It’s Oscar Day. I’m not there. Yet.
As a female director…correction: as a WORKING female director…in Hollywood, I’ve never liked the word “female” in front of the word “director.” What I do like is the word “Great” and “Working” in front of the word “director.”
On this very special day of the Academy Awards, I thought it would be a good one to talk about being a female director, since there are none of us nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director and that makes me sad.
I don’t think I’m alone in being a director who has envisioned myself winning an Oscar. I’ve pictured that ever since I directed my first feature film “Acts of Worship.” I made it to Sundance, then the Independent Spirit Awards. My film was nominated for the John Cassavetes Award for Best Feature, and being that John Cassavetes was a major influence, I was beyond grateful. (I wonder how many women have won Best Director at the Indie Spirit Awards?)
At that time, I was on top of the world. Then I ended up back at my day job, trying to figure out what happened in that previous fourteen months from Sundance to the Spirit Awards and all the domestic and foreign festivals in between. How could I not be working as a director?? What would it take??
Eventually I moved past my heartbreak and rage, and got into a shadowing program. Then I began directing TV. For the past 13 years, I’ve been directing episodic television on shows like #TheGoodWife, #JessicaJones, #Empire, #Outsiders, #RescueMe and many many more.
What’s the connection to the Oscars? None. That’s the point. I’m one of the lucky working directors in Hollywood. Yet I’m further from the Oscars than ever. Why? Because I’m part of the “female directors” club that isn’t “in” that particular movie game.
All the talk about diversity actually means access to money and access to money means more creative opportunities. At the end of the day, all my ambition and dreams about the Academy Awards is about my true desire to make movies that have meaning not just in my life, but in everyone’s lives. Movies are about the audience. And the only way to reach an audience is to have access to funding. That’s the real problem in Hollywood: who gets the money. So, let’s talk about that. And come on financiers, let’s go! You are leaving a lot of money on the table by not investing in diversity!
There’s been a lot of press the past several months pushing the conversation about the lack of diversity hiring in film and TV. It’s real. It hurts. And it’s real. And it is just conversation so far.
As I push my second feature “Silver Skies” uphill toward distribution, I’m going to keep that Oscar dream alive. It makes me feel better every year to say to myself “I’ll be there next year.” Am I a fool? Is it ever going to be possible? Hell yes.
Well, who knows…but I’ll just keep directing my way to my dream: to hold that Academy Award in my hand and know that a lot of great women came before me…not only Alice Guy Blache, Lois Weber, Barbara Loden, Mira Nair, Betty Thomas, Ida Lupino, Kimberly Peirce, Ava Duvernay, Mimi Leder, Martha Coolidge, Lesli Linka Glatter and SO many others…but that only ONE woman has won: Kathryn Bigelow (2010), and only FOUR women have been nominated: Sofia Coppola (2003), Jane Campion (1993), Lina Wertmuller (1976). These directors kick ass, just like I do, every day, sometimes ignored, struggling for financing (the most important “f” word there is!) and feeling anonymous within the industry. Every single day we follow our hearts, getting rejected and feeling invisible even though our work shines above most. Yet we keep going. And we always will. THAT you can count on.
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