Break the Frame Conversations with Women Filmmakers

by Smokler, Kevin

• ISBN13: 9780197619766
• ISBN10: 0197619762
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780197619780
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2025-05-22
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

A diverse group of women filmmakers speak for themselves about their careers and their work

In the twenty-first century alone, women filmmakers have succeeded at directing every size, genre, and style of motion picture. Their movies have won Oscars (Free Solo), made actors into household names (Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone), received induction into the Library of Congress's National Film Registry (Real Women Have Curves), and become worldwide box office phenomena (Captain Marvel, Deep Impact). Nevertheless in 2023, the year of Barbie, women directed only 12% of the top 250 movies in America. demonstrating how far moviemaking remains from gender parity. When women filmmakers succeed, they do so against these odds.

Break the Frame is a collection of 24 career-spanning interviews with America's celebrated, reigning, and rising women filmmakers. Each conversation considers the director's complete filmography as a map of their evolving artistry and evidence of their unassailable contributions to a historically misogynist industry. Author Kevin Smokler listens as women filmmakers speak to the struggle and triumphs of developing and directing movies that are shaping how the film business sees women in the director's chair, and how their audiences see themselves and each other. This book is both an opportunity and invitation to devote one's time, admiration and enthusiasm to movies directed by women.

Author Biography

Kevin Smokler is the author of Brat Pack America and Practical Classics, and the co-director of the award winning 2022 documentary film Vinyl Nation. His essays and criticism have appeared in Salon, Vulture, Buzzfeed, and NPR.org. Onstage, he has interviewed comedians, actors, architects, filmmakers, and musicians at venues throughout North America

Table of Contents

Introduction: "Bigger and Louder Than Silence"

Section 1: Trailblazers

1. Barbara Kopple
2. Cheryl Dunye
3. Amy Heckerling
4. Patricia Cardoso
5. Julie Dash

Section 2: Sages

6. Mimi Leder
7. Jamie Babbit
8. Jessica Yu
9. Tamra Davis
10. Aline Brosh McKenna
11. Debra Granik

Section 3: Documentarians

12. Chris Hegedus
13. Dawn Porter
14. Tiffany Shlain
15. Dream Hampton

Section 4: Directing in Partnership

16. Shari Springer Berman (w/ Robert Pulcini)
17. Betsy West & Julie Cohen
18. Anna Boden (w/ Ryan Fleck)
19. E. Chai Vasherlyi (w/ Jimmy Chin)

Section 5: The Female Future

20. Felicia Pride
21. Dee Rees
22. Jessica Sharzer
23. Tanya Saracho
24. Alice Wu
25. Erin Lee Carr