A Year With Women

READ THE RECAP OF THE YEAR HERE

In 2015, every movie I watch (at home or in theaters) will either be written by, directed by, co-written by or co-directed by women. Places you can follow my project A Year With Women:

Tumblr (posters, thoughts, etc.)
Cinema-Fanatic.com (long form, Movie Quote of the Day, etc.)
YouTube (video reviews)
Facebook (posters, links, etc.)
Mubi (ratings)
Twitter (all kinds of stuff)
Listography (a running list of everything I watch)

More info about the project:

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. UPDATE: Here’s the 2014 numbers (they’re not good). 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 in 2014 directed by women!).

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).

Press:

103 Essential Films By Female Filmmakers

Month Wrap-Ups:

Favorite Fifteen Films of 2015

READ THE RECAP OF THE YEAR HERE

Leave a comment
Trackbacks 51
Comments 2

Lyndsay Moffatt | March 16, 2015 at 8:56 pm

I love that you are doing this! Thank you! Have you seen Emporte Moi/ set me free by Lea Pool? It is fantastic. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9a_Pool

Reply
Lyndsay Moffatt | March 16, 2015 at 8:58 pm

I love that you are doing this! Thank you! Have you seen Emporte Moi/ Set me free by Lea Poole? It is fantastic! http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9a_Pool

Reply