NYWIFT Blog

An Invitation from the Women’s Film Preservation Fund – WE WANT YOU!

The NYWIFT Women's Film Preservation Fund (WFPF) is currently seeking volunteers for significant positions within its committee: Head of our Fundraising Subcommittee, additional Fundraising Subcommittee members, and post-production professionals, especially with film experience, to serve on our Preservation Subcommittee. These positions are essential to strengthening our ongoing work to SAVE WOMEN’S FILM LEGACY. The WFPF, since its inception in 1995, has saved over 100 women-made movies, from silent to contemporary eras, in all genres. The films are on all subjects and represent women makers of all colors and a wide range of ethnic backgrounds. WFPF is the only fund in the world that focuses solely on preserving women’s cinematic heritage.

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Terry’s Picks: Patricia Clarkson, Grace & Frankie, Ben Kingsley

Patricia Clarkson: 2015 NYWIFT Muse Honoree Patricia Clarkson tells it like it is about Hollywood sexism: “Women have risen,” she said. “[But] we’re still underpaid and we’re still a vast minority in this business.” Grace & Frankie: Deadline ran a great profile on the female-driven success of Netflix’s Grace & Frankie. More than 50% of...

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A Look Back at Designing Women: Feeling the Love for Hair Stylists

After honoring costume designers annually starting in the year 2000 at what was then called Designing Hollywood, NYWIFT added a category for hair stylists in 2006. After all, hair literally - and figuratively - is what tops off a character's look on screen! Our very first hair stylist honoree was Lyndell Quiyou.

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Terry’s Picks: Annetta Marion, Poor Taste, CXX Speaks

Annetta Marion: NYWIFT Board member Annetta Marion, an award-winning director and Primetime Emmy-nominated producer, shared her thoughts on the industry and her career on a recent Film Talk Podcast. Poor taste: 20th Century Fox came under fire for their insensitive adverting for X-Men: Apocalypse, which featured Jennifer Lawrence’s character being strangled on giant billboards. Was...

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A Look Back at Designing Women: The Diverse Range of Makeup Artists

In 2004, four years after NYWIFT began honoring costume designers at what was then called Designing Hollywood, we added a category for makeup artists to the mix. We began paying tribute to the subtle artistry of designing an actor's, well, face - how makeup artists use their tools to catch the light a certain way, portray age, stress, culture and other factors that make a character real, alive and unique.

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Women Directors: Nicole Quinn on Boundaries and The Gold Stone Girl

A Candid Interview with Nicole Quinn – by Heidi Philipsen Film and Theater Director Nicole Quinn recently joined UPWIFT (Upstate NY Women in Film & TV – a sister of NYWIFT) as a Guest Speaker of their quarterly Reel Women Screening Series at WAMC’s The Linda, in Albany, NY, where they screened her narrative feature...

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A Look Back at Designing Women: Costume Legends Patricia Field and Ann Roth

They say "clothes make the man" - or woman - which is one reason why every year NYWIFT honors costume designers at our Designing Women awards. When a character appears on screen, his or her clothes are often the first thing we see. Costume designers don't just make actors look pretty (though they sometimes do that too) - they pack a wealth of information into every thread. We look back at two costume legends we honored, including one from our very first ceremony.

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Terry’s Picks: Screen Tales, Joss Whedon, Michele Spitz

Screen Tales: This month, thanks to our friends at Lifetime Broad Focus and WIF LA, The Writers Lab presented 10-minute readings from the scripts from the inaugural 2015 Lab to audiences of industry movers & shakers in both New York and LA. We’re so proud of all those involved and are looking forward to working...

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A Look Back at Designing Women: Orange is the New Black

Every year at Designing Women, in addition to honoring an individual costume designer, hair stylist and make up artist, we recognize the full costume, hair and make up team of one New York production with the Variety Ensemble Award. Past honorees include Boardwalk Empire and Sex and the City 2 but none was perhaps quite so buzzworthy as last year’s honoree, Netflix’s Orange is the New Black.

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Terry’s Picks: Equity Trailer, Nancy Drew, Wendy Blackstone

Equity trailer: Loving the new trailer for Equity – starring Anna Gunn and Alysia Reiner – as unapologetic “she-wolves” of Wall Street. Nancy Drew: Deadline reports that even though CBS’ Nancy Drew pilot tested well with viewers, it “skewed too female for CBS’ schedule” and was not picked up to series. Too female – seriously?...

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Designing Women Celebrates Design, Character and Story

What do Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, HBO's Confirmation film about Anita Hill, the rom-com It's Complicated and Showtime's The Affair all have in common? All feature the work of talented female costume, hair and makeup artists who will be honored at New York Women in Film & Television's Designing Women gala on Monday, June 13th in NYC! Now in its 17th year, Designing Women, co-presented by Variety, has become a staple of the NYC entertainment industry's spring calendar, celebrating the creative alchemy of design, character and story.

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Terry’s Picks: Swim Team, Shots Fired, U.K. Women

Swim Team: Congratulations to 2015 NYWIFT Loreen Arbus Disability Awareness Grant recipient Swim Team, whose all-female creative team has been selected for the 2016 IFP Filmmaker Labs annual yearlong fellowship for first-time feature directors. Shots Fired: Check out the riveting trailer for Writers Lab mentor Gina Prince-Bythewood’s new event series Shots Fired, which examines the...

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Terry’s Picks: Goodbye Alicia, Independent Women, Preserving the Legacy

Goodbye, Alicia: This weekend we bid farewell to The Good Wife, a classic made-in-New-York show with a marvelously complex female-driven storyline, starring our own 2009 NYWIFT Muse Honoree Julianna Margulies as power attorney Alicia Florrick. It will be missed. Independent Women: A new study from Martha Lauzen at the Center for the Study of Women...

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Women’s Film Preservation Fund: Protecting the Legacy for Over 20 Years

Founded 1995 by NYWIFT in conjunction with the Museum of Modern Art and spearheaded by the determination of NYWIFT member Barbara Moss, the Women’s Film Preservation Fund (WFPF) has preserved over 100 films by women. In fact, we are the only organization dedicated to preserving exclusively films made by women. Get to know the WFPF!

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Terry’s Picks: Cinco de Mayo, Women’s Voices, Spring Drive

Cinco de Mayo: Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with NYWIFT on Thursday at the next installment of our Immigrant Experiences screening series! We’ll screen three films in Queens about local immigrant artist Marela Zacarías, followed by a Q&A and a reception with Mexican food and margaritas. It’s free! Women’s Voices: Through Friday, May 6 you can...

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The Art of First Impressions and Movie Trailers

NYWIFT Board of Directors member Maura Kelly writes about female entrepreneurs in tech and entertainment for The Huffington Post. She recently sat down with Evelyn Brady-Watters and her sister Monica Brady, the founders of the Golden Trailers Awards (GTA's) as they gear up for the live ceremony on May 4th in LA.

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Terry’s Picks: Loving Lifetime, Fox’s Failure, Congrats Katharina

Loving Lifetime: Check out this great read on Buzzfeed about the evolution of Lifetime from “guiltily pleasure” to “groundbreaking television.” Women wrote or directed 73% of the network’s original films from 1994 to 2016, and its new initiative called the “Fempire” will draw together linear, digital, social and community partnerships with the goal of “entertaining...

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Terry’s Picks: Tribeca Films, Stuntwomen Survey, Protect Yourself

Tribeca Films: Headed to the festival this week? Consider seeing one of these ten films from talented NYWIFT members. Stuntwomen Survey: An informal poll of Hollywood’s stuntwomen conducted by veteran stuntwoman Julie Johnson has found that nearly two-thirds of the 43 respondents have been bullied or sexually harassed in the workplace. Additionally, nearly 40% of...

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