Women in Entertainment

Sharon Horgan is a busy woman. She is a mother, a producer, a writer, and an actress and she is the head of her own production company Merman, which she started with Celia Mountford.

Showrunner and writer Liz Tigelaar finished shooting the last scenes of Little Fires Everywhere just minutes before Los Angeles’ Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the lockdown of the city in connection with the Covid-19 emergency. The series adapted from the eponymous novel by Celeste Ng was a passion project that she was relieved to see completed and ready to be streamed on Hulu in March 2020.

Over the years her name has become emblematic of the misogyny and homophobia practiced in Hollywood during the 1940s. During the ‘30s she was a respected director and someone who kept her private life private while maintaining a relationship with Marion Morgan, a dancer who choreographed some of her films.

“I grew up around a lot of women who have followed their dreams,” says Kitty Green, a previous AACTA winner for Best Feature-Length Documentary and now director and writer of The Assistant, starring Julia Garner and Matthew Macfadyen, which covers a day in the life of a young assistant working for an exploitive and predatory executive. Originally conceived as a project on consent and institutional power, the film shifted focus when the Harvey Weinstein story broke.

“Women head up 69% of key departments on the show,” says Workin' Moms' multi-hyphenate  Catherine Reitman, who conceptualized the idea of a series dealing with realistic, flawed women, struggling with the real issues that undo 51% of the population and make women feel alone and unworthy. She executes this task with humor and honesty.

“Leadership is really important to me,” says producer Jennifer Davisson. We’re standing in a howling wind on the set of Robin Hood: Origins in Hungary, talking about the role of women behind the camera.

“Outlaw King used meticulous planning, research, great story, historians; over the years of development we prepped 45 different versions of the shooting schedule – everything was watertight – but the budget was ballooning. I had to find a way to bring costs in,” says Gillian Berrie, the producer on Outlaw King who describes herself as a “wee woman” but proves gender and size have nothing to do with ingenuity and experience when it comes to bringing more bang to a budget.

“I’d love to see more women on action movies as a cinematographer; it's lacking for women,” notes Director of Photography Jessica Lee Gagne, who, like a lot of women, has been questioned if the action genre is a place women should be. Is the bias justified? By way of a reply the Canadian shares that on one of her projects, “I was tied to a crane, running on a rooftop after the action, with a camera on my back.

“My closest allies are indispensable. My producing partner, Anne Rosellini, and I can communicate with honesty, so I don't have to compromise with what I tell her and what I really want to do.

“You cannot be afraid of ambition,” says Renée Ehrlich Kalfus, a nominee of a BAFTA for Chocolat, and the winner of the Designers Guild Award for Hidden Figures. “You have to stay connected to your drive and ambition, and you have got to know what you know.