Fierce Flix Matters:
Because, in a field dominated by men, we believe the voices of women and gender minorities matter. On and behind the camera, women are underrepresented, and this cannot continue. It is critical to our mission and our work as practicing filmmakers to empower the next generation of filmmakers to take back space and change these statistics.
A Selected HERstory of Cinema:
The first narrative film, “The Cabbage Fairy,” was made by Alice Guy-Blache in 1896.
In 1926, Lotte Reiniger creates the first animated feature film, “The Adventures of Prince Achmed.”
Queer director, Dorothy Arzner, invented the boom mic in 1929 by attaching the microphone to a fishing rod.
Maya Deren makes “Meshes of the Afternoon” in 1943, a seminal film of the American avant-garde.
In 1953, Ida Lupino becomes the first woman to direct a film noir, with her directoral debut, “The Hitchhiker.”
In 1971, Barbara Loden writes, directs, and stars in “Wanda”, an innovative breakthrough for independent film.
Lina Wertmuller becomes the first woman to be nominated for an Academy Award in Directing in 1975 for her film, “Seven Beauties.”
Barbara Koppel’s 1976 film “Harlan County, USA” wins an Academy Award for Best Documentary.
In 1975, Safi Faye becomes the first Sub-Saharan African woman to make an internationally distributed film with “Kaddu Beykat”.
Joan Darling becomes one of the first women directors of television, garnering Emmy nominations for “Mary Tyler Moore” and “M.A.S.H.”.
In the 80s, Lizzie Borden stirs things up with “Born In Flames”, Amy Heckerling makes “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”, and Penny Marshall becomes the first woman to direct a film that makes over $100 million at the US box office with “Big”.
Julie Dash becomes the first African American woman to have a full length general theatrical release in the US in 1991 with “Daughters of the Dust”.
In 2002, “Bend It Like Beckham” becomes Britain’s highest grossing movie of all time; Gurinder Chadha becomes the first non-white Briton to direct a #1 Brittish box office film.
Kimberly Reed and Gwen Haworth pave the way for transgendered filmmakers with Reed’s “Prodgical Sons” in 2008 and Haworth’s “She’s a Boy I Knew” in 2007.
Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first woman to win an Academey Award for Directing in 2009, with her film, “The Hurt Locker”.
Some Statistics from the NY Film Academy:
Mechanical Eye Microcinema 