Women and Hollywood’s Guest Blogger Marian Evans, who blogs as Wellywood Woman, highlighted WIFV’s Women of Vision Awards as an example of film awards that are globally thinking and celebrate women’s achievements in a gender-biased industry, and Agnieszka Holland in particular. Read the excerpt of Marian’s blog below, and go to Women and Hollywood to read the full post. WIFV loves to get mentions!
Because of the gender bias in the European Film Award nominations, it’s especially satisfying to see Agnieszka Holland in the list of recipients of Women in Film and Video’s (WIFV) annual Women of Vision Awards, also just announced. WIFV is based in Washington DC, a local rather than a national or international organization, so it’s excellent to see that it’s thinking globally. A Polish director, Agnieszka Holland’s had an extraordinary career. She’s made twenty-eight films, directed television, including episodes of The Wire, The Killing, and Treme. She won the International Critics Prize at Cannes way back in 1978 for Provincial Actors (Aktorzy prowincjonalni) was an Academy Award nominee for her screenplay for Europa Europa, which she also directed. She has twice had a film nominated for the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film, most recently this year for In Darkness. In the interview below she comes across as a human being who’s full of heart and complexity and as a filmmaker with a lot of wisdom to share. The other WIFV awards are regional and honor women for a variety of film-related activities: Shirin Ghareebthe director of the Arabian Sights Film Festival and deputy director of Filmfest DC, director Agnieszka Holland, Margaret Parsons, curator at the Department of Film Programs, National Gallery of Art; and Christine Weber, Vice President of Production for Specials at Discovery Channel. They’ll be presented at the end of the month.
— Marian Evans, Guest Blog for Women and Hollywood, November 8, 2012.
WIFTI Summit 
Thank you for cross-posting this! You might like to check out these director gender stats from round the world, and Maria Guise’s comments at the end of the post: http://wellywoodwoman.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/after-i-completed-my-survey-of-new.html I’d love it if the WIFTI summit could consider new ways to support women writers and directors globally, especially those who are telling stories about women. It’s very encouraging that the Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting are now (https://www.facebook.com/NichollFellowships) “aware of the statistics regarding female writers working in the American film and television industries – about 17% in 2009, per a WGA survey – and hope that the Academy Nicholl Fellowships opening doors for female writers advancing to the quarter/semi/finals at a higher rate will have an impact in the future. We would appreciate seeing statistics showing the percentage of male and female aspiring screenwriters. We are discussing outreach to increase the overall diversity of entrants.” Like WIFTI, the Nicholl Fellowships have a global reach, and it’d be fabulous if you could work together for change!
Thanks for sharing, Marian. We definitely want people to leave the WIFTI Summit with a new perspective and ideas on how to take action.
Im not that much of a online reader to be honest but your blogs really nice, keep it up! I’ll go ahead and bookmark your site to come back later. All the best kecaafkaeekd