LORNA SORE

Sometimes when smart and interesting friends complain about Me and You and Everyone We Know and Lost in Translation I start grousing that young women filmmakers, like many young women fiction writers, aren’t taken as seriously as their male counterparts.

“The last time a woman was nominated for best director was 2004 – Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation. Then you have to go back a decade, to Jane Campion for The Piano in 1994. Only one other woman has been nominated: the Italian director Lina Wertmüller, in 1977, for Seven Beauties.”

“Since Oscars began in 1928, a woman has never won Best Director.“

“…even when women do manage to direct a successful first feature, it seems much harder for them to get their next film off the ground than it is for men. Tamara Jenkins went nine years between directing her well-received debut, Slums of Beverly Hills, and The Savages. It has taken Kimberly Peirce – who caused a sensation in 1999 with Boys Don’t Cry, which won Hilary Swank a best actress Oscar – eight years to get her next film into theatres…”