American Film Institute Works To Put Women Behind Camera

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The American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women, a program that promotes femme filmmaking, has seen a spike in interest recently.


Applications have doubled in the past two years and just 6 percent of those applying were selected for the workshop this year.


“We barely have enough money to run the program, so scraping together money to publicize it was difficult,” said Chris Schwartz, the workshop manager. “But we did a bit of marketing last year and that’s really helped.”


A 2006 Directors Guild report on the employment of women and minority directors on the 40 most highly rated prime-time network television drama and comedy series showed that for a fifth year in a row, women directors continued to be missing from the line-ups of the best known series. Caucasian males directed more than 80 percent of all the shows.


“Those numbers really haven’t changed much,” Schwartz said. “We think it’s a very important thing to keep training women directors.”


To get in, applicants must have a minimum of five years experience in the arts but need not have any professional credits as a narrative director.


It’s an eight-month commitment and the eight women picked to participate each year go through the program (underwritten and funded entirely by AFI) free of charge.


Those admitted develop and produce a short narrative project and are given access to AFI editing facilities and $5,000 for each production, though participants can raise up to an additional $20,000 for their productions.


The projects will be shot in the Los Angeles area in June and July, and the women can enter their films in festivals, but AFI retains the copyrights to projects.


Alumni include Lesli Linka Glatter (“Grey’s Anatomy”), Victoria Hochberg (“Sex and the City”) and Maya Angelou (“Down in the Delta”).



Swiped ‘Sicko’


There was much gnashing of teeth from the backers of Michael Moore’s unreleased film “Sicko” last week.


The documentary on the U.S. health care system turned up on the Google Inc.-owned video site YouTube last weekend, two weeks before the film’s June 29 opening. YouTube pulled the video clips after receiving complaints from Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., which is distributing the $9 million film domestically for Weinstein Co.


Peter Hurwitz, general counsel for the Weinstein Co., issued a statement to MTV news conveying the company’s outrage at the illegal pirating of the film.


“Every DVD screener that comes from the Weinstein Co. is watermarked and traceable,” the statement read. “We are actively investigating those who illegally uploaded ‘Sicko’ to the Internet, and we will take the strongest possible legal action.”


But it’s far from clear whether or not the leaks will really hurt the film at the box office. The pirating of the film and the backers’ subsequent reaction has drawn more attention to the film. Also, Moore’s polarizing political documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11” was pirated prior to its June 2004 release, but still drew $119 million at the domestic box office.


Before the leak, a Weinstein Co. spokesman had said the company hoped that “Sicko” would earn something close to the box office for Moore’s 2002 documentary “Bowling for Columbine.” That film grossed $21.6 million. There could be some spinning going on there; “Sicko” received rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival and most industry observers expect it to do much better.


The Weinstein Co. announced last week that “Sicko” would open one week early in 32 cities, including L.A., New York and Chicago. The company said the early release was due to response at preview screenings and festivals.


Ironically, Moore is known for his stance against copyright laws.



Writers Guild Laughing


After two months of negotiating, the Writers Guild of America last week won a deal with Viacom Inc.’s Comedy Central network, covering writers of four of the network’s top shows, including “The Sarah Silverman Program,” “Mind of Mencia,” “The Showbiz Show With David Spade,” and “American Body Shop.”


In the negotiated agreements, more than 30 writers for the Comedy Central Network will receive Writers Guild compensation levels, pension and health benefits, credits, and a residual formula for reuse including DVD, basic cable, and Internet.


Writers for the popular network shows “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report” organized and joined the guild this spring.


Next month, a Writers Guild negotiating committee will begin talks with studio and network reps on an overall minimum basic agreement for film and TV writers. The current contract covers the 12,000 members of the two guilds and expires on Halloween.



Universal, Sohonet Partner


Universal Pictures has signed a three-year, half-million dollar deal with Sohonet, a high bandwidth connector for the entertainment industry.


The technology allows the digital transmission of large amounts of data, audio and moving imagery.


Sohonet uses a digital media network and links a range of companies within the film, broadcast, advertising and multimedia industries. Universal’s creative operations division will use the network in areas such as film production, pushing feature films to vendors, trailer finishing, visual effects, international language versions, television commercial work and trailer distribution.


Recent projects handled by Sohonet include “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” “Batman Begins,” and “Superman Returns.”


The independently owned British company’s North American headquarters are in Los Angeles.



Staff reporter Anne Riley-Katz can be reached at

[email protected]

or (323) 549-5225, ext. 225.

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