At last night's Academy Awards, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy accepted the Oscar for Documentary (Short Subject) and said, "This is what happens when determined women get together." Obaid-Chinoy won for A Girl in The River: The Price of Forgiveness, a film about a woman who survived an honor killing in Pakistan. It was a powerful speech, but also one that highlighted just how few female filmmakers ever get nominated. What Happened, Miss Simone?''s Liz Garbus and Mustang's Deniz Gamze Ergüven received nods for their work in the documentary and foreign language categories. They both came away empty-handed.
According to the Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity in Entertainment, women made up only 3.4% of 2014's film directors. (The sample size included 109 movies.) Hollywood has to do better. And so does the Academy. To date, only four women have been nominated for Best Director: Lina Wertmüller, Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola, and Kathryn Bigelow (the first and only winner).
So with that in mind, we've come up with our dream wish list of some of the most talented female directors working today, who, we hope, will find their way to the Oscars as nominees in the not-too-distant future. The list is not meant to be comprehensive, and not everyone on it has been snubbed by the Academy. It's a selection of filmmakers whose work we love. So by all means, feel free to tell us who you'd like to see honored soon.
Amma Asante
Asante's last film, Belle, proved that gorgeously costumed British period dramas don't have to focus only on white people. The movie also propelled Gugu Mbatha-Raw to greater fame. Up next, she has A United Kingdom, which is based-on-a-true love story about a prince from Botswana (David Oyelowo) who is forced to leave his country for marrying a white woman (Rosamund Pike). Very promising indeed.
Kathryn Bigelow
In 2009, she became the first woman to win Best Director, for The Hurt Locker. Then she made Zero Dark Thirty, which was up for Best Picture. Now she's reportedly attached to three as-yet-untitled projects. There's one about 1967 riots in Detroit (due in 2017); another about Bowe Bergdahl; and a third about a Bangladeshi man shot in a hate crime after 9/11.
Jane Campion
Campion isn't a stranger to the Academy, either. She earned a Best Director nomination for 1993's The Piano and won for Best Original Screenplay. Campion hasn't made a film since 2009's Bright Star, focusing instead on the TV miniseries Top of The Lake. When she returns to the big screen, the Academy better be paying attention.
Niki Caro
Caro directed Whale Rider, which earned Keisha Castle-Hughes a Best Actress nod. She also directed North Country, which led to nominations for Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand. She's excelled at getting actresses the kudos they deserve, and now it's time she received some of her own. Perhaps her next film, The Zookeeper's Wife, which stars Jessica Chastain and is due out later this year, will do the trick.
Sofia Coppola
Coppola was the first American woman nominated for Best Director (for Lost In Translation; like Campion, she won Best Original Screenplay). She hasn't announced her next project yet, but we always snap to attention when she does. We even forgive her for A Very Murray Christmas.
Ava DuVernay
In one of the most egregious snubs in recent Oscar history, the Academy overlooked DuVernay for directing Selma, her excellent biopic of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Next, she'll be directing an adaptation of A Wrinkle In Time, and is in talks for a science-fiction film that could star Lupita Nyong'o. No one, especially the Academy, should sleep on those movies.
Jodie Foster
Foster returned to the director's chair for this May's Money Monster, a Wall Street drama starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts. Sure, her last film, The Beaver, is something of a punch line, but since then, she's been directing episodes of some of your favorite TV shows, including Orange Is The New Black and House of Cards. Foster received an Emmy nomination for directing OITNB. Maybe an Oscar nod for directing is up next?
Marielle Heller
Last summer, we were obsessed with the way Heller explored female sexuality in The Diary Of A Teenage Girl. And now we're obsessed with what she might be doing next: Last we heard, she was in talks to direct a biopic of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg starring Natalie Portman.
Angelina Jolie
Though hardly unknown to Oscar voters, Jolie hasn't won them over yet for her directorial efforts, including Unbroken. Her next film is one close to her heart: First They Killed My Father: A Daughter Of Cambodia Remembers is based on the memoir of Cambodian human-rights activist Loung Ung, who lived under the Khmer Rouge. Jolie's son, Maddox, is from Cambodia. "[The book] deepened forever my understanding of how children experience war and are affected by the emotional memory of it," she said in a statement. "And it helped me draw closer still to the people of Cambodia, my son’s homeland." The movie is set to be released later this year.
Karyn Kusama
Girlfight director Kusama has already received critical acclaim for The Invitation, which hit the festival circuit and is due out this year. Sure, the new film is a thriller, which is more likely destined for cult classic status than Oscar love. But we can dream. And we're really hoping it's better than Jennifer's Body. Or at least Aeon Flux.
Meera Menon
Menon's second film, Equity, debuted to strong reviews at at Sundance in January and was snatched up by Sony Pictures Classics. We're hoping the studio will invest in an awards campaign for the drama about women in finance. It's an exciting subject — especially since we've seen a number of films tackling dudes in that industry.
Rebecca Miller
Though known for her dramas like The Ballad of Jack and Rose and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Miller recently turned to comedy with Maggie's Plan, starring Ethan Hawke, Julianne Moore, and Greta Gerwig as members of a threesome awkwardly entangled in affairs. It's out later this year.
Mira Nair
It's almost shocking that Mira Nair has never been nominated for an Oscar. Her career, which produced Mississippi Masala and Monsoon Wedding, has spanned decades and different media. Maybe this will change in 2016 with Queen of Katwe, starring Lupita Nyong'o as the mother of a female chess prodigy in Uganda. David Oyelowo co-stars.
Gina Prince-Bythewood
Prince-Bythewood makes romances that make your heart swell, like Love & Basketball and 2014's Beyond The Lights. She's working on a TV project now about race crimes in Tennessee, but we'll gladly welcome her back to the big screen any time she wants.
Kelly Reichardt
Reichardt's quiet character studies, including the exquisite Wendy and Lucy, are usually too subtle for the Academy's (go-for-broke) taste, but we're still rooting for her. Certain Women, which stars Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern and debuted at Sundance, may not be the splashy film that will get the Academy's attention. But hey, we like her. And we're patient.
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