Like, what's the deal, Neil?
Neil isn't a real person.
In the past 5 years I've seen women horror, sci-fi, and fantasy directors representing at least one third of all genre film festival screenings in the United States and in Europe. This year, not so. While there are a few features making the rounds, the same ones appear in all the fests and often they're the ONLY film directed by a woman in the entire lineup.
Check it out:
Horror/drama After.life, directed Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo, already made a theatrical release in the USA and was recently screened in the United Kingdom at London Frightfest alongside only one other horror film by a woman (Hélène Cattet co-directed the awful giallo Amer with Bruno Forzani) and the violent action flick Isle of Dogs by Tammi Sutton and is now in the official lineup for Sitges, Spain. Unless there are films Sitges has not announced yet, After.life is the ONLY film directed by a woman in the entire Sitges 2010 lineup. Weird, huh?
The Los-Angeles based Shriekfest film festival is showcasing supernatural thriller Fugue directed by Barbara Stepansky. And that's it. Every other film in the festival this year is directed by a man. Shriekfest usually has a healthy mix of shorts by women, but not this year. There's not even one.
We know Jennifer Eiss's short film Short Lease is at ScreamFest LA, but their official lineup and schedule isn't exactly... up yet.
Amber Benson's feature sci-fi Drones is about to run at the 2010 Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. As the only feature directed by a woman. I checked, but I can't seem to find any shorts by a chick, either.
Meredith Berg's short psychological horror Void ended up as the ONLY film, feature or short, directed by a woman at the entire 2010 International Hororr & Sci-Fi Film Festival in Arizona.
Wait - are these IT? 7 out of at least a hundred or more genre films making the rounds in the 2010 festival circuit? What's going on here? What seems to be most likely is that women just didn't submit many horror/fantasy/sci-fi movies to the festivals this year. And why didn't they? Sadly, because they probably didn't make that many. Funding, bad luck, and the failing economy of the western world seem to have taken their toll on women's abilities to get their genre films made. Or is it something more?
That's sad, because I've been so happy to see so many wonderful films come out in past years and enter the competition and represent the female filmmaker in what is supposedly a 'male dominated' arena of film.
If you're attending any of these fests, check out the aforementioned if for no other reasons than sociological. If you're retarded and have no sociological interests, then go check out some really neat genre flicks that happen to be directed by women, listed above.
And if you have any ideas why there are so few women with flicks at fests, leave a comment, cause I'd love to try to understand.
i'm finishing up my first short, and i know the thing that is keeping me from entering in most festivals is submission fees. this isn't so much gender-specific as it is poor motherfucker-specific, though. i can't really afford to pay some assholes $30-$50 to tell me my movie is too weird for them.