Although women may have found greater film success in the areas of screenwriting, editing, design, and producing, there have been many women whose contributions as directors have been quite significant. In this guide to their careers and films, author Mary Hurd profiles the most noteworthy—from Barbara Kopple and her classic work in the documentary form, to Nora Ephron's insightful retellings of Hollywood's classic stories, to Sophia Coppola's current success in Hollywood. Women Directors and Their Films fills an important gap in the literature on the subject, offering a combination of biographical material and film analysis that effectively summarizes and encapsulates the life's work of these very different, very talented women. The selection includes women of the studio age (Ida Lupino, Dorothy Arzner), contemporary mainstream directors (Amy Heckerling, Nora Ephron), independents (Mary Harron, Nancy Savoca), documentarians (Barbara Kopple), experimental filmmakers (Maya Deren), and an assortment of acclaimed international filmmakers (Jane Campion, Agnes Varda). Profiles of the directors contain both biographical and critical segments. The first, biographical section provides a basic outline of the subject's life and career; the second offers a discussion of the director's films, featuring comments on the narrative, themes, visual techniques and style, and possible critical approaches to the work. Each chapter also includes a complete filmography and brief bibliography.

This wide-ranging volume of new work brings together women filmmakers and critics who speak about what has changed over the past twenty years. Including such filmmakers as Margarethe von Trotta, Deepa Mehta, and Pratibha Parmar, and such critics as E. Ann Kaplan, this comprehensive volume addresses political, artistic, and economic questions vital

This book highlights the voices and stories of Latin American women directors from Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Mexico.

This edited volume offers a wide-ranging picture of Argentine women filmmakers’ contribution to the film industry from the 1980s to the present by bringing together the work of highly acclaimed and emerging directors. Through thirteen critical essays by leading scholars in the field of Argentine cinema, the book acknowledges that contemporary women filmmakers have transformed the cinema of Argentina by questioning, challenging and debunking hegemonic patriarchal systems of representation. With a focus on women’s voices and experiences, the contributions redress both the under-representation of women and girls onscreen and the perpetuation of stereotypes, while exploring the innovative aesthetics used by these filmmakers.

Examining the significance of women's work in popular film genres, this test sheds light on women's contribution to genre cinema through an exploration of filmmakers like Kathryn Bigelow, Diablo Cody, Sofia Coppola, and Kelly Reichard.

Arab women filmmakers: Who are they? What drives them? What are their experiences in a male-dominated profession? How do they function within the contexts - and constraints - of patriarchal societies? The answers are complex and sometimes surprising, as complex and surprising as the vastly different films these women direct. In this unprecedented book, Rebecca Hillauer assembles a comprehensive and penetrating look into the history of Arab women's filmmaking, as well as the political and social background of the countries - Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Algeria, among others - from which these artists emerged. In addition to the biographies, filmographies, and discussions of their most important works, lively, in-depth interviews allow us to hear from the filmmakers themselves. Collectively, these women, who hail from a wide range of professional, religious, and social backgrounds, provide a varied and vivid picture of what it means to work in creative and journalistic fields in the modern Arab world. For Hillauer, the subject of a film, its genesis, and the personal story of the artist who created it reveal far more than a particular approach to cinematography. Arab women filmmakers and their main characters (who are often semi-autobiographical) not only afford us a look at seldom-seen facets of Arab societies, they personify an alternative women's 'model,' one that is far removed from western clichés. Broad in scope, and rich in insight, Arab Women Filmmakers is a must read for cineastes as well as students of film, feminism, and the Middle East.

Black women filmmakers not only deserve an audience, Gwendolyn Audrey Foster asserts, but it is also imperative that their voices be heard as they struggle against Hollywood’s constructions of spectatorship, ownership, and the creative and distribution aspects of filmmaking. Foster provides a voice for Black and Asian women in the first detailed examination of the works of six contemporary Black and Asian women filmmakers. She also includes a detailed introduction and a chapter entitled "Other Voices," documenting the work of other Black and Asian filmmakers. Foster analyzes the key films of Zeinabu irene Davis, "one of a growing number of independent Black women filmmakers who are actively constructing [in the words of bell hooks] ‘an oppositional gaze’"; British filmmaker Ngozi Onwurah and Julie Dash, two filmmakers working with time and space; Pratibha Parmar, a Kenyan/Indian-born British Black filmmaker concerned with issues of representation, identity; cultural displacement, lesbianism, and racial identity; Trinh T. Minh-ha, a Vietnamese-born artist who revolutionized documentary filmmaking by displacing the "voyeuristic gaze of the ethnographic documentary filmmaker"; and Mira Nair, a Black Indian woman who concentrates on interracial identity.

Latin American women filmmakers have achieved unprecedented international prominence in recent years. Notably political in their approach, figures such as Lucrecia Martel, Claudia Llosa and Bertha Navarro have created innovative and often challenging films, enjoying global acclaim from critics and festival audiences alike. They undeniably mark a 'moment' for Latin American cinema.Bringing together distinguished scholars in the field - and prefaced by B. Ruby Rich - this is a much-needed account and analysis of the rise of female-led film in Latin America. Chapters detail the collaboration that characterises Latin American women's filmmaking - in many ways distinct from the largely 'Third Cinema' auteurism from the region - as well as the transnational production contexts, unique aesthetics and socio-political landscape of the key industry figures. Through close attention to the particular features of national film cultures, from women's documentary filmmaking in Chile to comedic critique in Brazil, and from US Latina screen culture to the burgeoning popularity of Peruvian film, this timely study demonstrates the remarkable possibilities for film in the region. This book will allow scholars and students of Latin American cinema and culture, as well as industry professionals, a deeper understanding of the emergence and impact of the filmmakers and their work, which has particular relevance for contemporary debates on feminism.

A lively discussion of costume dramas to women's films, Shelley Cobb investigates the practice of adaptation in contemporary films made by women. The figure of the woman author comes to the fore as a key site for the representation of women's agency and the authority of the woman filmmaker.

At most recent count, there are no fewer than forty-five women in Brazil directing or codirecting feature-length fiction or documentary films. In the early 1990s, women filmmakers in Brazil were credited for being at the forefront of the rebirth of filmmaking, or retomada, after the abolition of the state film agency and subsequent standstill of film production. Despite their numbers and success, films by Brazilian women directors are generally absent from discussions of Latin American film and published scholarly works. Filling this void, Brazilian Women's Filmmaking focuses on women's film production in Brazil from the mid-1970s to the current era. Leslie L. Marsh explains how women's filmmaking contributed to the reformulation of sexual, cultural, and political citizenship during Brazil's fight for the return and expansion of civil rights during the 1970s and 1980s and the recent questioning of the quality of democracy in the 1990s and 2000s. She interprets key films by Ana Carolina and Tizuka Yamasaki, documentaries with social themes, and independent videos supported by archival research and extensive interviews with Brazilian women filmmakers. Despite changes in production contexts, recent Brazilian women's films have furthered feminist debates regarding citizenship while raising concerns about the quality of the emergent democracy. Brazilian Women's Filmmaking offers a unique view of how women's audiovisual production has intersected with the reconfigurations of gender and female sexuality put forth by the women's movements in Brazil and continuing demands for greater social, cultural, and political inclusion.