Jane Campion

Jane Campion was born in 1954 in New Zealand and now she lives in United States. She began filmmaking in the early 1980s, has a BA in Anthropology from Victoria University of Wellington in 1975 and a BA with a painting major at Sydney College of Art in 1979. While she was attending film school in Australia, Campion made a short film, An Peel – Exercise in Discipline and the film won the Palme D’Or at the Cannes film festival in 1986. In 1989, she co-wrote and directed her first feature film, Sweetie, and it won the Georges Sadoul prize in 1989 for Best Foreign Film, as well as the LA Film Critics' New Generation Award in 1990, the American Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Feature, and the Australian Critics Award for Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress. Three years later, her third feature film, The Piano, released and the film won the Palme D’Or at Cannes. It made her the first woman ever to win the prestigious award. She also captured an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and was nominated for Best Director at the Oscars in 1993.

The films she has made until today have in common that woman characters in them are trying to find their identities against social norms and suppression of sexual desire. Campion is interested in the ego-identity of women who are disregarded in society. As she is Anthropology major, she finds the root of this problem through Anthropology in her film. The Piano received extraordinary critical and popular public attention. Vincent Canby of The New York Times described The Piano as ‘a triumph . . . so good, so tough, so moving and, especially, so original.’

The piano is a story about a mute Scottish woman, Ada McGrath, whose father sells her, along with her young daughter into a marriage to a man, Alistair Stewart, who she does not know. Since she stopped speaking at the age of six, Ada expresses herself through playing piano and some sign languages. Her husband, Stewart, thinks their house is too small for having the piano, which is very important object for Ada, and throws it away at the beach. Ada and Stewart never have a sexual interaction. Ada gets help from Baines, who lives like a primitive man, to move the piano. They have love affairs and Stewart finds out about it. Her husband cuts her finger and Ada and Baines departe from that place. They start to have a new life in Nelson and Baines makes a silver finger to replace hers.

The piano plays an important role in the film. Campion says “The piano was chosen by the designer Andrew McAlpine. I queried it at first, because I imagined a tall piano and I found it hard to think of this table as a piano. But at the same moment as I saw it, I loved it.” In Campion’s films, women usually are the main characters. They are all considered incompetent and powerless but trying to find their talent or an escape to have a better life. The movies by Campion are about the lives of women who cannot live normally in a male-dominated society. She is also using feminism and pictorial imagery together in her films. This is why her works are unique as auteur. The films also show what her interests are and she is combining women with common problems that happen in families and society. Campion is not just talking about the problems which can happen to anybody but also emphasizes how they can affect women. As Bell Hook’s writing in Introduction Making Movie Magic “They give the reimagined, reinvented version of the real. It may look like something familiar, but in actuality it is a different universe from the world of the real.”, Campion creates films with the sense around herself like real world and it touches people’s mind. The piano is her alter ego.

Campion describes a woman who is suppressed sexual desire in Victorian Age. Stewart destroys his wife because he is jealous and angry. That Ada is a mute is a symbol that expresses women's social status that they cannon do anything

External Sources

1. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/30/movies/film-view-jane-campion-stirs-romance-with-mystery.html?scp=3&sq=Jane+Campion+piano&st=nyt

2. http://flickeringmyth.blogspot.com/2009/12/burning-brightly-jane-campion-profile.html

Meet Sally Porter

Met Sally Potter is one of my greatest adventures in the summer of 2010. She is a British female director, I don’t know her name even I have admire the amazing “Orlando” for about 15years. In one of typical hot July afternoon, my dear friends calls me, “No matter what are you doing tonight, you have to come to Moma tonight, Sally Porter is here.” I wasn’t listening to my friend. I end up spent 3 night in Moma watch Sally Porter’s films, listen to her interviews and talk to her after events.

Her journeying of growing to be a female artist is very fascinating. At age sixteen, she left school to become a filmmaker. Later on she was trained as a dancer and choreographer at the London School of Contemporary Dance. Sally Potter’s work from the early 1970’s, embraced dance, performance, theatre, music and film.  

As Catherine Saalfield says, “Filmmaking is the most efficient creative and satisfying form of activism”(Saalfield). Sally Porter’s films have strong voice in visual style. The best way to know her is through her films. From the glory “Orlando”, the beautiful “The Tango Lesions” and the quaky “Rage”, her characters and herself as character act for her voice. 

The internationally distributed Orlando (1992) brought Potter’s work to a wider audience. In addition to two Academy Award nominations, Orlando won more than 25 international awards. The film was based on Virginia Woolf’s novel and adapted for the screen by Potter. This film is a great example to explain the theses of Writing in Light lectures, the ways in which the language of film has influenced poetry and fiction and how they share technique.  In Orlando Potter visually broken up time, gender limitation on film and poetry. The film brings the novel close to audience by vivid visual language.  In the movie, Orlando has some shots out of story, acts off scene to stare at audience. These nuances of framing, inflection and particularly authorial viewpoint prove that, “No concept of gendered media representation can function without a concept of Authorship.”

THE TANGO LESSON (1996) was directed by Sally Potter. She also was the leading actress of the film. Potter plays herself in this story about a filmmaker who becomes enamored of the tango—and her dance instructor. Their relationship is fraught with tension, laying bare the power dynamics between dance instructor and film director, leader and follower. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfn5_sz_B8M

Female filmmaker always been put on the hot chare of challenging men’ leading roll in society. The great line from the movie is, “I have been fallow you in the Tangle, but to make a film, you have to fallow me. “

RAGE (2009) is Potter’s latest film and the first feature ever to premiere on cell-phones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B2spyclmw8

RAGE was in competition at the Berlin Film Festival in 2009 and nominated for a WEBBY for Best Drama in 2010. This is a fiction film using documentary film style. The whole 1-hour and half film is a back stage of a fashion show. The whole movie is in one interview setting. Characters just walk in the scene and talk to camera. As Auteur theory point out, “Also social contexts shape film processes, it was the director who authored a film.” When Lily Cole introduces herself as, “My name is Lettuce, they call me Lettuce leaf… They told me to make me a big star, I have to be small.” Sally potter gives voice to those object women hidden behind the fashion industry. They are human they are scared. It’s Sally Potter’s desition to view fashion industry this way, she is the one has power to isolate the whold glory fashion show in back stage interviews.

I remember when I was asking her a typical film student question. “What advise you would like to give to a struggle film student?” She holds my hand and says, “If you know film is what you want, you have to work hard everyday, even there seems like no hope at all. Keep crawling and be happy with every little step you made. ”

http://www.sallypotter.com/

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1090

Jamie Babbit

In Maggie Humm's Author/Auteur piece, she expresses how much being a female auteur of their own work is significant to vocalizing the unheard thoughts of women to their community and its supporters. Jamie Babbit is a director, a writer, a producer, a radical feminist, an activist, a lesbian... Jamie Babbit is also very much an auteur. Babbit has directed several films, including short films and also has written scripts for TV shows such as The L Word, Gilmore Girls and Nip/Tuck. All of the works that she auteurs has the presence of a female, either an identified lesbian or one with an unidentified sexuality, in the foreground.

Gynocentrism, as demonstrated in Humm's piece as well, is a system used to try make feminist culture more prevalent; to bring out the female voice as the primary voice in a work of out to relate to the female on-lookers. Babbit's distinctly tries to bring out two voices: the female voice and the lesbian voice. She works with a film production company called POWER UP! which tries to 'challenge the perception' of women and the LGBTQ community through film and her dedication to the organization can easily be seen in her works, which commonly have a female lead, usually a defined lesbian or one who has an ambiguous sexuality, silenced or filed into a gender role and the movie visualizes how the lead woman finds her voice.

'But I'm A Cheerleader', Babbit's perhaps most popular and first major film, depicts a girl who is pressured into the social role of being a cheerleader and gets silenced by her own family and friends after suspicions are raised about her sexuality, thus she is sent to a camp that would not only silence her, but silence her true desires. In the end, her inner-voice strengthens rebelling against the camp and vocalizing, even illustrating, her desires more. Another film of hers 'Itty Bitty Titty Committee', which was produced through POWER UP!, is about a female who doesn't express her sexuality because of her traditional upbringing and is taken under the wing by a feminist friend who not only brings her a new culture to identify with, but brings out the desires that laid inside of her.

Babbit has expressed that the reason her films center around lesbianism and feminism is because she wants to represent a community that she believes is unheard yet scrutinized, which is also her reasoning in partnering up with POWER UP! Her work is mostly humourous because she feels that not only does it create an accessibility, but that it can show the humanity and progression of a community when they can depict themselves in a comical fashion. Her films generally appeal to younger audiences, as older audiences tend to be more offended at her works, in which she believes because she's poking fun at issues that were more taboo in older times and she finds the younger appeal more favourable, because the younger audiences will soon be the prevalent voices and can bring the issues more attention, so she now tries to specifically target the younger demographic with her films.

Not only does Babbit put her touch on the scripts, but she likes to create awareness through her soundtracks. Soundtracks to her movie have included bands like Dressy Bessy, Le Tigre and Cat Power, all musical projects with a strong female voice heard in the audio and lyrics. To get the attention of the fans of these artists is significant, because the awareness is spoken in the lyrics and the music and with a visualization like a film, it's likely to create a response, which is a tactic of an auteur.

Babbit is an auteur representing two communities, the feminist community and the LGBTQ community. Her works always feature a powerful female character who is facing sexual ambiguity or androgyny and their resistance to social norms and gender roles. Being an auteur is about trying to get your message into all shots of a frame, all dialogue of a scene, and the output of an audio speaker, which is something Babbit intentionally seeks out to do, by spotlighting female characters in her films or soundtracking her works with feminist bands, she's certainly created a voice.



http://www.afterellen.com/archive/ellen/People/interviews/62004/jamiebabbit.html (Interview with Jamie Babbit)
http://www.afterellen.com/movies/2007/5/ittybitty (Movie review of Itty Bitty Titty Committee)
http://www.powerupfilms.org/ (Film organization for Women and the LGBT community)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Babbit (Naturally...)

Diablo Cody has a very intriguing and unique approach to writing. It begins with her name of Diablo Cody, Diablo meaning bull in Spanish and Cody, which she got from passing through a town called Cody in Wyoming. This is just the beginning to Diablo’s super open and eccentric lifestyle.
After graduating college, Cody began to strip for money but also continued to write. Because of the feeling of being afraid to fail, Diablo opted for the internet after working from some local newspapers because then no one could tell her what to write or deny any of her writings. As Katherine Sall Field states in her article, “I teach the kids how media works and how powerful it can be, and how they can use for their own ends.” She began her blog on the sex industry and stripping and shortly after became very popular on the internet. Even earning the interest of Mason Novick, the producer. At first Diablo wasn’t interested on writing for Hollywood but was convinced and then began her script for Juno.
An auteur sees beyond the film, beyond the script but bring there life into the story and writings. That is exactly how Cody came up the script for Juno. On writing the script she called it, “a spontaneous thing.” Writing from a vision, Diablo said in an interview, “thinking about the image of a teenage girl sitting across from uptight yuppies and basically auditioning to be the parents of her unborn child. And I was like that is usually the most awkward thing I could imagine, and it is therefore hilarious.” As easy as that an award winning script was developed.
Because of the fear of failing and the sense of optimism Diablo’s success on the internet ignited her career. In Debra Zimmerman’s article, she says that she was moderating a panel of film makers in San Francisco and the film makers were trying to do something different with the films but the audience didn’t like it. Diablo, although, as the auteur of Juno does exactly that and that is why she has won awards.

Belma Bas

“Could existing film auteur theory, if reconsidered, provide sufficient conceptual tools to deconstruct feminist films?” is one question stated in the article Author/ Auteur: Feminist Literary Theory and Feminist Film that caught my attention. An “auteur” is mainly the director who executes the words of an author and puts them into play with a motion picture. Currently, the argument is very simple, why are “auteur’s” focusing on accomplishing a block buster hit rather than actually taking the time to deconstruct their work process in order to produce a movie that does not project a stereotype? One common growing stereotype is a damsel in distress or a woman being insufficient to play the part of a hero. But if the author and the “auteur” are both a women, would “existing film auteur theory” change? It did when Belma Bas, a Turkish director, wrote and produced “Zephyr.”

Belma Bas introduced Turkey to Zephyr, an 11-year-old girl who is

left to her grandparents by her mother. Instead of focusing on the future and on her new life with her grandparents, Zephyr reminisces on her mother’s memory. Her absence has become her focus and takes a toll on her overall personality, causing her to be an unhappy little girl.

Bas as an author, wanted to make sure the film would focus on the absence of a mother and the affect it would have on an innocent child. The direction she chose for the movie was one that was surely not to categorize her as a feminist movie maker. According to writer Dorian Jones, ““Zephyr” drew condemnation from some female critics for its unsympathetic portrayal of lead female characters.” As an auteur, she played with the setting and the characters overall portrayal. “The lead female character in "Zephyr" is often portrayed in a less-than-positive light, which Bas says allowed her to avoid a feminist discourse.”

Bell Hooks, writer of the introduction “Making Movie Magic” describes film making relevant to us, the audience, with common stereotyping. ”Most people find it very difficult to journey away from the familiar and fixed boundaries.” In “Zephyr’s” case, this movie may be highly targeted to women because of the relationship between a child and their mother. However, the “boundaries” Hooks touches upon on are not present in this film, or at least not to me.

Bas also directed a short film named Poyraz which also features a child. However, Bas the auteur is mainly seen in this film. The landscapes she used to shoot the film in addition to the cloudy days Bas chose to record, portrayed very well the lifeless lifestyle of a young girl.

http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/834/Poyraz---Boreas

Culture Unplugged; Poyraz/Boreas. Belma Bas 2006.
>http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/834/Poyraz---Boreas>

Indie Wire; Zephyr
<http://www.indiewire.com/film/zefir_zephyr/>

Jones, Dorian; “Women Directors Stand Their Ground In Turkey’s Film Industry”
<http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6240588,00.html>

Nadine Labaki

Nadine Labaki is a Lebanese Film director who is known for her movie Caramel (Sukkar Banat), even though she started her career as a director for Arabic music videos. Her biggest break was in 2003 when she directed a music video for the female icon singer Nancy Ajram. She continued to rise up as director and played small roles in a variety of music videos as well as films; which includes her 1998 short film 11 Rue Pasteur (her graduating project at Beirut's Saint-Joseph University) which won the top prize at an Arabian film festival in Paris (Dawson).

Her first and most noted movie is Caramel. Labaki did not only direct the movie, but wrote the screenplay and took on one of the major roles in the film. Her role as Auteur is very clear in this movie. She did not only write the screen play which makes her the author but she also directed how it will be shot and what kind of characters are used. She stated in an interview that the idea of the movie “was something very personal. It started with something I used to feel and am feeling sometimes, this contradiction between [the fact that] I live in a country that is very modern and exposed to Western culture, and at the same time I'm confused between this culture and the weight of tradition, religion, education and there's always a lot of self-censorship, self-control” (Dawson). As an auteur we see that she does not try to imitate mainstream plots and stereotypes her movie. Rather, she designed her movie to explore contradictions that exist in Lebanese culture, but mainly wanted to break the stereotypes and misconceptions that exist about life in war zones.

The major difference between author and auteur is authors are a creator of a purely literary work while auteurs are the true creators visual narration. For example, if a movie is based on a book, the director of the movie is the true author of everything shown and done in the movie and the author of the real work truly has little influence on the movie. This reality is because a director decides the lighting, camera shots, as well as the expressions given to the characters for the lines they recite. Labaki is not purely an auteur in her film Caramel; this film is actually better categorized with the director Gorris discussed in our readings: Gorris’s imprint is much more subtly autobiographical and marks framing and camera movements…Rather than representing Gorris as some exemplary auteur, feminist literary criticism would make instructively explicit those minute textual places where authorial energies surface (Humm 94). She explains in the interview that the actors were real people that were asked to be themselves with some modifications for the movie. This indicates that it is not the director’s ideas that are solely guiding this movie, but her intention was to discuss real people’s “everday problems.” Therefore as an auteur she did not have full control over the script of the film (Dawson).

Labaki understands that Homosexuality as well as other contradictions in her culture are considered “secret,” because they exist but are not talked about in the public sphere. Her film is all about those issues brought out during a conversation in a beauty Salon where women can be who they are. In addition the Salon represents the only place where women can really go to become beautiful and above all be theirselves and talk about politics, culture, and sexuality. Just like the feminist film Madwoman in the Attic, Labaki’s movie focuses on “women’s subcultures and anxieties of femininity” (Humm 99). The movie received good reviews and is accepted as the most exposed Lebanese film on an international level (NYtimes). One of the reviews I’ve read agrees with the message of the film as well as the plot. The criticism however is about the quality of the actoris and actresses themselves (Berardinelli). Overall the movie is popular and was reliesed in over forty countries, which indicates that it was a success.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadine_Labaki
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/01/caramel_director_nadine_labaki.html
http://www.croydonfilms.org.au/Croydon_Films/Nadine_Labaki.html
http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/directorinterviews/2008/02/nadine-labaki-caramel.html
http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/movies/01cara.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caramel_(film)
http://www.reelviews.net/movies/c/caramel.html

Agnieszka Holland

As the movie industry is undeniably dominated by men, it is important for women directors to make their presence known through the films they create. As auteurs, female directors have the choice to make their voices heard, whether they choose to concentrate on spreading the feminist message or in the form of other social or political contexts. A woman who is successful as a filmmaker is a great stride on its own.

According to Maggie Humm's Author/Auteur chapter in her book, Feminism and Film, "Feminist literary critics have already made a firm decision that gender shapes signature and that there is an aesthetic difference in the way in which gendered signatures write" (Humm 110). For this reason, female filmmakers are essential to bring forth issues and stories as viewed through the female mind onto the general public. Humm goes further to support her theory by citing Alexandre Astruc's idea of "the camera which Astruc identifies as a writer's pen, or metaphorical penis, and as the mechanism with which directors inscribe their ideas onto film" (Humm 96).

Agnieszka Holland is a prominent Polish director as well as screenwriter. Born in 1948 in Warsaw, Poland, Holland graduated from the Prague Film and TV Academy (FAMU) in 1971 as Poland’s best cinema institute was inaccessible to her in 1966 due to her mixed Polish Catholic and Jewish ancestry. Holland started her career as a filmmaker by working with Polish directors, Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda, as an assistant director. Soon after, Holland began making her own films. Even though, Holland realizes the importance of women in her film, feminism is not the central theme in her work. Rather her early work mainly consists of political agendas. For example, while making movies in Poland under the communist regime, Holland concentrated on what appeared to be the main political issue – cross-gender solidarity against censorship. As an auteur, Holland is most known for her highly politicized contributions to Polish New Wave cinema.


It is thanks to this "metaphorical penis" that Holland has managed to receive international acclaim for her films. After escaping the Polish martial law in 1981, Holland moved to Paris, France. Her 1985 film "Bittere Ernete/Angry Harvest", which is an examination of the relationship between a gentile farmer and the Jewish woman he conceals during World War II, has earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Even though the film may be construed as counter-productive in the feminist world, that is not the story's focus. The film concentrates on political and social context by shedding light on the human atrocities that occurred in the Holocaust. Holland garnered even greater international acclaim through her 1991 film "Europa, Europa." The film tells the true story of a Jewish man who assumes the identity of a Nazi in order to survive the Holocaust. Again, this film concentrates on political and social context. This powerful film highlights the human atrocities that occured during World War II but also adds a dimension by discussing the nature of identity.

Presently, Ms. Holland continues to create films and directing various other projects. In a 2000 interview with a Polish newspaper, "Rzeczpospolita," Holland spoke of the attempts to reach a wider audience. She confesses that she wants to make "cinema of the middle," understandable to the average spectator, yet "with a certain scale of complexity and an intellectual message."

Photo Credit: Jeff Vespa / WireImage.com
Humm, Maggie. "Feminism and Film." Indiana University Press: 1997.
NYTimes.com Person Profile: Agnieszka Holland - http://movies.nytimes.com/person/94664/Agnieszka-Holland
Agnieszka Holland feature - http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_holland_agnieszka

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou is by all means a renaissance woman. A celebrated poet, novelist, educator, actress, filmmaker, producer and civil rights activist, Angelou has conquered numerous media outlets. Alongside her numerous honored autobiographies and poetry, she became the first by an African American woman to write a screen play that was filmed with 1972 Georgia, Georgia, showing her as a talented author. She takes on the role as auteur with her first time directing a film Down in the Delta.

In the Author/Auteur reading, auteurism is said to have developed in the 1950s from the critical ideas of the French journal Cahiers du Cinema, in which it argued that although social context shaped film processes, it was the director who authored a film. The reading describes a camera as a means by which directors inscribe their ideas onto film. This can be seen in Down in the Delta. Though Angelou was not the writer behind this film, it’s based on a contest-winning screenplay by a Georgian named Myron Goble, the film is a definite reflection of her influence in it. According to Rod Gustafson of Parents Previews, “Angelou's familiarity with the trials of her characters makes this story natural and compelling.”

As a director, Angelou, plays into the reading’s description of “the history of cinema as the self-expressive signatures of Hollywood directors rather than a collection of ideas to which these signature were signed.” This is the case as even though this story isn’t written by Angelou, one can see her as a character in the story, knowing her history. Like the main character, Angelou was a single mother at 16 and had to build herself up to get to the point where she is today. According to Gustafon, Angelou, who directed this film at the age of 70 (film was released in 1998), displayed her decades of wisdom throughout the film.

For Down in the Delta being her first film with a budget of $3 million, Angelou did a pretty decent job with the overall rating of the movie, according to Parents Preview being an A-. Robert Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times applauds Angelou for not calling attention to herself in the film with “unnecessary visual touches, but focuses on the business at hand”. This view of the film goes with the idea that even though Angelou’s familiarity with the character is evident, she is able to convey the story without purposely placing her personal history in it. Therein going against the idea that it is necessary to look at who is behind the film when critiquing it. Stephen Holden of the New York Times called the film “unabashedly inspirational” describing it saying "Down in the Delta may be an impossible dream, a cinematic Hallmark card of familial togetherness, but the vision it offers is still a dream worth dreaming.”


Down In The Delta by Rod Gustafson | Posted on Jul. 19, 1999

Down In The Delta by Robert Ebert / December 25, 1998
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19981225/REVIEWS/812250302/1023

'Down in the Delta':The Healing Power of a Delta Family's Roots By Stephen Holden http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/122598delta-film-review.html

Turkan Soray

Turkey cinema is never short of its actresses. There were many women who were involved in movies and acted in countless movies which made them renown until this day. However, female directors are something that could be rarely found in the Turkish cinema. Many could never break out of their shell and get behind the camera. Turkan Soray is notone of them.

Being one of the most famous Turkish actresses, she played in over 200 movies since her first debut in 1960. Being a tough and ruling actress, she got the nickname "sultan". She was so much aware of her talent that she even made a set of rules which production companies had to obey in order to sign a contract with her. Some of which includes:

- Soray would have to like the script at least a month before the shoot, otherwise the script would have to be changed.

- Soray won't film any nude or kissing scene

- Soray's name would have to be on the top of the movie posters

This is just a background about her personality and her acting career. She never stopped acting until today, however she also directed 4 movies in her career as well. I chose her very first movie Donus(The Return) which came out in 1972 as my main topic because it's her most famous and critically acclaimed work.

Just by looking at the poster, we can see that Soray is not messing around with this movie. The first 3 rows of text reads:

Main Actress: Turkan Soray

Director: Turkan Soray

Producer: Turkan Soray

She has taken the full responsibility with her debut title. She not only directs the movie, she play the main role. The plot has written by a male writer: Serif Goren but the subject matter is something that Soray obviously observed and accepted. It's a about a couple whom Soray plays the wife in a very small urban village in Eastern Turkey. his husband and her buys a land but in order to maintain it, the husband goes to Germany as an immigrant worker(Which was common at the time) but soon the husband stops writing to her and the village folk start to harass her and start rumors.

She makes great use of the camera and the music in the movie. She handpicked the composer Yalcin Tura which the music sets the mood for the movie. She used the music to strike out the viewer in the most dramatic scenes. She uses jump cuts and other camera techniques to make an inpactful narrative.

Before the movie came out, many critics were doubtful about the success of the movie. The main reason was that in 1972, the term "female director" was rarely heard and women never really had any control over the movie that they've played. However, Soray wronged the critics and the movie had great reviews. It even earned her the Moscow Film Festival The Grand Jury Prize in 1973. In addition, many years later in 1999, she has won the best director award from Flying Broom Women's Film Festival, the first annual women's film festival in Turkey.

http://www.kameraarkasi.org/yonetmenler/t/turkansoray.html

http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%BCrk%C3%A2n_%C5%9Eoray

http://www.sinematurk.com/film_genel/1173/Donus

http://www.ucansupurge.org/

Tizuka Yamasaki

During my search of female film director to do some research on and I found Tizuka Yamasaki a Japanese-Brazilian film maker who directed the film Gaijin,Os Caminhos da Liberdade (Outsider: A Brazilian Odyssey). What really popped out was her Japanese-Brazilian origin, which made researching about her and her film much more compelling.

A quick synopsis taken from Wikipedia:

"At the beginning of the twentieth century a group of Japanese came to Brazil to work on a farm of coffee in Sao Paulo. They find it difficult to adapt because they are treated with hostility, having to work almost as slaves and are robbed by the employer. Only a few settlers treat them well, among them Tonho, the counter of the farm."

In auteur theory the director's personal creative vision influences the film, as if he or she were the main author or "auteur".

In her role as "auteur" her approach to directing the film Gaijin she had used her experiences growing up in Brazil to create the recreate the experience of hostility and hardships that Japanese immigrants faced.

Yamasaki as she was raised in Brazil she noticed that immigrants from Europe and Africa were recognized for their contributions to Brazil, while no one really mentioned Japan despite Brazil bring one of the largest colonies of Japanese Immigrants, second only to Hawaii. Using her personal experiences, the film refelts her creative vision.

Even the choice of the name of the film, Gaijin(the Japanese term for foreigner or outsider) helped emphasized the feelings the isolation and hostility that an immigrant faces.

The film was well received and had earned several international film awards.

With her debut film 1980 Gaijin, Os Caminhos da Liberdade, she had gained some critical acclaim.

Cannes Film Festival 1980 (France)

FISPRECI received the Award - Special Mention.

Gramado Festival 1980 (Brazil)

Won in the categories of Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (José Dumont), Best Music, Best Screenplay, Best Production Design.

Havana Film Festival 1980 (Cuba)

Won for Best Picture.Festival of New DelhiWon for Best Picture.

Yamasaki is similar to Saalfield who's own personal creative vision influences the film they direct.

Saalfield's activist agenda is present in most of her works. In her film "When Democracy Works" the film has an activist perspective at the strategies of the radical right with in an election year.

Saalfields videos are usually favorites at queer and women's film festivals across the country.

bibliography:

Catherine Saalfield - Art and Activism

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaijin_%E2%80%93_Os_Caminhos_da_Liberdade

http://www.iadb.org/idbamerica/index.cfm?thisid=3533

Deann Borshay Liem

Deann Borshay Liem is a woman who was adopted from South Korea and raised in America after the age of eight. She is a writer, director and a producer of independent films. And it is easy for her to integrate her full self into her films, as many of them revolve around her experiences and her life. Her films tend to be autobiographical, and focus on South Korean, Asian and issues of adoption.

In particular, I recently w

atched her 52 minute film, In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee. It chronicles her search for the woman whose name she was given as a child. The real Cha Jung Hee had been taken from an orphanage by he real father. But, since sending war orphans to America and other countries was a means of revenue for the war-ravaged South Korea at the the time, rather than notify the family that was corresponding with Cha Jung Hee that she was no longer there, Deann was told to say that her name was Cha Jung Hee and was sent to the states in her stead.

She does not do the film from behind the camera alone. She is heavily visible in the film, and her messages are clear and believable. It is clear that she does not only want to bring forth the idea that she is searching for this woman, but that she is searching for herself. Through pictures and historical shots, she shows us the pain of many of the other orphans of her day. Also, we delve into the idea of identity, not only for adopted children, but also those who are international adoptees. In her interview, there is really no discussion as to what her mindset was when building the story, since as an autobiography, it was mostly chronological and self propelled. But we become intertwined in her search, and desire to see the real Cha Jung Hee, as the director does.

Her film has been well received, and has thus far received the following accolades:

• Comcast Audience Award, Best Documentary, San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival
• Official Selection, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
• Special Jury Award, Best Director, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival
• Special Jury Award, Best Editing, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival

Despite the topic and images being difficult on the emotions, it coincides with what bell hooks has admonished all along. For the point off views and experiences of minorities in general to become part of the social consciousness, true imagery has to be presented. Not the caricatures that we regularly see about various races and people. It shows a reality that many would desire to forget, but that we all need to remember.

Images

http://www.mufilms.org/assets/images/about/deann-borshay-liem.jpg

http://www.mufilms.org/assets/images/films/firstpersonplural/firstpersonplural-small.jpg

Works Cited

Movie: First Person Plural - http://video.pbs.org/video/1562656895/

Movie: In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee - http://www.pbs.org/pov/chajunghee/watch.php

Readings: Interview with Deann Borshay Liem http://www.pbs.org/pov/chajunghee/interview.php

bell hooks - The Oppositional Gaze

Mira Nair

Mira Nair is an Indian born Filmmaker and producer has created distinct visions and has channeled those into films, in original and artistic manners. Mira Nair, who has been educated at Harvard, and has been nominated and won several awards, including an academy award nomination.

Nair debuted her career with the film Salaam Bombay in 1988. From then on she has gone on to direct films such as Mississippi Masala, Vanity Fair, The Namesake, and Monsoon Wedding.

Nair plays with cultural themes in her works. She brings to the screen, the identity of South Asians, their trials living in a heavily cultural dominated society, such as in India, or dealing with situations living in the west and holding on to and dealing with that identity. She displays these ideas in her works with striking images, playing with contrasts of gender, economic, and cultural issues to present her vision. The way in which she is able to portray her vision makes her an auteur, using her film as a platform not just to which present a story, but allow her own vision of that to shine through.

Nair being a female filmmaker also brings forth gender issues, such as in her movie Karma Sutra: A Tale of Love. The film portrays strong female characters in a very ancient and strict patriarchal society.

Although Nair who brings to screen the almost invisible peoples of South Asia in her films, she is often criticized for venturing out of these niches. Amelia her least popular film, brought forth criticism, that Nair should stick with capturing the essence of South Asians on screen.

Criticism set aside, Nair is accomplishing a grand feat. She actively arouses interests from the very beginning of a movie. Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, in particular, captures your interests and arouses your passions, and women will not fail to identify with the characters. In her segment Kosher, Vegetarian in the movie New York, I Love You, Nair again plays with contrasting emotions and situations.

Mira Nair has set herself apart, by not just being a woman in an industry so heavily dominated by men, but by becoming truly an auteur and resonating her art through her films.

http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/4001/Nair-Mira.html

http://www.searchindia.com/2009/10/23/critics-rape-mira-nairs-amelia-earhart/comment-page-1/

http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/18/monsoon_wedding.html

Director, Writer, Producer: Gina Prince Bythewood

It's common knowledge that the film world lacks a strong presence of female directors - especially black female directors. Gina Prince Bythewood has left her mark on the film industry as not only a director but a writer and producer, she's a triple threat. Although she's not credited for a long list of films, she continues to be a woman to watch. In her case quality is much more important than quantity. She chooses her projects carefully and maintains a strong female message within them.

An an auteur, her work has become recognizable to those who follow her. One of the common issues seen in her films is the fact that at some point in a woman's life she always has to choose between doing what makes her happy and doing what society expects from her. Unfortunately, this is truly a common dilemma faced by women. She attacks this idea in all three of her well known films.

In her 2000 feature film, Love and Basketball, the main character, Monica Wright, is forced to choose between her love of basketball and being there for her boyfriend. When she chooses basketball she has to deal with the consequences - losing her relationship. On the surface this may seem like the typical message but Monica makes no apologies for her ambitions and in the end she gets to have both - her career and her family. Although I am sure there are several interpretations of the message given by this film, we can ignore the obvious... In the end the woman does not have to give up what's important to her in order to get her man. Gina Prince Bythewood's writing implies that as women we can be career driven wives and mothers - we do not have to choose between the two.
According to the introduction of "Making Movie Magic" by Bell Hooks, films effect their audiences whether its concsiously or subconsciously: "Whether we like it or not, cinema assumes a pedagogical role in the lives of many people. It may not be the intent of a filmmaker to teach audiences anything, but that does not mean that lessons are not learned." As the writer and director of Love and Basketball, Gina had the opportunity to teach the audiences something different from what they normally see. She could have gone the traditional way and made Monica come to the realization that her following her dreams is selfish and it's her duty to be supportive to her "Man". How many times have we seen that? But instead she took a chance and created a film that she really believed in.

This film is art imitating life, just replace basketball with film. Her husband is also a director/writer/producer and although he has had some successes - he has not been able to really breakthrough. Gina could have done what so many have done before her and what most people believe Monica should have done in her film - put her dreams aside and help develop and support her husband's career. But she didn't and it worked out for her. She continues to work most recently with her adaptation of "The Secret Life of Bees", all the while being a wife and mother to her two sons.

Sources
Celebrating Love and Basketball - http://www.bvnewswire.com/2010/06/29/gina-prince-bythewood-love-and-basketball-interview-abff/

Reel Lady: Gina Prince Bythewood - http://reelladies.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/reel-lady-gina-prince-bythewood/

Images
http://www.starpulse.com/Actresses/Prince-Bythewood,_Gina/gallery/ALO-058009/
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/love-basketball/

Directing Sex

When it comes to the male controlled film industry, the struggle for female directors to make their mark has been just that, a struggle. In the adult film industry, the idea of the female director is almost unheard of. How could an industry that films men and women, who make millions off of men and women, be only made by guys? Film star turned filmmaker, Candida Royalle, has been working to change this construct for the past 25 years.

In 1984, Candace left being in front of the camera to embark on a journey, behind the camera, as a director of her own production company, Femme Productions. As an auteur, she would use her ideology, of "women oriented pornography"(Cameron) into practice. Contrasting classic porn constraints, Candace works to make sex the object as apposed to women, the man isn't fucking the woman, they are having sex with each other. It is not a violent encounter, or a domination of one sex over another. While watching a few scenes, a few things that I

could point out was the realness of the women, no Barbie's here. Women and men had real body parts and seem to be having real emotions and the focus wasn't just a woman being looked at by the camera, but both bodies being looked at by the camera.

Candace however isn't just a filmmaker who happens to be a female, she is actively making choices to target the female fans of porn who dislike seeing women be used as sex items. Along with stressing ideas of safe sex that is rarely seen in many conventional films of the day, she also gets rid of the staple of adult films, The Money Shot. On her Youtube page, she is interviewed on this topic with one of her fellow female directors and they agree that the Money Shot, shouldn't be the end of story and after "shared sex" his pleasure shouldn't be end all. She stresses on women not being objects or victims, but sexual creatures who comfortably explore their sexuality. She is realistic in understanding that this company is only at the start of the battle on changing the adult film industry.

The critics on her work often range on both sides of the spectrum, as an inductee of the ANV(Adult Video News) Hall of Fame, she is well respected in the adult film industry, "she has directed 15 films which 3 are considered porn classic,and continue to sell well" (Bragge). Although respected, she has been criticized by anti-porn feminist that "Porn has cleaned up its act, maybe, but it still falls far short of being a female "myth of sexual pleasure" (Cameron). Candace simply responds to her critics by saying "I believe I am doing good things for people, helping them to appreciate and see their sexuality in a positive way. Helping women to embrace their sexuality and helping couples to come together in better understanding, which only furthers their overall relationship"(Bragge). As a female director in the porn industry she is truly breaking molds and stereotypes one scene at a time.

Works Cited

Bragge, By Lilly. "Girls on Top - General - Www.theage.com.au." The Age - Business, World & Breaking News | Melbourne, Australia. Web. 20 Nov. 2010. .

Cameron, Deborah. "Discourses of Desire: Liberals, Feminists, and the Politics of Pornography in the 1980s." American Literary History 2.4 (1990): 784-98. Web. 20 Nov. 2010. .

"YouTube - CandidaRoyalle's Channel." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 20 Nov. 2010.

Mimi Leder

Women are not typically associated with action films, except maybe as a compliment to their male lead characters. However, behind the camera, director, Mimi Leder, has helmed several of Hollywood's big action film and TV shows, a breakthrough hardly recognized by the mass viewers of these commercial hits.

Mimi Leder directed The Peacemaker: an action thriller about American heroes tracking down Russian nuclear weapons, starring mega-stars, George Clooney and Nicole Kidman. Then, she went on to direct Deep Impact: a disaster-drama about a comet beelining towards earth, starring Robert Duvall, Tea Leoni, and Elijah Wood. These types of films, with big set pieces: car-chase sequences, helicopter sequences, explosions, huge Tsunami waves, that require millions to make, have traditionally been entrusted to male Hollywood directors. So, while we can't accuse Leder of being a classic voice for women in Hollywood, she's made a huge statement for the female director - yes, women can hang with the big boys. When asked about her reaction to making such big-budget films, Leder said, "I never thought about how much it costs. I just thought about how best to tell the story." Check out these trailers and get a glimpse of Leder's films:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b4SuEj_Gb0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9iEJ1Z1BsI

Mimi Leder was born in New York City in 1952. She was inspired to direct by her director dad, Paul Leder. Leder was the first woman accepted as a cinematography student at the prestigious film conservatory, AFI, and the first woman to graduate from AFI. After ten years as a script supervisor and an Emmy wining career as a television director on shows like, ER, master director, Steven Spielberg, came calling. He asked Leder to direct his new studio's (Dreamworks Pictures) film, The Peacemaker. Although The Peacemaker was a modest box office success, it was an impressive debut for a first-time feature film director. So, Spielberg hired her to direct an even bigger project, Deep Impact.

In Deep Impact, one can see a profound maturity in Leder's storytelling abilities. The film accomplishes the often compromised task of a great character-driven story that works in a high-action film. This is a quality that few directors in Hollywood can accomplish, man or woman. Deep Impact's protaganist is a woman. She's a hard-driven news reporter who still embodies, on film, both the strength and vulnerability of a woman. I think any 'Gynocritic', a term referred to in Maggie Humm's essay, Author/Autor: Feminist Literary Theory and Feminist Film, would attest that there are strong qualities in this film that can be linked to the point-of-view of a woman. As Humm states, " 'Gynocriticism' is a way of assessing a work of art specifically in relation to the interests and desires of women." Deep Impact represents a woman's complex inner life, as well as her creative needs and her ambitious tendencies. The protagonist, Jenny Lerner, gains first privilege over the other journalists by the President of the United States and she's also in a deep-rooted disagreement with her dad, which she feels compelled to heal before the comet hits earth. Since this film was written by a man, it's widely known that Leder had a strong influence in the storyline and how it revealed the story.

After Deep Impact, Leder went on to direct Pay It Forward, a movie about the concept of giving to others without receiving back, but instead, asking the person you help to give to someone else in the same way. This film was a huge success and won high critical acclaim. It was also a great vehicle to show Leder's versatility as a director. Leder gave this story a mystical feel. It's a powerful example of presenting a view of the world in a different way and stimulating the viewers in a heartfelt way. It's about the power of giving. Here's a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwHcS-XoYbc

bell hooks states in Introduction "Making Movie Magic", "Most of us go to movies to enter a world that is different from the one we know and are most 'comfortable' with." I think, Leder, in Deep Impact and Pay It Forward, accomplishes influencing the viewer in a way that breaks down walls of bias and unfavorable tendencies. Both these stories present situations that may be slightly 'uncomfortable': a woman's inner and outer life being the focus of attention in an action film, and the concept of giving creating miracles.

Leder's accomplishment of directing Hollywood action films that are mostly given to men to direct, in itself, is noteworthy. But, I think it needs to be recognized that she also gives voice to the feminine and her powerful qualities. Below is a look at Leder:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPpK-gnGnX4

Nancy Myers

Nancy Myers is an All American film director,producer and screen writer. Her rise to fame came after she teamed up with director Charles Shyer to bring Private Benjamin (1980) to the big screen. Some of her big screen successes include Disney's The Parent Trap(1998) starring Lindsey Lohan and Denis Quaid, Somethings Gotta Give (2003) starring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, The Holiday(2006) starring Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet and What Women Want (2000) starring Mel Gibson.

Nancy is one of the few filmmakers who consistently crafts movies that appeal to adults, especially women.Her films tend to be about women as well. mature, typically affluent and greatly desired by multiple suitors."Since her success of What Women Want(2000) and Somethings Gotta Give(2003), She is very sought after as a writer and director. She is particularly in demand because she writes great parts in hit movies for adults."Myers makes smart, glossy, romantic comedies.

Her approach to film is very simple."Myers,60 ,knows what she likes and her willingness to go after it, coupled with a rigorous attention to detail has helped her to claim a spot as one of the leading female directors in Hollywood today."(LA Times)

Of all her films one which stands out to me the most is "The Holiday" .In this film two women (complete strangers) decides to swap homes for the holiday season temporarily. The film is that of a classic love story where girl meets boy and falls in love. This film gross over 12 million dollars in the opening week of its debut.

What Women Want(2000), which starred Mel Gibson as a man trying to understand the female psyche, became the most successful film ever directed by a woman, grossing upward of $370 million worldwide.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/26/entertainment/la-et-meyers26-2009dec26

http://www.filmreference.com/film/57/Nancy-Meyers.html