Women in Entertainment

There is nothing left over about the executive producer/director-showrunner of HBO’s Leftovers. As the first woman graduate of AFI, Mimi has been quietly shattering glass ceilings her whole career.

She met Martin Scorsese at a 6-week class at New York University decades ago, and using the experience she gained adapting Fellini, Godard and Truffaut films for American broadcast, she helped him to rescue a short film he was working on. When Scorsese directed his first feature, Who's That Knocking at My Door, he called her to be her editor and from Raging Bull on, she has been the only one entrusted by the master filmmaker to finish his films.

“Often in my career I have been the only woman in the room”, notes Ramsey Naito, one of the producers of The Boss Baby, an animated movie about love, belonging, and sibling rivalry, hitting the screens at the end of March. “The industry has made slight gains when it comes to including women, but at DreamWorks, specifically, there are so many women in leadership roles and here you find so much more gender equality.

  “I was very happily not working,” notes Judy Hofflund, who had retired after 30 years in the business as an agent and manager, “but I had to say, ‘Yes,’” when former client, Kenneth Branagh asked her to be a producer on his latest film, Murder on the Orient Express. “I asked Ken, “This movie is huge, are you sure?’ He was completely confident, saying, ‘I know you will find your way.

“Ai-Ling Lee and I would like to do big tentpole movies,” says Mildred Iatrou Morgan, the co-sound editor of La La Land, “As a team, we haven’t gotten anything like that yet. The movies we tend to get are on the smaller scale.

Being an editor is a “happy coincidence,” according to Joi McMillon, the first African-American woman nominated for an Oscar for Best Film Editing, along with co-editor, Nat Sanders, for their work on Moonlight, directed by Barry Jenkins. “I wanted to be a journalist but all the slots were taken, so as part of the Junior Achievement Program, I went with my next choice, which was film.

Better Things (premiering on FX September 8, 2016) gives Pamela Adlon titles few women are able to access individually, never mind altogether. “Yeah, I’m the writer, producer, actor.

“I’m not sure if this is true, but recently somebody told me that I have made more movies with women directors than any other producer in Hollywood. ” Notes Jenno Topping, President of Film and Television at Chernin Entertainment.

'My name is Cid Swank. It is a name people remember.

As international journalists covering the entertainment industry, we at the HFPA are constantly on the lookout for up-and-coming talent. We know that the unknown filmmaker of today can very easily be the award-winning powerhouse of a not too distant future.