It’s Cinema Fanatic’s 5th Anniversary!
Isn’t that exciting?! I’ve got a really big announcement to make, but first I want to run through a few highlights of this last year.
As far as highlights go:
2014 has also been filled with a lot of great cinema (and TV!) watching as always (see all my monthly updated here), but that brings me to my big announcement. In watching so many movies for so long now, I’ve come to really feel the gender imbalance, both in storytelling and in the characters represented on screen. The most recent reports show that only 6% of the top grossing films in 2013 were directed by women. Writers aren’t much better, with 10% of the top grossing films of 2013. That, however, doesn’t mean that 94% of movies are being directed by men. Working at Rotten Tomatoes has shown me that almost one film a week that’s opening limited or on VOD is directed by women (a few weeks back there were 7!). What this means for me, living in Los Angeles, is that I have access to a lot more of these films than most people, yet I still find myself not going to them (I only saw 13 new release films this year directed by women!) Which brings me to my big announcement for 2015:
For the entire year of 2015 I will only be watching films that are directed, co-directed, written or co-written by women. This includes movies in theaters, as well as what I will be watching at home (my Netflix queue is so ready for this). There will be two moratoriums, one for Noirvember 6 and one for the TCMFF, because Ida Lupino and Dorothy Arzner only directed so many films!
But the rest of the year, this is what I am doing. I see this partially as a social protest, and partially as a year of discovery. While I will be denying myself films from some of my favorite directors, I will also be experiencing some classics I keep putting off and some new voices that I normally wouldn’t have time for. I probably won’t be seeing many of the top grossing films this year (if 2015’s figures are anything like 2013!), same goes for most of the prestige Oscar contenders.
I am excited to see what a year like this will be like. Every year 90% or more of the films I watch are from male creators. What will happen when I flip that percentage? What will my life be like? I’ll continue to do the YouTube reviews as I have been, but most of my self discovery I will be keeping in a journal for myself now (with hopes of possibly publishing it as a memoir in the future).
So these last few weeks of 2014 I’m going to try to fit in a few male directed films I’ve been putting off before I embark on my Year With Women.
Posted on December 17, 2014, in Site Update and tagged A Year With Women, Anniversary Post, Female Filmmaker Friday, Noirvember, Rotten Tomatoes, TCM Classic Film Festival, TCMFF, YouTube. Bookmark the permalink. 15 Comments.
the diary of a film history fanatic 
This is a great idea! I’m way into it. I’ve only been reading books by women for several months and it’s been great (I make an exception for re-reads, and I’m considering expanding to men of color).
This is AWESOME. I can’t wait to read about what new filmmakers + movies you discover this way! I’m also trying to be a lot more cognizant of who’s creating the media I’m consuming – the lack of diversity is astonishing.
PS – I wrote an article about Women in Film and linked to your blog 🙂 (http://sadgirlsguide.com/talkin-bout-women-film/)
Awesome project! One female director I’d like to recommend is Larisa Shepitko – her films “Wings” and “The Ascent” have been released here through Criterion.
So so excited for you!
Well, that’s going to be an interesting 2015 movie-watching! I’ll try to make a list of films for you, even though they’re probably on your Netflix queue already xD
So just to be clear- written/directed/co-written/co-directed by women, not women ensembles that are directed/written by men, So it could be a predominantly male ensemble as long as the film’s written or directed by a woman.
Happy 5 years!
I am so thrilled you are doing this!!! I can’t wait to watch your reviews…and see some of your recommendations.
Also, happy anniversary! You are one of my all-time favorite bloggers!
It’s so great that you’re doing this. It made me look at the movies I’ve seen so far in 2014, and the list of movies that I’m 100% sure were directed by women (and most of those are docs), is much too short. So I’m going to try to work on that.
Reblogged this on omen faces.
This is awesome. I did a marathon on films directed by women back in 2013, but that was just five movies. Your choice is a lot more impressive, Marya. Hopefully you’ll blog about how it’s going during the year.
Looking forward to following your adventure and celebrating with you in the #DirectedbyWomen worldwide film viewing party: September 1 – 15, 2015.
Here are over 6000 women film directors active in roughly the past decade…
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls051973821/
and thousands of women directed films on my MUBI lists:
https://mubi.com/users/5996504/lists
https://www.facebook.com/directedbywomen
https://twitter.com/DirectedbyWomen
thanks! that MUBI list is actually how I found all the films I have in my Netflix queue. Invaluable information.
Here’s a good list!
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls052129650/
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