Ten years ago, Chicago-based film critic Marya E. Gates decided that for an entire year, she would only watch films directed by women. “There’s no specific ‘a women’s film,’ that’s not a thing,” Gates said, reflecting on her yearlong viewing project. “There’s just women who make every kind of film.” The experience, which Gates refers to as her “A Year With Women” viewing project, became the catalyst for Gates’ recently published book celebrating the contributions of female filmmakers, “Cinema Her Way: Visionary Female Directors In Their Own Words,” featuring film history and interviews with
19 female directors .
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Interviews in the book include directors of major films like Jane Campion of “The Power of the Dog” and “The Piano,” Karyn Kusama of “Jennifer’s Body” and the TV show “Yellowjackets,” and Gina Prince-Bythewood of “The Woman King” and “Love & Basketball.” Gates also interviewed female filmmakers who she feels haven’t been given their due, citing director Katt Shea, for example, who directed movies like “Poison Ivy” and “The Rage: Carrie 2.” The book also includes interviews with Cheryl Dunye, who directed “The Watermelon Woman,” and Lizzie Borden, director of “Born in Flames.” “I was hoping it would be a mixture of films people have heard of, a mixture of films they should have heard of,” Gates said. During her yearlong project watching movies exclusively by female directors in 2015, Gates said there were an “endless” number of movies by female directors to choose from at the time. Now, access to watching female-directed movies has gotten better with streaming services making concerted efforts to showcase those films more than before, according to Gates. Gates in her book also pays tribute to filmmaking pioneers of the silent film era like Alice Guy-Blaché and Lois Weber. Gates, a lover of silent film, noticed parallels between the current state of women in filmmaking and the early silent film era, when Gates said female filmmakers experienced fewer hurdles because “everything was so new,” leading to more experimentation. In the early era of silent film, women made films ranging from drama to westerns to romance, and filmmakers like Guy-Blaché and Weber even owned their own movie studios, Gates said. However, sexism brought on by the introduction of investors and bankers in the film industry during the 1920s led to more women being pushed out of making films, according to Gates. “I think we’re kind of back to a point in filmmaking where women are making every genre again, but again, at the independent level, so it’s almost paralleled now that there’s more equitable access to independent filmmaking like there used to be, but there’s still sort of a barrier for studio filmmaking,” Gates said. In her newsletter, “Cool People Have Feelings, Too,” Gates publishes a
weekly viewing guide of films directed by women, including new and older releases. While working on her book, Gates said, she noticed a through line that the female filmmakers she spoke to, across eras of film, had to fight to make the films they wanted to make. “The main key to all of these women, and the key to anyone trying to make a film regardless of gender is just perseverance,” Gates said. “Some people are gonna have more hurdles than others, and that’s not fair, obviously, and that’s why there’s no true equity in the industry.” But Gates said that the purpose of the book isn’t just to show struggle, but to highlight the perseverance and film techniques of the filmmakers. “All women who make films are artists in their own right and shouldn’t have to have an extra hurdle,” Gates said. “They should just get to make their films and talk about being filmmakers, and I really wanted to give them all outlets to talk about the craft because I think a lot of times the focus on women who make films is the women part and not the ‘make films’ part.” As part of a “Cinema Her Way” book tour, Gates will make a stop
at the Music Box Theatre for a 35mm screening of Jane Campion’s “Bright Star” on Saturday at 11 a.m. The event includes a book signing and a post-screening discussion with Gates moderated by film critic Kat Sachs. Additionally, Gates will make a book tour appearance at a screening of Sally Potter’s “The Tango Lesson”
at Doc Films , the student-led movie theater and film society at the University of Chicago, on May 17 at 7:30 p.m.
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