Girls on Film

This is a Ida Lupino. She was an actress, but more importantly she was one of the first women to write, direct and produce Hollywood films. She also directed lots of episodic television (Daniel Boone, Route 66, and others). She is on my mind because there aren't enough women directors just like there are not enough African-American, Native American, Hispanic American, etc ... filmmakers. The film business has been and continues to be dominated by white men, and that is a shame.

Last week I gave a workshop for students who are applying to get in to my advanced production class. This is sort of a capstone filmmaking class. The films produced in this class go to film festivals and are screened publicly. These students make good films despite (maybe because of?) of their teacher. At the end of the session a student came up to me and asked if there are any women in the class. I was embarrassed. Sure there are women in the class- five of the 20 students- but this student was the only woman who attended the workshop. I am afraid this is a bad sign.

What if only one out of every five doctors, lawyers, teachers, vets, newspaper reporters, TV weathercasters was a woman? Wouldn't we think it strange? We need, we want to see films from other perspectives. This is not a good trend. We need more women filmmakers.

We need more Ida Lupinos.

PeterH