stinging cynicism from some other activists unimpressed by her celebrity, led her to lower her political profile temporarily and return to acting in Atom Egoyan's film The Sweet Hereafter (1997). It was her appearance as Nicole, the teenage girl injured in a school bus accident who serves as the conscience of the small town rent by the tragedy, that first brought her to the attention of critics in the US. In Canada, the role was heralded by critics as her successful breakthrough to adult roles. It was her second film with Egoyan, who wrote the part with her in mind when he adapted the novel by Russell Banks, who, ironically, is American. Predictions of an Academy Award nomination and future stardom were part of the critical consensus, and she received her first Best Actress Genie nomination from Canada's Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television and the Best Supporting Actress award from the Boston Society of Film Critics. It was the buzz created at the Sundance Festival, where her starring role in the film Guinevere (1999) was showcased, when the entertainment media crowned her the it-girl of 1999.
Intensely private and extremely ambivalent about the personal cost of celebrity and the Hollywood ethos Fame is the Name of the Game, Polley could be seen as rebelling against the expectations of mainstream cinema when she embarked on a career path that took her out of the spotlight thrown by the harsh lights of the Hollywood hype/publicity machine after shooting the film Go (1999). She dropped out of Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (2000), the US$60 million mega-hyped vehicle that was supposed to make her a mainstream star in the US, choosing to return to Canada to make the CDN$1.5 million The Law of Enclosures (2000) for Genie Award-winner John Greyson, a director she admires greatly. The film grossed poorly in Canada and was not released in the US, but it did garner Polley her second Genie nomination for Best Actress. While her replacement in Almost Famous (2000) went on to win an Oscar nomination and a career above the title in glossy Hollywood films, she took a wide variety of parts, large and small, in independent films, including significant roles in the ensemble pieces The Claim (2000) and The Weight of Water (2000); bit parts in eXistenZ (1999) and Love Come Down (2000); and the lead in No Such Thing (2001). Her choice of projects showed her to be a questing spirit more focused on learning the art of her craft than on stardom.
She has said that her choice of film roles, eschewing mainstream Hollywood movies for chancier, non-commercial independent fare, was the result of an ethical decision on her part to make films with social importance. A less-observant viewer might think that the rebel Polley played in her political life that had previously manifested itself in her profession was now driving her to the verge of career suicide in terms of popularity, marketability, and choice of future roles. However, that interpretation does not recognize the extraordinary talent that will always keep her in demand by directors, if not casting agents, with an eye on the opening weekend box office. One must understand Polley's career progression in light of her attendance at the Canadian Film Centre's directors program and her production of short films, including Don't Think Twice (1999) and the highly praised I Shout Love (2001). Polley is a cinema artist. This woman wants to make, and will make films. Thus, we can understand her career choices as a desire to work with and understand the technique of some of the best directors in film, including David Cronenberg, Michael Winterbottom, and Hal Hartley.
Polley is as renowned for her intelligence as for her remarkable talent. The problem of the intelligent person in the acting field is that the actor, as artist, in not ultimately in control of their medium, and it is artistic control that is the hallmark of the great artist. The controlling intelligence on a movie set is the director, and her attendance at the Canadian Film Centre has given her a new perspective on acting. The actor, she says, should not try to give a complete performance for the camera (that is, control the representation on film) but must remember that the function of the actor is to give the director as much coverage as possible as a film, as well as a performance, is made in the editing room. According to Polley, this realization, that the film actor exists to serve the director, has given her new enthusiasm for acting. Thus, her career, and her career choices, can be seen as a quest for knowledge about the art of cinema, a journey whose fruition we will see in her future feature work as both actor and director.Away from Her
Take This Waltz
3- Actress
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Born in Madrid, Iciar Bollain has worked as an actress in films such El Sur (1983), directed by Víctor Erice; Sublet (1991) directed by Chus Gutiérrez, Malaventura (1988) directed by Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón; El Mejor de los Tiempos (1990) and Un Paraguas para Tres (1992) directed by Felipe Vega, Tierra y Libertad (1995) directed by Ken Loach, LEO (2000) directed by Jose Luis Borau, Nos Miran (2002) directed by Norberto Pérez, La Balsa de Piedra (2003) directed by Geogre Sluiezer and La Noche del Hermano (2005) directed by Santiago García de Leániz. As a director, Icíar has written and directed many renowned films. Flowers from Another World, her second film, was awarded at Cannes Film Festival in 1999 (Best Film in the International Critics' Week). Take my eyes (2003), her following film as writer and director, won 7 Goyas (Spanish Academy Awards), including Best Film, among many other international awards. She directed a script by Paul Laverty in 2009, Even the Rain. The film obtained national and international recognition: 13 nominations to the Goya Awards, Panorama Award at the Berlinale, Ariel Award to best Latin-American film and it was in the short list of the foreign films selected for the Academy Awards in 2010 representing Spain. In 2011 she directed and co-wrote Katmandú, un Espejo en el Cielo. The film was nominated to the Goya Awads in the categories of Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2014 it was released En Tierra Extraña, a documentary that Iciar directed about the life of young Spanish immigrants in Edinburgh, Scotland, who had to leave Spain due to recession and unemployment Iciar Bollain is currently in pre-production of his next film, The Olive Tree, a new collaboration with the writer Paul Laverty and Morena Films. The film will start principal photography in May 2015.Take My Eyes
Even the Rain
3- Director
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Floria Sigismondi is a photographer and director. Apart from her art exhibitions she is best known for directing music videos. Her trademark dilating, jittery camerawork, noticeable as early as her video for Marilyn Manson's "The Beautiful People", has been replicated by a great number of directors since. Her parents, Lina and Domenico Sigismondi, were opera singers. Her family, including her sister Antonella, moved to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada when she was two. In her childhood she became obsessed by drawing and painting. Later, from 1987 she studied painting and illustration at the Ontario College of Art, today's Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD). When she took a photography course, she became obsessed once more, and graduated with a photography major. Floria started a career as a fashion photographer. She came to directing music videos when she was approached by the production company The Revolver Film Co., and directed music videos for a number of Canadian bands. Her very innovative, but also very disturbing video works, located in sceneries she once described as "entropic underworlds inhabited by tortured souls and omnipotent beings", attracted a number of very prominent musicians. With her photography and sculpture installations she had solo exhibitions in Hamilton and Toronto, New York, Brescia, Italy, Göteborg, Sweden and London. Her photographs also were included in numerous group exhibitions, together with those of photographers like Cindy Sherman and Joel-Peter Witkin. The German art press Die Gestalten Verlag has published two monographs of her photography, "Redemption" (1999) and "Immune" (2005).3- Director
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As a successful director working both inside and outside the Hollywood studio system, Joan Micklin Silver was a true lamplighter. Garnering a steady stream of awards and box office successes, she proved herself time and again as one of the most important woman directors to come out of the United States, and demonstrated that films about Jewish topics can succeed with both Jews and non-Jews alike.
Based in New York, where she lived for many decades, Joan Micklin was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1935. She was the daughter of Maurice David and Doris (Shoshone) Micklin, Russian Jewish immigrants who came separately to the United States before the upheavals of the Russian Revolution. Her father later founded the Micklin Lumber Company. Her deep love for the movies was first nurtured during her earliest days in pre-television Omaha, where she attended the local cinema religiously. She attended Temple Israel Synagogue and graduated from Central High School in 1952 and often wrote sketches for school plays.
Fresh after graduating Sarah Lawrence College in 1956, she married Raphael D. Silver, son of the famous Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver of Cleveland. The Silvers lived in Cleveland from 1956 to 1967 and raised three daughters there: Dina (born 1958), Marisa (born 1960), and Claudia (born 1963). While in Cleveland, Silver taught music and wrote plays, two of which were performed at local Cleveland theaters. In 1967, the Silvers moved to New York, where she worked briefly for the Village Voice and was then hired to adapt Lois Gould's 1970 novel Such Good Friends for legendary director Otto Preminger (she was replaced by a long line of others that included Joan Didion and Elaine May). Her first original screenplay, Limbo, about the wives of prisoners of war in Vietnam, was purchased by Universal Pictures and made into a film directed by Mark Robson. When Silver clashed with the director over her vision for the film, she was fired and replaced by James Bridges, though she received story and co-scripting credit in the final film.
The Learning Corporation of America then commissioned her to write and direct a series of short films, among them The Immigrant Experience: The Long Long Journey (1972), which went on to win several awards. When her success as a screenwriter and director of short films failed to score her a break in directing feature films, and when a studio executive actually told her that "women directors were another problem the studios didn't need," Silver's husband agreed to raise the money for her debut feature and serve as its producer. The film became Hester Street (1975), adapted by Silver from the 1890s novella Yekl by Abraham Cahan, the founder of the Jewish Daily Forward. Turned down by every major studio as an "ethnic oddity" with a limited audience appeal, Hester Street was independently distributed by the Silvers, with the guidance of John Cassavetes. Joan and Ray formed the production and distribution company Midwest Films, through which the film was seen worldwide and admired by Jewish and non-Jewish audiences. Hester Street became one of the earliest independent films to be nominated for Academy Awards, securing a Best Actress nod for lead Carol Kane. The following year, she adapted F. Scott Fitzgerald's Bernice Bobs Her Hair (starring Shelley Duvall, Bud Cort and Veronica Cartwright) as part of a series of median-length features taken from classic American short stories.
Despite the critical and surprise commercial success of Hester Street, major studios still would not back Silver's next film. Her second feature, Between the Lines (1977), about a group of people who work for an alternative newspaper in Boston, was once again produced by her husband. That comedy feature an ensemble cast of now-famous faces, including Jeff Goldblum, John Heard and Stephen Collins. Her third feature, Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979), based on the novel by Ann Beattie, marked Silver's first experience working with a major Hollywood studio, namely United Artists. Turner Classic Movies's Robert Osborne selected the film for inclusion in a special festival recognizing pictures that were "woefully overlooked and under-appreciated," then later programmed the film for his "night of favorites" on TCM in 2007. In November 2014, Chilly Scenes of Winter played to a sold-out crowd at New York City's IFC Center.
After years of directing stage productions, including the well-received A...My Name is Alice (1983), she returned to features in 1985 with the comedy-drama Finnegan Begin Again, starring Robert Preston, Mary Tyler Moore and Sam Waterston. The first effort produced by the fledgling HBO Premiere Films, the film won the Silver Leopard's Eye at the Locarno Film Festival. Her next film with a Jewish subject, the beloved Crossing Delancey, a hit romantic comedy about an assimilated Jewish Manhattanite (played by Amy Irving) and her Lower East Side pickle-salesman suitor (played by Peter Riegert), was produced for Warner Brothers and released in 1988. Her other theatrical releases include Loverboy (1989) for Tri-Star and Stepkids (a.k.a. Big Girls Don't Cry...They Get Even) (1992) for New Line.
Silver's other theater works include A...My Name Is Still Alice (1992), Album (1980), and Maybe I'm Doing It Wrong (1982). She has directed several films for television, among them Parole Board (1990), A Private Matter (1992), Invisible Child (1999) and Hunger Point (2003). In 2002, she directed independent film acting legend Gena Rowlands in Charms for the Easy Life (2002) for Showtime.
In 1995, Silver proved her versatility when she directed a series for National Public Radio called Great Jewish Stories from Eastern Europe and Beyond, which was co-produced by the National Yiddish Book Center. In 1983, she also directed Wallace Shawn and Hermione Gingold in How to Be a Perfect Person in Just 3 Days.
Joan Micklin Silver died at her Manhattan home on December 31, 2020. She was 85.Loverboy (1989)
Crossing Delancey (1988)
Between the Lines (1977)
3- Director
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Clara Law was born on 29 May 1957 in Macao, China. She is a director and writer, known for Fu sheng (1996), The Goddess of 1967 (2000) and Drifting Petals (2021). She is married to Eddie Ling-Ching Fong.The Goddess of 1967
3- Writer
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- Actress
Céline Sciamma was born on 12 November 1978 in Pontoise, Val-d'Oise, France. She is a writer and director, known for Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), Petite Maman (2021) and Tomboy (2011).Tomboy
Water Lilies
3- Actress
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- Director
The late Adrienne Shelly was born in Queens, New York, to Elaine Langbaum and Sheldon Levine. After graduating Jericho High School in Jericho, New York, she enrolled at Boston University and majored in film production. She dropped out after her junior year and moved to Manhattan, where she made a name for herself in independent films with her work in The Unbelievable Truth (1989) and Trust (1990). She eventually moved behind the camera, writing and directing I'll Take You There (1999) and Waitress (2007) (her final film).
On November 1, 2006, Adrienne Shelly was murdered. She was survived by her husband Andy Ostroy and their daughter Sophie.Waitress (2007)
3- Director
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- Additional Crew
Liliana Cavani was born on 12 January 1933 in Carpi, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. She is a director and writer, known for L'ospite (1971), Dove siete? Io sono qui (1993) and The Night Porter (1974).The Night Porter (1974)
Ripley's Game (2002)
3- Director
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Rose Troche was born in 1964 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She is a director and producer, known for Go Fish (1994), The Safety of Objects (2001) and Bedrooms and Hallways (1998).Go Fish (1994)
Bedrooms and Hallways (1998)
The Safety of Objects (2001)
3- Director
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Susanna White is a BAFTA winning British film and television director. She attended Bromley High School and Oxford University before being awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study on the MFA Program at UCLA. Her work ranges from the hard-hitting HBO mini-series Generation Kill about the US invasion of Iraq and the John Le Carre thriller Our Kind of Traitor, to the CGI world of family film Nanny McPhee Returns with Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Dame Maggie Smith. She collaborated with Tom Stoppard on the mini-series Parades End (with Benedict Cumberbatch, Rebecca Hall and Adelaide Clemens) and brought Ruth Wilson to the screen in another Emmy nominated mini-series Jane Eyre. Her early work includes the award-winning documentaries Volvo City (about the Hasidic Jewish community of London's Stamford Hill) and Tell Me The Truth About Love about the poet WH Auden. Her first screen drama was about another poet, Philip Larkin, Love Again, starring Hugh Bonneville, Tara Fitzgerald and Eileen Atkins and was made for only £200,000. The film appears to be much bigger budget than it was thanks to heavy snow in London during shooting which masked non-period detail on the streets.Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang
3- Writer
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Diane English was born on 18 May 1948 in Buffalo, New York, USA. She is a writer and producer, known for Murphy Brown (1988), The Women (2008) and Double Rush (1995). She was previously married to Joel Shukovsky.The Women
3-- Director
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- Animation Department
Clare Kilner is known for House of the Dragon (2022), The Mosquito Coast (2021) and Snowpiercer (2020). She has been married to Martin Foster since 29 August 2007. They have one child.How to Deal (2003)
The Wedding Date (2005)
3-- Director
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- Costume Designer
Anna Biller is a writer and director who creates unique, female-focused, highly visual films. She has a BA from UCLA in art and an MFA from CalArts in art and film. Her first feature Viva played in film festivals all over the world and gained minor cult status, and her second feature The Love Witch won acclaim for its elaborate visual style and feminist themes, and has screened at numerous film festivals worldwide.
The New York Times called The Love Witch "a hothouse filled with deadly and seductive blooms;" The New Yorker called it "a metaphysical astonishment;" Film Comment said, "Biller's sharp film stands in stark contrast to the complacency and crushing safeness of the vast majority of independent films made in the US. Shot in 35mm, her film displays a technical mastery that is glorious to behold;" and The Austin Chronicle said, "Anna Biller has quickly established herself as one of the most exciting filmmakers of the past decade."
In 2017 she won the Trailblazer Award and Best Costume Design at the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle Awards for The Love Witch, and in 2019 she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She is listed in a Rotten Tomatoes article as one of "The 21 Masters Of Horror Shaping The Genre Right Now." The Love Witch appeared on many 2016 best-of-year lists, and on Rotten Tomatoes it's ranked as the #40 horror film of all time.Viva
3-- Director
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- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Samira Makhmalbaf Filmmaker
Born on February 15,1980 in Tehran. At the age of eight, she played in "The Cyclist" directed by her father, Mohsen Makhmalbaf the celebrated Iranian filmmaker.
At the age of 17, she directed her first feature titled "The Apple" and She went on to become the youngest director in the world participating in the official section of the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. She was praised on different occasions by the legendary Jean-Luc Godard for her film. The Apple was invited to more than 100 international film festivals in a period of two years, while going to the screen in more than 30 countries.
In 1999, Samira made her second feature film titled "Blackboards" in Kurdistan of Iran, and for the second time was selected by the Cannes Film Festival to compete in the official section in 2000. She was granted the Special Jury Award. The Blackboards received many international awards including the "Federico Fellini Honor Award" from UNESCO and "Francois Truffaut Award" from Italy. The film was widely released across the world and more than two hundred thousand people watched the film in France alone.
Samira alongside other prominent director like Ken Loach, Shohei Imamura, Youssef Chahine, Sean Penn.... made one of the eleven episodes of the film "September 11". The film was premiered at Venice International Film Festival in 2002.
The third feature by Samira Makhmalbaf titled "At Five in the Afternoon", the first feature film shot in Afghanistan post Taliban. The film was selected for the competition section of Cannes Film Festival in 2003, receiving the Jury's Special Award for the second time. In 2004, she was selected as one of forty best directors of the world by Guardian newspaper.
Samira Makhmalbaf shot her fourth feature film in Afghanistan titled Two-Legged Horse in 2007, receiving the Grand Jury Awardof San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain.
Samira Makhmalbaf has also participated as jury member in reputable film festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Locarno, Moscow, Montreal...Sib (1998)
The Blackboard (2000)
At Five in the Afternoon (2003)
3-- Producer
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Sanaa Hamri is a renowned film, television, music video, and commercial director from Tangier, Morocco. She is currently in an overall deal with Amazon Television Studios. She is directing S2 of their "Lord of the Rings" show coming off of their tentpole series S2 of "The Wheel of Time" as EP/Director. Hamri was previously Executive Producer/Director of the blockbuster series "Empire" on Fox Broadcasting from 2015 to 2020, overseeing all aesthetic aspects of the show including episodic directors, production design, music, art direction, and hair/wardrobe. She also had a first look deal with 20th Television during that time.
Hamri began her career as an editor under the mentorship of Malik Sayeed and within a few years, she began directing music videos. As an acclaimed music video director, Hamri's prolific career boasts collaborations with high profile hip hop/R&B musicians including Prince, Common, Lenny Kravitz, Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, Jay Z, and Mary J. Blige. Her work has been celebrated by award nominations and wins for some of the industry's highest honors, including and NAACP Image Award for India Arie's 2003 "Little Things" as well as an MTV VMA for Nicki Minaj's 2010 blockbuster hit "Super Bass," which generated an online viewership of over one billion worldwide hits. Hamri also directed Mariah Carey's sold-out live arena concert documentary, "The Adventures of Mimi," which she shot in high-definition using 14 cameras.
Hamri's past episodic work includes directorial credits on some of TV's most watched programming: "Shameless" (on Showtime), "Rectify," "Nashville," "Elementary," "Glee," and "Desperate Housewives." She also shot the pilot for VH1's successful series "Hit The Floor," which is currently in its third season.
Hamri made her feature directorial debut in 2006 with the Focus Features romantic comedy "Something New." She has since directed the sequel to the Warner Bros hit "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," as well as the Fox Searchlight romantic comedy "Just Wright," starring Queen Latifah, Common and Paula Patton, released in Summer 2010.
A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, Hamri resides in Los Angeles.
Hamri is repped by CAA, manager Larry Kennar and attorney Patti Felker.Something New
Just Wright
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Lesli Linka Glatter is a director of film, network, cable, and premium cable television drama, with both pilots and episodes to her credit. Lesli's TV work includes Homeland (2011), The Newsroom (2012), The Walking Dead (2010), Justified (2010), Ray Donovan (2013), Masters of Sex (2013), Nashville (2012), Boss (2011), True Blood (2008), Mad Men (2007), The Good Wife (2009), Weeds (2005), House (2004), Heroes (2006), The West Wing (1999), NYPD Blue (1993), ER (1994), and Freaks and Geeks (1999), to name a few. Her first series was Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories (1985) followed by Twin Peaks (1990), for which she received her first Directors Guild Award nomination. Lesli has also directed numerous pilots including Grace (2011), Gilmore Girls (2000), In My Life (2002), Newton (2003), Six (2017) and Pretty Little Liars (2010). In addition, Lesli was the Co-Executive Producer/Director of Shawn Ryan's The Chicago Code (2011), NBC's The Playboy Club (2011), John Wells' Citizen Baines (2000), HBO's The Leftovers (2014) and was the Executive Producer/Director of Homeland (2011) Seasons 3 through 8.
Lesli began her directing career through the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women. Her short film, Tales of Meeting and Parting (1985), was nominated for an Academy Award, as well as winning numerous awards in festivals throughout the country.
Lesli made her feature film directorial debut with New Line's coming-of-age comedy, Now and Then (1995), featuring Demi Moore, Melanie Griffith, Rosie O'Donnell and Christina Ricci, followed by Polygram's romantic period drama The Proposition (1998), featuring Kenneth Branagh, Madeleine Stowe and William Hurt. She directed HBO's State of Emergency (1994), which she received a Cable ACE nomination for Best Picture, as well as a Humanitas Award nomination. Lesli's other HBO films include Into Into the Homeland (1987) and The Promise.
In 2010, Lesli was nominated for an Emmy for directing the Mad Men (2007) episode "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency (2009)," as well as winning a Directors Guild Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Dramatic Series for the same episode. In 2013, she was nominated for her third Directors Guild Award for the Homeland episode Q&A (2012) as well as an Emmy nomination for the same episode. In 2013, Lesli was nominated for her fourth Director's Guild Award for the season finale of Homeland (2011), The Star (2013). In 2015, Lesli won the Director's Guild Award for the Homeland (2011) episode From A to B and Back Again (2014) and received her 3rd Emmy nomination for that episode as well. Lesli's 6th DGA Award nomination was for the Homeland (2011) episode The Tradition of Hospitality (2015) as well as her 4th Emmy nomination. Lesli received her 5th Emmy nomination for the Homeland (2011) Season Finale, America First (2017) and her 7th DGA nomination for the America First (2017) Season Finale, Paean to the People (2018). Lesli has also received 2 Emmy Nominations as part of the America First (2017) production team for Best Drama Series.
Lesli serves as the 1st Vice President of the Directors Guild of America, is on the DGA's Western Directors Council, as well as being an adviser at the Sundance Directors Lab. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Directors Branch of The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Lesli recently received the Caucus Foundation Award, the Dorothy Arzner Directing Award from Women in Film, and the Franklin Schaffner Award from the American Film Institute, as well as an Honorary Degree from the American Film Institute. Lesli has been actively mentoring for many years and most recently helped develop the successful program, NBC Female Forward. Lesli has been involved on projects for Netflix, Amazon, Showtime and Epix.
Prior to her work as a director, Lesli was a modern dance choreographer, working throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States.Now and Then (1995)
The Proposition (1998)
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Léa Pool was born on 8 September 1950 in Genève, Switzerland. She is a director and writer, known for Set Me Free (1999), The Passion of Augustine (2015) and La femme de l'hôtel (1984).Lost and Delirious
Emporte-moi
3--- Director
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Nnegest Likké is a multi-award winning writer-director-producer with a passion for making socially and culturally impactful, commercial films. She grew up in Oakland and San Francisco and attended college in Atlanta where she earned her B.A. in Mass Communications at Clark Atlanta University. Before becoming a professionally recognized filmmaker, she was a high school teacher in Los Angeles and discovered a calling for mentoring at-risk youth. She got her start in the entertainment industry after one of her screenplays gained the attention of a top Hollywood Producer who helped launch her career. Her first feature film, Phat Girlz was distributed theatrically by Fox Searchlight. Via her production company, she continues to create cutting edge content for film, television and digital platforms. She is a member of the Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America, Film Fatales, Women In Film and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.3--- Writer
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Sarah Kernochan was born in New York City. Educated at Rosemary Hall and Sarah Lawrence, she achieved early success by winning the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary, at age 27, for her film "Marjoe." Her next move was to record two RCA albums as a singer-songwriter. Two years later her novel "Dry Hustle" was published. An original musical titled "Sleeparound Town" followed, with workshop productions at the New York Public Theater, and then Playwrights Horizons, where she met her future husband James Lapine. Their daughter Phoebe Lapine was born 1985, by which time Kernochan had settled into a career as a screenwriter and filmmaker. In 2002 she won a second Academy Award, this time for the 40-minute short "Thoth". She continues to compose songs for her website. She has taught advanced screenwriting as a Terry and Jane Semel Fellow at Emerson College in Boston. Her most recent accomplishments have been the publication of "Jane Was Here"(2011), a well-reviewed reincarnation mystery, and the release of her third album "Decades of Demos" for digital download in online stores. Her biog "At Home With a Ghost" is an ongoing chronicle of her lifelong encounters with ghosts and spirits.Strike
3-- Writer
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- Script and Continuity Department
Danièle Thompson was born on 3 January 1942 in Monaco. She is a writer and director, known for The Log (1999), Orchestra Seats (2006) and Queen Margot (1994). She is married to Albert Koski. She was previously married to Richard Thompson.La bûche
Jet Lag
Orchestra Seats
Le code a changé
3-- Writer
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- Producer
Lucía Puenzo was born on 28 November 1976 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is a writer and director, known for XXY (2007), The German Doctor (2013) and The Fish Child (2009).XXY (2007)
The Fish Child (2009)
3- Director
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- Writer
Lynne Littman was born on 26 June 1941 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a director and producer, known for Testament (1983), Number Our Days (1976) and In Her Own Time (1985). She was previously married to Taylor Hackford.Testament (1983)
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- Editor
Dorothy Arzner, the only woman director during the "Golden Age" of Hollywood's studio system--from the 1920s to the early 1940s and the woman director with the largest oeuvre in Hollywood to this day--was born January 3, 1897 (some sources put the year as 1900), in San Francisco, California, to a German-American father and a Scottish mother. Raised in Los Angeles, her parents ran a café which featured German cuisine and which was frequented by silent film stars including: Charles Chaplin and William S. Hart, and director Erich von Stroheim. She worked as a waitress at the restaurant, and no one could have foreseen at the time that Arzner would be one of the few women to break the glass ceiling of directing and would be the only woman to work during the early sound era.
In her 15-year career as a director (1928-43), Arzner made three silent movies and 14 "talkies". Her path to the director's chair was different than that of women directors in the future (indeed, different than most male directors too). Directors nowadays are typically graduates of film schools or were working actors prior to directing. Like most of the directors of her generation, Arzner gained wide training in most aspects of filmmaking by working her way up from the bottom. It was the best way to become a filmmaker, she later said.
After graduating from high school in 1915, she entered the University of Southern California, where she was in the pre-med program for two years. When the US entered World War I in 1917, Arzner was unable to realize her ambition of serving her country in a military capacity, as there were no women's units in the armed forces at the time, so she served as an ambulance driver during the war.
After the cessation of hostilities, Azner got a job on a newspaper. The director of her ambulance unit introduced her to film director William C. de Mille (the brother of Cecil B. DeMille, one of the co-founders of Famous Players-Lasky, which eventually became known by the title of its distribution unit--Paramount Pictures). She decided to pursue a film career after visiting a movie set and being intrigued by the editing facilities. Arzner decided that she would like to become a director (there was no strict delineation between directors and editors in the immediate postwar period as the movie studios matured into a "factory" industrial production paradigm).
Though she was the sole member of her gender to direct Hollywood pictures during the first generation of sound film, in the silent era a woman behind the camera was not unknown. The first movie in history was directed by a Frenchwoman, and many women were employed in Hollywood during the silent era, most frequently as scenario writers (some research indicates that as many as three-quarters of the scenario writers during the silent era--when there was no requirement for a screenplay as such as there was no dialogue--were women). Indeed, there were women directors in the silent era, such as Frances Marion (though she was more famous as a screenwriter) and Lois Weber, but Arzner was fated to be the only female director to have made a successful transition to "talkies". It wasn't until the 1930s and the verticalization of the industry, as it matured and consolidated, that women were squeezed out of production jobs in Hollywood.
The introduction to William deMille paid off when he hired her for the sum of $20 a week to be a stenographer. Her first job for DeMille was typing up scripts at Famous Players-Lasky. She was reportedly a poor typist. Ambitious and possessed of a strong will, Arzner offered to write synopses of various literary properties, and eventually was hired as a writer. Impressing DeMille and other Paramount powers-that-be, Arzner was assigned to Paramount's subsidiary Realart Films, as a film cutter. She was promoted to script girl after one year, which required her presence on the set to ensure the continuity of the script as shot by the director. She then was given a job editing films. She excelled at cutting: as an editor (she was the first Hollywood editor professionally credited as such on-screen), she labored on 52 films, working her way up from cutting Bebe Daniels comedies to assignments on "A" pictures within a couple of years. She came into her own as a filmmaker editing the Rudolph Valentino headliner Blood and Sand (1922), about a toreador. Her editing of the bullfighting scenes was highly praised, and she later said that she actually helmed the second-unit crew shooting some of the bullfight sequences. Director James Cruze was so impressed by her work on the Valentino picture that he brought her on to his team to edit The Covered Wagon (1923). Arzner eventually edited three other Cruze films: Ruggles of Red Gap (1923), Merton of the Movies (1924) and Old Ironsides (1926). Her work was of such quality that she received official screen credit as an editor, a first for a cutter of either gender.
While collaborating with Cruze she also wrote scenarios, scripting her ideas both solo and in collaboration. She was credited as a screenwriter (as well as an editor) on "Old Ironsides", one of the more spectacular films of the late silent era, being partially shot in Magnascope, one of the earliest widescreen processes. She would always credit Cruze as her mentor and role model. "Old Ironsides" proved to be the last film on which she was credited as an editor, as her ambitions to become a director would finally come to fruition. To indulge her, Paramount gave her a job as an assistant director, for which she was happy--until she realized it was not a stepping stone to the director's chair, and she was determined to sit in that chair.
Arzner pressured Paramount to let her direct, threatening to leave the studio to work for Columbia Pictures on Poverty Row, which had offered her a job as a director. Unwilling to lose such a talented filmmaker, the Paramount brass relented, and she made her debut with Fashions for Women (1927). It was a hit. In the process of directing Paramount's first talkie, Manhattan Cocktail (1928), she made history by becoming the first woman to direct a sound picture. The success of her next sound picture, The Wild Party (1929), starring Paramount's top star, Clara Bow, helped establish Fredric March as a movie star.
Arzner proved adept at handling actresses. As Budd Schulberg related in his autobiography "Moving Pictures", Clara Bow--a favorite of his father, studio boss B.P. Schulberg--had a thick Brooklyn accent that the silence of the pre-talkie era hid nicely from the audience. She was terrified of the transition to sound, and developed a fear of the microphone. Working with her sound crew, Arzner devised and used the first boom mike, attaching the microphone to a fish pole to follow Bow as she moved around the set. Arzner even used Bow's less-than-dulcet speaking tones to underscore the vivaciousness of her character.
Though Arzner made several successful films for Paramount, the studio teetered on the edge of bankruptcy due to the Depression, eventually going into receivership (before being saved by the advent of another iconic woman, Mae West). When the studio mandated a pay cut for all employees, Arzner decided to go freelance. RKO Radio Pictures hired her to direct its new star, headstrong young Katharine Hepburn, in her second starring film, Christopher Strong (1933). It was not a happy collaboration, as both women were strong and unyielding, but Arzner eventually prevailed. She was, after all, the boss on the set: The director. The fiercely independent Hepburn complained to RKO, but the studio backed its director against its star. Eventually the two settled into a working relationship, respecting each other but remaining cold and distant from one another. Ironically, Arzner would display her directorial flair in elucidating the kind of competitive rivalries between women she experienced with Hepburn.
The Directors Guild of America was established in 1933, and Arzner became the first woman member. Indeed, she was the only female member of the DGA for many years.
Arzner's films featured well-developed female characters, and she was known at the time of her work, quite naturally, as a director of "women's pictures". Not only did her movies portray the lives of strong, interesting women, but her pictures are noted for showcasing the ambiguities of life. Since the rise of feminist scholarship in the 1960s, Arzner's movies have been seen as challenging the dominant, phallocentric mores of the times.
Arzner was a lesbian, who cultivated a masculine look in her clothes and appearance (some feel as camouflage to hide the boy's club that was Hollywood). Many gay critics discern a hidden gay subtext in her films, such as "Christopher Strong". Whereas feminist critics see a critique of gender inequality in "Christopher Strong", lesbian critics see a critique of heterosexuality itself as the source of a woman's troubles. The very private Azner, the woman who broke the glass ceiling and had to survive, and indeed thrived, in the all-male world of studio filmmaking, refused to be categorized as a woman or gay director, insisting she was simply a "director." She was right.
Arzner did have less troubled and more productive collaborations with other actresses after her experience with Hepburn. She developed a close friendship with one of her female stars, Joan Crawford, whom she directed in two 1937 MGM vehicles, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1937) and The Bride Wore Red (1937). Arzner later directed Pepsi commercials as a favor to Crawford's husband, Pepsi-Cola Company's Chairman of the Board Alfred Steele.
In 1943 Arzner joined other top Hollywood directors such as John Ford and George Stevens in going to work for the war effort during World War Two. She made training films for the US Army's Women's Army Corps (WACs). That same year her health was compromised after she contracted pneumonia. After the war she did not return to feature film directing, but made documentaries and commercials for the new television industry. She also became a filmmaking teacher, first at the Pasadena Playhouse during the 1950s and 1960s and then at the University of California-Los Angeles campus during the 1960s and 1970s. At UCLA she taught directing and screenwriting, and one of her students was Francis Ford Coppola, the first film school grad to achieve major success as a director. She taught at UCLA until her death in 1979.
She was honored in her own lifetime, becoming a symbol and role model for women filmmakers who desired entry into mainstream cinema. The feminist movement in the 1960s championed her. In 1972 the First International Festival of Women's Films honored her by screening "The Wild Party", and her oeuvre was given a full retrospective at the Second Festival in 1976. In 1975 the DGA honored her with "A Tribute to Dorothy Arzner." During the tribute, a telegram from Katharine Hepburn was read: "Isn't it wonderful that you've had such a great career, when you had no right to have a career at all?"(1922-1943)
Craig's Wife (1936)
Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)
Christopher Strong (1933)
3-- Additional Crew
- Actress
- Writer
Farah Khan Kunder is an Indian film director, choreographer, writer, film producer, and actress with an extensive career in Hindi films. Khan studied at St. Teresa's Convent School, Mumbai, and then later studied sociology at St. Xavier's College, Bombay.
Khan's first movie as a choreographer was Kahan Kahan Se Guzar Gaya (1981). She entered mainstream Hindi cinema as a choreographer in Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (1992) and gained fame with her choreographed song in the movie Virasat (1997), for which she won the Filmfare Award for Best Choreography for the song Dhol Bajne Laga.
Her next two Filmfare Awards for Best Choreography were for Dil Se.. (1998) and Ek Pal Ka Jeena from the film Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai (2000).
Some of her other award-winning choreographed songs include Bombay Dreams (2004), for which she got nominated for Tony Awards for best choreography, Idhar Chala Main Udhar Chala from the movie Koi... Mil Gaya (2003) for which she won the National Film Award for Best Choreography and Filmfare Award for Best Choreography, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011) in Tees Maar Khan (2022) for which she won another Filmfare Award for Best Choreography.
As an actress, she starred in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), and appeared in a small role in Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003) and Om Shanti Om (2007). After doing a few cameo roles, she was seen as the lead actor in Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi (2012).
Her directorial debut was Main Hoon Na (2004), starring Shah Rukh Khan and Zayed Khan. She then directed Om Shanti Om (2007), Tees Maar Khan (2010), and Happy New Year (2014).
She has appeared as a judge and co-host in several TV serials. She started with Indian Idol (2004), where she was the Judge in Seasons 1, 2, and 7. In 2006, she judged Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa (2006) Season 1.
Then in 2008 and 2015, she also judged another dance show, Nach Baliye (2005) Season 4 and 7. In 2010, she was one of the judges for Dance India Dance: Li'l Masters (2010). In 2012, she did the show India's Got Talent (2009) Season 4 as a Judge.
In 2015, she co-hosted Bigg Boss Halla Bol: Farah Khan Replaces Salman (2015). In 2020, she was the interim host of Khatron Ke Khiladi - Made in India (2020). In 2022, she also hosted The Khatra Show (2019).Main Hoon Na
Om Shanti Om
3-- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Director Nancy Savoca was born in the Bronx, New York of Argentine and Sicilian immigrant parents, She graduated from New York University's film school where she was awarded for her short films. Savoca and her husband, producer Richard Guay, raised private funds to shoot their first film, "True Love", the story of an Italian-American wedding in the Bronx. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1989 Sundance Film Festival and Savoca was nominated for a Spirit Award as Best Director. The film was distributed by MGM/UA.
In 1991, Savoca directed "Dogfight" for Warner Bros. starring River Phoenix and Lili Taylor. The film, set in 1963, tells the story of a young Marine and the girl he takes to an "ugly date" contest.
Her third feature, "Household Saints", an adaptation of Francine Prose's mystical saga of three generations of Italian-American women, starred Tracey Ullman, Lili Taylor, Vincent D'Onofrio and Judith Malina. Released by Fine Line, the film was on the "Best Films" list of over twenty national critics. Ms. Taylor won a Spirit Award for Best Female performance and Savoca and Guay received a nomination for Best Screenplay. Next was an original frenetic comedy, "The 24 Hour Woman", starring Oscar nominees Rosie Perez and Marianne Jean-Baptiste as well as Tony winner Patti Lupone. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1999 and earned Ms. Savoca an American Latin Media Arts nomination for Directing.
Savoca's work in television includes the HBO production, "If These Walls Could Talk", a three-part look at abortion rights. She served as co-writer for all three segments and directed the pieces starring Demi Moore and Sissy Spacek. The film was the highest rated original movie in HBO history, received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for best television drama and for Ms. Moore's performance and, as one of the principal creators, won Savoca a Lucy Award from Women In Film for "innovation in television".
"Reno: Rebel Without A Pause- Unrestrained Reflections on September 11th", premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on September 11, 2002. It was awarded the Prize for Peace & Liberty by the city of Florence, Italy and has participated in festivals around the world. It was released theatrically in the U.S. in 2003
"Dirt", a story about immigration and class differences in New York won Savoca Best Director at the LA Latino Festival, Julieta Ortiz Best Actress in New York's La Cinema Fe and premiered on Showtime. It was nominated Best Original Screenplay from the Writer's Guild of America.
"Union Square" starring Mira Sorvino, Tammy Blanchard and Patti LuPone premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was released theatrically.
In 2019, Savoca's archives were acquired by the University of Michigan for their Film Mavericks Collection which include the works of Orson Welles, Robert Altman and her mentors, Jonathan Demme and John Sayles.Dogfight (1991)
If These Walls Could Talk (TV 1996)
3-- Director
- Animation Department
- Writer
Lotte Reiniger was born on 2 June 1899 in Berlin, Germany. She was a director and writer, known for Silhouetten (1936), Der Graf von Carabas (1935) and Lotte Reiniger - The Fairy Tale Films (1961). She was married to Carl Koch. She died on 19 June 1981 in Dettenhausen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)
3-- Additional Crew
- Director
- Writer
Susan Stroman is the recipient of 5 Tony Awards, 2 Laurence Olivier Awards, 5 Drama Desk Awards, 8 Outer Critics Circle Awards, 2 Lucille Lortel Awards, a record 5 Fred Astaire Awards, and the George Abbott Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Theater. She directed and choreographed "The Producers", winner of a record-making 12 Tony Awards including Best Direction and Best Choreography. She co-created, directed and choreographed the Tony-Award winning musical "Contact" for Lincoln Center Theater. "Contact" also won a 2003 Emmy Award for its PBS 'Live from Lincoln Center' broadcast. Other Broadway credits include "The Scottsboro Boys", "Young Frankenstein", "The Frogs", "Oklahoma!", "Thou Shalt Not", "The Music Man", "Steel Pier", "Big", "Showboat", "Picnic" and "Crazy for You". Off-Broadway productions include "And The World Goes 'Round", "Flora the Red Menace", and "Happiness". For 10 years, she choreographed Madison Square Garden's annual spectacular "A Christmas Carol", directed by Mike Ockrent. For New York City Opera she choreographed "A Little Night Music", "110 in the Shade" and "Don Giovanni". She created "Double Feature", a full-length ballet for New York City Ballet featuring the music of Irving Berlin and Walter Donaldson. Other ballets include "For the Love of Duke" for New York City Ballet, "But Not For Me" for the Martha Graham Company, and "Take Five...More or Less" for Pacific Northwest Ballet. Her choreography received an Emmy nomination for the HBO presentation Liza Minnelli Live from Radio City Music Hall (1992) (TV), starring Liza Minnelli. Other TV credits include co-conceiver/choreographer for PBS's 'Sondheim - a Celebration at Carnegie Hall' and "Evening at Pops: A Tribute to the Theater Music of Leonard Bernstein". She received the American Choreography Award for her work in Columbia Pictures feature film Center Stage (2000). Ms. Stroman directed and choreographed The Producers: The Movie Musical (2005), nominated for 4 Golden Globes.The Producers
3-- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Julie Delpy was born in Paris, France, in 1969 to Albert Delpy and Marie Pillet, both actors.
She was first featured in Jean-Luc Godard's Detective (1985) at the age of fourteen. She has starred in many American and European productions since then, including Disney's The Three Musketeers (1993), Killing Zoe (1993), Three Colors: White (1994), and the "Before" series, alongside Ethan Hawke: Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013).
She graduated from NYU's film school, and wrote and directed the short film Blah Blah Blah (1995), which screened at the Sundance Film Festival. She is a resident of Los Angeles.The Countess
3-- Music Artist
- Actress
- Composer
The remarkable, hyper-ambitious Material Girl who never stops re-inventing herself, Madonna has sold over three hundred million records and CDs to adoring fans worldwide. Her film career, however, is another story. Her performances have consistently drawn scathing or laughable reviews from film critics, and the films have usually had tepid, if any, success at the box office. Born Madonna Louise Ciccone in August 1958 in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York in 1978 and studied with renowned choreographer Alvin Ailey, joined up with the Patrick Hernandez Revue, formed a pop/dance band called Breakfast Club and began working with then-boyfriend Stephen Bray on recording several disco-oriented songs. New York producer/D.J. Mark Kamins passed her demo tapes to Sire Records in early 1982 and the rest is history. The 1980s was Madonna's boom decade, and she dominated the music charts with a succession of multimillion-selling albums, and her musical and fashion influence on young women was felt around the globe. Madonna first appeared on screen in two low-budget films marketed to an adolescent audience: A Certain Sacrifice (1979) and Vision Quest (1985). However, she scored a minor cult hit with Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) starring alongside spunky Rosanna Arquette. Madonna's next effort with then husband Sean Penn, Shanghai Surprise (1986), was savaged by critics, although the resilient star managed to somewhat improve her standing with her next two films, the offbeat Who's That Girl (1987) (although she did receive decidedly mixed reviews, they weren't as negative as those of her previous effort) and the quirky Damon Runyon-inspired Bloodhounds of Broadway (1989). The big-budget and star-filled Dick Tracy (1990) had her playing bad girl "Breathless Mahoney" flirting with Warren Beatty, but the epic failed to catch fire at the box office. Taking an earthier role, Madonna was much more entertaining alongside Tom Hanks and Geena Davis in A League of Their Own (1992), a story about female baseball players during W.W.II. However, she again drew the wrath of critics with the sexy whodunit Body of Evidence (1992). Several other minor screen roles followed, then Madonna starred as Eva Perón in Evita (1996), a fairly well received screen adaptation of the hugely successful Broadway musical, for which she received a Golden Globe for Best Actress. The Material Girl stayed away from the movie cameras for several years, returning to co-star in the lukewarm romantic comedy The Next Best Thing (2000), followed by the painful Swept Away (2002). If those films weren't bad enough, she was woefully miscast as a vampish fencing instructor in the James Bond adventure Die Another Day (2002). After finally admitting that her acting days were over, Madonna began a directing career in 2008 with the barely remembered Filth and Wisdom (2008) and a year later she reunited with Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991) director Alek Keshishian to develop a script about the relationship between the Duke of Windsor and the Duchess of Windsor that led to his abdication in 1936: the result, a movie named W.E. (2011), starring James D'Arcy and Andrea Riseborough as the infernal but still royal couple, was released in 2011 to lukewarm critics but it gathered one Oscar nomination for costumes and won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song for "Masterpiece".Filth and Wisdom
W.E.
3-- Director
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Catherine Shortland is an Australian filmmaker from Temora, New South Wales who is known for directing the Marvel film "Black Widow." She also directed the feature-length films "Somersault", "Lore", and "Berlin Syndrome." She directed the short films "Pentuphouse", "Flowergirl", and "Joy." She is married to Tony Krawitz and they have two children.Somersault
3-- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Agnieszka Vosloo is a Polish-born New York-based film director and screenwriter. She graduated from the Directing Department of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, where she was honored with the prestigious Wasserman Award for directing. Her award-winning films screened at Sundance, Toronto and AFI Fest, and were showcased at MoMA in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego among others. She was named as one of Filmmaker Magazine's '25 New Faces of Independent Film'. As well as her work in feature films, Agnieszka's strikingly distinctive and highly stylized visual aesthetic, combined with her strength in narrative storytelling, has led to her direct numerous commercials and music videos for a variety of brands and clients.
Agnieszka first broke into the spotlight with her short film Pâté, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Described by critics as a "visual tour de force" and "Fellini on acid", the film went on to win several awards at major international festivals around the world.
For her feature debut, the psychological thriller After.Life, Agnieszka teamed up with a high profile, award-winning cast, including Academy Award® Nominee Liam Neeson and Golden Globe® Nominee Christina Ricci.
She has also collaborated with many renowned artists, including Laurie Anderson and Trisha Brown on the acclaimed O Composite, a multi-media project for the Opéra Garnier in Paris.
Most recently Agnieszka premiered The United States of Fixations, a three-channel video installation at Jimmy Moffat's Red Hook Labs.After. Life
3-- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Writer/director Stephanie Rothman was one of the few female filmmakers who specialized in low-budget drive-in exploitation fare in the '60s and '70s. Her movies are distinguished by gutsy, strong-willed and sympathetic women main characters and a radical libertarian feminist point of view. Stephanie was born on November 9, 1936 in Paterson, New Jersey (made famous by Lou Costello, who mentioned it in every one of his movies). She was the first lady to be awarded the Directors Guild of America fellowship. Rothman served as an associate producer on Queen of Blood (1966), Beach Ball (1965) and Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965). She co-wrote and co-directed the fright flick Blood Bath (1966) and made her solo directorial debut with the frothy "Beach Party"-type romp It's a Bikini World (1967). Stephanie made two features for Roger Corman's New World Pictures: the excellent The Student Nurses (1970) -- which was the first and best of the popular nurse comedy cycle -- and the offbeat and inspired horror bloodsucker outing The Velvet Vampire (1971). Rothman then went to work for Dimension Pictures, in which she and her writer/producer husband Charles S. Swartz had a minority share, where she made the charming Group Marriage (1972), the delightful The Working Girls (1974) and the gritty Terminal Island (1973) (an early vehicle for Tom Selleck. Moreover, she wrote the story for the enjoyable fantasy adventure Beyond Atlantis (1973) and penned the screenplay for the amusingly inane Starhops (1978). In 2007 Stephanie was honored with a retrospective on her work at the Vienna International Film Festival.Blood Bath (1966)
The Velvet Vampire (1971)
Knuckle-Men (1973)
The Working Girls (1974)
3--- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Diane Keaton was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles, California, to Dorothy Deanne (Keaton), an amateur photographer, and John Newton Ignatius "Jack" Hall, a civil engineer and real estate broker. She studied Drama at Santa Ana College, before dropping out in favor of the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. After appearing in summer stock for several months, she got her first major stage role in the Broadway rock musical "Hair". As understudy to the lead, she gained attention by not removing any of her clothing. In 1968, Woody Allen cast her in his Broadway play "Play It Again, Sam," which had a successful run. It was during this time that she became involved with Allen and appeared in a number of his films. The first one was Play It Again, Sam (1972), the screen adaptation of the stage play. That same year Francis Ford Coppola cast her as Kay in the Oscar-winning The Godfather (1972), and she was on her way to stardom. She reprized that role in the film's first sequel, The Godfather Part II (1974). She then appeared with Allen again in Sleeper (1973) and Love and Death (1975).
In 1977, she broke away from her comedy image to appear in the chilling Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), which won her a Golden Globe nomination. It was the same year that she appeared in what many regard as her best performance, in the title role of Annie Hall (1977), which Allen wrote specifically for her (her real last name is Hall, and her nickname is Annie), and what an impact she made. She won the Oscar and the British Award for Best Actress, and Allen won the Directors Award from the DGA. She started a fashion trend with her unisex clothes and was the poster girl for a lot of young males. Her mannerisms and awkward speech became almost a national craze. The question being asked, though, was, "Is she just a lightweight playing herself, or is there more depth to her personality?" For whatever reason, she appeared in but one film a year for the next two years and those films were by Allen. When they broke up she was next involved with Warren Beatty and appeared in his film Reds (1981), as the bohemian female journalist Louise Bryant. For her performance, she received nominations for the Academy Award and the Golden Globe. For the rest of the 1980s she appeared infrequently in films but won nominations in three of them. Attempting to break the typecasting she had fallen into, she took on the role of a confused, somewhat naive woman who becomes involved with Middle Eastern terrorists in The Little Drummer Girl (1984). To offset her lack of movie work, Diane began directing. She directed the documentary Heaven (1987), as well as some music videos. For television she directed an episode of the popular, but strange, Twin Peaks (1990).
In the 1990s, she began to get more mature roles, though she reprized the role of Kay Corleone in the third "Godfather" epic, The Godfather Part III (1990). She appeared as the wife of Steve Martin in the hit Father of the Bride (1991) and again in Father of the Bride Part II (1995). In 1993 she once again teamed with Woody Allen in Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), which was well received. In 1995 she received high marks for Unstrung Heroes (1995), her first major feature as a director.Unstrung Heros
Hanging Up
3--- Music Artist
- Actress
- Producer
Barbra Streisand is an American singer, actress, director and producer and one of the most successful personalities in show business. She is the only person ever to receive all of the following: Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Golden Globe, Cable Ace, National Endowment for the Arts, and Peabody awards, as well as the Kennedy Center Honor, American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement honor and the Film Society of Lincoln Center Chaplin Award.
She was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1942 to Diana Kind (née Ida Rosen), a singer turned school secretary, and Emanuel Streisand, a high school teacher. Her father died when she was 15 months old. She has a brother, Sheldon, and a half-sister, Roslyn Kind, from their mother's remarriage. As a child she attended the Beis Yakov Jewish School in Brooklyn. She was raised in a middle-class family and grew up dreaming of becoming an actress (or even an actress / conductor, as she happily described her teenage years at one of her concerts).
After a period as a nightclub singer and off-Broadway performer in New York City she began to attract interest and a fan base, thanks to her original and powerful vocal talent. She debuted on Broadway in the 1962 musical comedy "I Can Get It For You Wholesale" by Harold Rome, receiving a Tony Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress and a New York Drama Critics Poll award. The following year she reached great commercial success with her first Columbia Records solo releases, "The Barbra Streisand Album" (multiple Grammy winner, including "Best Album of the Year") and "The Second Barbra Streisand Album" (her first RIAA Gold Album); these albums, mostly devoted to composer Harold Arlen, brought her critical praise and, most of all, public acclaim all over the US. In 1964 she had another smash Broadway hit when she portrayed legendary Broadway star Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl" by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill; the show's main song, "People", became her first hit single and she appeared on the cover of Time magazine. After many TV appearances as a guest on various music and variety shows (such as an episode of The Judy Garland Show (1963), for which she was nominated for an Emmy), she signed an exclusive contract with CBS for a series of annual TV specials. My Name Is Barbra (1965) (which won an Emmy) and Color Me Barbra (1966) were extremely successful.
After a brief London stage period and the birth of her son Jason Gould (with then-husband Elliott Gould), in summer 1967 she gave a memorable free concert in New York City, "A Happening in Central Park", that was filmed and later broadcast (in an edited version) as a TV special; then she flew to Hollywood for her first movie, Funny Girl (1968), a filming of her stage success. The picture, directed by William Wyler, opened in 1968 and became a hit in the US and abroad, making her an international "superstar" and multiple award winner, including the Best Actress Oscar. After a series of screen musicals, such as Gene Kelly's Hello, Dolly! (1969) and Vincente Minnelli's On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), she wanted to try comedies, resulting in such films as The Owl and the Pussycat (1970) and What's Up, Doc? (1972). She turned to dramas and turned out Up the Sandbox (1972) and the classic The Way We Were (1973), directed by Sydney Pollack and co-starring Robert Redford. The song "The Way We Were" (written by Marvin Hamlisch and Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman) became one of her biggest hits and most memorable and famous songs.
She returned to TV for a new special conceived as a musical journey covering many world musical styles, Barbra Streisand and Other Musical Instruments (1973), then returned (for contractual reasons) to her Fanny Brice role in a sequel to her hit "Funny Girl" film, Funny Lady (1975), and the next year turned out one of her most personal film projects, A Star Is Born (1976), one of the biggest hits of the year for which she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress and her second Oscar, for the song "Evergreen". Always extremely busy on the discography side, averaging one album a year throughout the '70s and '80s, she had a string of successful singles and albums, such as "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" (duet with Neil Diamond), "Enough is Enough" (with Donna Summer), "The Main Event" (from her film The Main Event (1979) with her friend Ryan O'Neal) and the album "Guilty", written for her by The Bee Gees' Barry Gibb, which sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.
She debuted as a director with the musical drama Yentl (1983), in which she also portrayed a Jewish girl who is forced to pass herself off as a man to pursue her dreams. The movie received generally positive reviews and the beautiful score by Michel Legrand and lyricists Marilyn Bergman and Alan Bergman stands up as one of Streisand's finest musical works. The film received several Oscar nominations, winning in two categories, but she was not nominated as Best Director, which disappointed both her and her fans, many of whom consider this the Academy's biggest "snub".
In 1985 her album "The Broadway Album" was an unexpected runaway success, winning a Grammy Award and helping to introduce a new generation to the world of American musical theater. In 1986 she performed in a memorable concert, after 19 years of stage silence, "One Voice". She returned to the screen in Nuts (1987), a drama directed by Martin Ritt, in the role of a prostitute accused of murder who fights to avoid being labeled "insane" at her trial. In 1991 she appeared in The Prince of Tides (1991), which many consider to be the pinnacle of her screen career, playing a psychiatrist who tries to help a man (Nick Nolte) to find the pieces of his past life. The film received seven Oscar nominations (but again NOT for Best Directing), but she did receive a nomination from the DGA (Directors Guild of America) for Best Director. In 1994 she returned to the stage after 27 years for a series of sold-out concerts (for the televised version of one of these, she won another Emmy).
In the 1990s she broke several personal records: with two #1 albums ("Back to Broadway" in 1993 and "Higher Ground" in 1997) and became the only artist to achieve a #1 album on the Billboard charts in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s (she extended this record into the 21st century in 2009 with the jazz album "Love is the Answer"). In 1996 she starred in her third picture as director, The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), with Jeff Bridges and Lauren Bacall. The film had a "the girl got the guy" ending, and the same happened to her in real life--the next year she married well known TV actor James Brolin.
In 2000 she focused her career again on concerts ("Timeless") and in 2006-07 with a European tour. She made only two more films--a supporting role as a sex therapist mother in the Ben Stiller comedy Meet the Fockers (2004) and its sequel, Little Fockers (2010), alongside Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. She published a book, "Passion for Design", in 2010 and celebrated her friendship with the Bergmans with an entire album of their songs, "What Matters Most" (2011), that debuted in the top 10.
After a long break from filming, she returned in a starring role for the 2012 holiday season with The Guilt Trip (2012), a mother/son picture co-starring Seth Rogen and directed by Anne Fletcher, and is working on putting together a film version of the well-known Jule Styne musical "Gypsy". In almost 50 years of career, Streisand has contributed to the show business industry in a personal and unique way, collecting a multi-generational fan base; she has a powerful and recognize vocal range, and a raucous and often self-deprecating sense of humor, which doesn't prevent her from showing the serious and dramatic sides of her personality. Her strong political belief in social justice infuses her professional career and personal life, and she makes no bones about what she believes; her willingness to put her money where her mouth is has resulted in some truly vicious attacks by many who hold opposite political views, but that hasn't stopped her from acting on her beliefs. She has been honored with the Humanitarian Award from the Human Rights Campaign, an Honorary Doctorate in Arts and Humanities from Brandeis University in 1995, an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2013 and the bestowing by the government of France the title of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. She supports many humanitarian causes through the Streisand Foundation and has been a dedicated environmentalist for many years; she endowed a chair in environmental studies in 1987 and donated her 24-acre estate to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. In addition, she was the lead founder for the Clinton Climate Change Initiative. This effort brought together a consortium of major cities around the world to drive down greenhouse gas emissions. She is a leading spokesperson and fund-raiser for social and political causes close to her heart and has often dedicated proceeds from her live concert performances to benefit programs she supports.The Prince of Tides
The Mirror Has Two Faces
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Nanette Burstein was born on 23 May 1970 in Buffalo, New York, USA. She is a director and producer, known for On the Ropes (1999), American Teen (2008) and Going the Distance (2010). She is married to Scott Anderson (XV).Oscar nominee for On the Ropes
Going the Distance- Actress
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Helen Hunt began studying acting at the age of eight with her father, respected director and acting coach Gordon Hunt. A year later she made her professional debut and afterwards worked steadily in films, theatre and television.Then She Found Me
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Anjelica Huston was born on July 8, 1951 to director and actor John Huston and Russian prima ballerina Enrica 'Ricki' Soma. Huston spent most of her childhood overseas, in Ireland and England, and in 1968 first dipped her toe into the world of show business, taking on the lead role of her father's movie A Walk with Love and Death (1969). However, before it was released, her mother died in a car accident, at 39, and Huston relocated to the United States, where the very tall, exotically-beautiful young woman modeled for several years.
While modeling, Huston made sporadic cameo appearances in a couple films, but decided to pursue it as a career in the early '80s. She prepared herself by reaching out to acting coach Peggy Feury and began to get roles. The first notable part was in Bob Rafelson's remake of the classic noir movie The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) (in which Jack Nicholson, with whom Huston had been living since 1973, was the star). After a few more years of on-again, off-again supporting work, her father perfectly cast her as calculating, imperious Maerose, the daughter of a Mafia don whose love is scorned by a hit man (Nicholson again) in his film adaptation of Richard Condon's Mafia-satire novel Prizzi's Honor (1985). Huston won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance, making her the first person in Academy Award history to win an Oscar when a parent and a grandparent (her father and grandfather Walter Huston) had also won one.
Huston thereafter worked prolifically, including notable roles in Francis Ford Coppola's Gardens of Stone (1987), Barry Sonnenfeld's film versions of the Charles Addams cartoons The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993), in which she portrayed Addams matriarch Morticia, Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004). Probably her finest performance on-screen, however, was as Lilly, the veteran, iron-willed con artist in Stephen Frears' The Grifters (1990), for which she received another Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress. A sentimental favorite is her performance as the lead in her father's final film, an adaptation of James Joyce's The Dead (1987) -- with her many years of residence in Ireland, Huston's Irish accent in the film is authentic.
Endowed with her father's great height and personal boldness, and her mother's beauty and aristocratic nose, Huston certainly cuts an imposing figure, and brings great confidence and authority to her performances. She clearly takes her craft seriously and has come into her own as a strong actress, emerging from under the shadow of her father, who passed away in 1987. Huston married the sculptor Robert Graham in 1992. The couple lived in Venice Beach until Graham's death in 2008.Bastard Out of Carolina
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Barbara Kopple was born on 30 July 1946 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a producer and director, known for Harlan County U.S.A. (1976), American Dream (1990) and Shut Up & Sing (2006).mostly documentaries
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Patricia Cardoso is an award-winning director who has directed a wide range of films and episodes for the screen. Her first feature film, REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES, was a box office and critical success and has become a landmark in US cinema. Cardoso's directing credits include episodes of THE SOCIETY, QUEEN SUGAR, WILL TRENT, THE WATCHFUL EYE, TALES OF THE CITY, the pilot for HARLAN COBEN'S SHELTER for Amazon Prime, and the feature EL PASEO DE TERESA -the largest box office for a woman director in Colombia. Cardoso is an anthropologist, an archaeologist, and a Fulbright scholar. Cardoso's anthropological approach to directing guides her film and television work. Cardoso was the first Latinx woman director to have a film included in the Library of Congress's National Film Registry and to win a Student Academy Award® and a Sundance Audience Award. She is a graduate of UCLA's film school and was director of Sundance's Latin American program for five years. In addition to her work as a filmmaker, Cardoso is a professor at UC Riverside and previously taught at USC and UCLA. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, The British Film Academy, the Television Academy, and the Directors Guild of America.Real Women Have Curves
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