When did women first direct films? If you type these words in your search engine, you’ll see this year pop up: 1896 and the name Alice Guy-Blaché (1873-1968). In her filmmaking career that spanned over two decades, Alice Guy had written, directed, or produced more than a thousand films in France and later in America. She was a pioneer in fictional narratives, comedies, actions, travelogues, musicals (yes, films with sound), just to name a few categories of her cinematic works.
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (2018), directed by Pamela Green and narrated by Jodie Foster is a fascinating documentary, a must-see, now streaming on the free platform Kanopy.com. “Be Natural” were signs Alice Guy put up in her studio for her actors as a reminder.
Cut to 2010. In the annual study The Celluloid Ceiling on women behind-the-scene employment in filmmaking, only 2% of the top 250 films made that year in the US were directed by women. In 2018, it was 4%. Then there was a big jump in 2019 to 12%. In 2020, due to the pandemic, the study included 100 top films instead of 250, the percentage of women directors increased to 16%.
2019 appears to have marked a tipping point, hopefully a trend that stays, as more women are being recognized as ‘profitable’ in the filmmaking business. Further, people also found out women can direct various genres, including action and superheroes movies too. Just wonder what Alice Guy would had thought if she were around.
On this day, March 8, 2021, in honor of the many woman directors working, I’m posting a list with their names first then their works released for the year back to 2019. This is only a selection and mainly for films distributed in North America. You might recognize some names or titles of books. In alphabetical order:
2021
Ana Lily Amirpour – Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon
Clio Barnard – Ava & Ali
Camilla Belle – Phobias
Shari Springer Berman (co-director) – Things Heard and Seen
Halle Berry – Bruised
Kay Cannon – Cinderella
Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog
Nia DaCosta – Candyman
Livia De Paolis – The Lost Girls
Julie Delpy – My Zoe
Claire Denis – Fire
Augustine Frizzell – The Last Letter from your Lover
Maggie Gyllenhaal – The Lost Daughter
Rebecca Hall – Passing
Sian Heder – CODA
Joanna Hogg – The Souvenir: Part II
Eva Husson – Mothering Sunday
Lisa Joy – Reminiscence
Dea Kulumbegashvili – Beginning
Mélanie Laurent – The Nightingale
Lena Khan – Flora & Ulysses
Castille Landon – Fear of Rain
Mia Hansen-Løve – Bergman Island
Lila Neugebauer – Red, White and Water
Megan Park – The Fallout
Amy Poehler – Moxie
Céline Sciamma – Petite Maman
Cate Shortland – Black Widow
Liesl Tommy – Respect
Kate Tsang – Marvelous and the Black Hole
Lana Wachowski – The Matrix 4
Olivia Wilde – Don’t Worry Darling
Robin Wright – Land
Robin Wright, Catherine Hardwicke – Together Now
Chloé Zhao – The Eternals
_______
2020
Niki Caro – Mulan
Sofia Coppola – On the Rocks
Autumn de Wilde – Emma
Josephine Decker – Shirley
Clea DuVall – Happiest Season
Mona Fastvold – The World to Come
Emerald Fennell – Promising Young Woman
Nisha Ganatra – The High Note
Liz Garbus – Lost Girls
Julia Hart – I’m Your Woman
Eliza Hittman – Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Patty Jenkins – Wonder Woman 1984
Natalie Erika James – Relic
Miranda July – Kajillionaire
Regina King – One Night in Miami
Roseanne Liang – Shadow in the Cloud
Phyllida Lloyd – Herself
April Mullen – Wander
Mira Nair – A Suitable Boy
Gina Prince-Bythewood – The Old Guard
Dee Rees – The Last Thing He Wanted
Adriana Trigiani – Then Came You
Cathy Yan – Birds of Prey
Jasmila Zbanic – Quo vadis, Aida?
Chloé Zhao – Nomadland
_______
2019:
Elizabeth Banks – Charlie’s Angels
Chinonye Chukwu – Clemency
Mati Diop – Atlantics
Lisa Barros D’Sa – Ordinary Love
Anna Boden (co-direct) – Captain Marvel
Gabriela Cowperthwaite – Our Friend
Nora Fingscheidt – System Crasher
Nisha Ganatra – Late Night
Sarah Gavron – Rocks
Greta Gerwig – Little Women
Rose Glass – Saint Maud
Kitty Green – The Assistant
Alma Har’el – Honey Boy
Marielle Heller – A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Kathleen Hepburn, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers – The Body Remembers when the World Broke Open
Nahnatchka Khan – Always Be My Maybe
Jennifer Lee (co-director) – Frozen II
Kasi Lemmons – Harriet
Melina Matsoukas – Queen and Slim
Shannon Murphy – Babyteeth
Lydia Dean Pilcher – A Call to Spy
Kelly Reichardt – First Cow
Lorene Scafaria – Hustlers
Angela Schanelac – I was at Home, But…
Céline Sciamma – Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Lulu Wang – The Farewell
Olivia Wilde – Booksmart
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What a great list! I’m very much looking forward to Nomadland and I loved Booksmart.
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Booksmart’s director Olivia Wilde will have a new movie coming out this year, Cathy. Check the list for 2021. As for Nomadland, I watched it last Sept. at the virtual Toronto Int. Film Festival online. Written a review which is now on the subscription-based online film site Vague Visage. But I sure hope to watch it again and write down more updated thoughts right here now that half a year has gone by.
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The documentary sounds fascinating. What a trailblazer at that time — well, anyone directing was a trailblazer back then, but especially a woman. I recognized many names in those lists!
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Jeanie, it’s a must-see. informative and entertaining… albeit a little sad at the end (spoiler warning.) I didn’t know about this important woman pioneer of the cinema until just recently. She made the first movie not long after the Lumière brothers invented the Cinématographe, at only 23! Do check out the doc. on Kanopy.com
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A larger number of women than I expected although I suspect there were lots of female ‘assistants’ running the show in the past.
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Yes, that’s the effect I hope to elicit. 🙂 Mind you, it’s not that they suddenly became directors in 2019, it’s just that there have been women directors all along (the first one being Alice Guy: that doc is a must-see) and in recent decades too but just that very few had been recognized or trusted enough to be hired. A series called “Women Made Film” by the Irish director Mark Cousins and narrated by Tilda Swinton is also highly recommended.
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This reminds me I read an interview with Julie Delpy when I first watched the Midnight films and by then she had become a director and was talking about how precarious it was getting work as a woman. It is good that things are becoming more diverse now. Sad that it has taken such a long time, but maybe hopeful for the future.
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Check out this year’s Berlinale winners, just two days ago: three women directors winning the top prizes. Europe sure is a better soil for film art and gender equality than NA.
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Also FYI, Jane Campion won Best Director at the Venice FF with the film, among many of her wins.
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Oh that’s good to hear!
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