Female Gaze

 

One of the most pressing conversations in Hollywood is how to increase the number of female storytellers. In building on our conversation from last year, we will discuss how vital the female gaze is for progressively depicting a more representative and inclusive female narrative.

This panel will be moderated by Thelma Adams

Thelma Adams is the author of the bestselling historical novel, The Last Woman Standing and Playdate, which Oprah magazine described as “a witty debut novel.” In addition to her fiction work, Adams is a prominent film critic and an outspoken voice in the Hollywood community. She has been the in-house film critic for Us Weekly and The New York Post, and has written essays, celebrity profiles and reviews for Yahoo! Movies, The New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Parade, Marie Claire and The Huffington Post.

Panelists 
Isabel Sandoval
Jennifer Fox
Tracy Heather Strain

Panelist Bios
Isabel Sandoval is a New York-based Filipina filmmaker. She has produced, written and directed two full-length features, including the Filipino-language Señorita (2011), which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival and was nominated for Best Picture by the Young Critics Circle of the Philippines. Señorita also won the Emerging Director Award at the 2012 Asian-American International Film Festival. Her second feature film, Apparition (2012), was widely acclaimed in its Philippine theatrical release and won the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NetPAC) at the 2012 Hawaii International Film Festival, as well as the Audience Award at the 2013 Deauville Asian Film Festival. Variety touts Apparition as an “outstanding sophomore feature…[an] intelligently scripted and deeply moving mood piece.” Apparition had a week-long theatrical run at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2013 and was showcased again in “A New Golden Age: Contemporary Philippine Cinema.” In March 2017, she was part of the SXSW 2017 panel “The Future is Female: Parity Now.” Lingua Franca is her third feature, and will be shot in the spring of 2018.

Jennifer Fox’s groundbreaking films include: Beirut: The Last Home Movie (Grand Jury Award & Best Cinematography, Sundance Film Festival 1988; Frontline WGBH), the ten-hour An American Love Story (Berlin and Sundance Film Festivals 1999, Gracie Award 1999, Primetime PBS/BBC/ARTE), the six-hour, Flying Confessions of a Free Woman (IDFA and Sundance Film Festivals 2008; Sundance Channel), and the feature My Reincarnation (Emmy Award nominated, IDFA and Hamptons Film Festivals; IDFA Audience Award 2010; Premiere POV 2012). Fox’s newest film is the fiction feature, The Tale, which premiered at Sundance 2018 and was sold to HBO Films for release this year. The film’s outstanding all-star cast includes: Laura Dern, Ellen Burstyn, Elizabeth Debicki, Jason Ritter and Common. Fox appeared in several films about filmmaking: To Heck with Holliwood!; Cinema Verite: Defining the Moment; and Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary. Fox teaches master classes and in Universities internationally. Her films have been shown in numerous retrospectives around the world.

Tracy Heather Strain is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, writer, and producer. Her documentary on Lorraine Hansberry, Sighted Eyes/ Feeling Heart is screening at this year’s Athena Film Festival. Her previous directing credits include episodes of miniseries Unnatural Causes and I’ll Make Me a World: A Century of African-American Arts, and episodes of PBS’ American Experience and Race: The Power of an Illusion. Strain is also the president and CEO of Boston-based media company The Film Posse, which she runs with her husband, Randall MacLowry.

Sponsored by:

Ravenal Foundation