Women make up about 29% of TV writers and a miserable 15% of film writers, and you know who’s not going to let that stand? Meryl fuckin’ Streep, friends.
In a recent study by Susana Orozoco, it was discovered that of all spec scripts sold from 1991 to 2012, under ten percent of them were written by women (which might explain why only 11% of films feature female protagonists, only 30% of speaking characters are women, one-third of those women get partially naked, and only 14% of those women are represented as leaders). The best part is that, when you attach a female screenwriter or director, there’s an 8-10% increase in the number of women we see on screen—which is important, especially since women purchase half of all movie tickets. As in, we actually go to movies as much as dudes do.
Enter Queen Meryl, full of light. Announced at Tribeca Film Festival on Friday night (which already features the excellent Nora Ephron Award), Streep and New York Women in Film and Television have established The Writer’s Lab, which “brings 8 women screenwriters over the age of 40 together with established mentors from the film industry for an intimate gathering and intensive workshop at Wiawaka Center for Women on Lake George, NY from September 18-20, 2015.” It’s “the only program of its kind,” and “evolved in recognition of the absence of the female voice in narrative film.”
Mentors at the workshop will include Caroline Kaplan (Time Out of Mind, Personal Velocity), Kirsten Smith (Legally Blond, Ten Things I Hate About You), Jessica Bendinger (Bring It On, Aquamarine), Mary Jane Skalski (Win Win, The Station Agent), and Gina Prince-Bythewood (Secret Life of Bees, Beyond the Lights). If you’re over forty, you can apply with a full-length narrative screenplay starting May 1st, and they’re looking for “submissions from all racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural groups.”
Basically:
(via Jezebel)
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