“Good afternoon, all you nasty ladies,” greeted Tribeca Enterprises’ Jane Rosenthal alongside Paula Weinstein at a luncheon that kicked off the second annual women’s filmmaker program, Through Her Lens. The three-day workshop — presented by Tribeca Enterprises and Chanel in collaboration with Pulse Films and supported by Tribeca Film Institute — provides five female filmmakers with project support, master classes and one-on-one mentorship to develop short films, one of which will be awarded full financing.
“It’s so important to foster community among women and support emerging voices, especially at a time when we’ve seen a lot of disrespect and degradation toward women on a national stage,” participating juror Jennifer Westfeldt told The Hollywood Reporter inside Locanda Verde in Tribeca.
Rashida Jones, a mentor, was excited to get started: “This program is very involved — it’s not like we just take pictures with them, we get to actually work with them!” Echoed mentor Shari Springer Berman, “This industry can be demoralizing and depressing, but when you speak to young people coming into the business with enthusiasm and vision, I get so much out of it.”
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Ruth Wilson attended the event in support of its mission. “Women have felt restricted for so long that we often only get the male gaze in films, and stories through the male lens,” she said. “To be able to make it equal, we need to keep supporting women and creating an environment where women feel free and able to express their experiences.”
The Tuesday afternoon gathering — feting the workshop’s selected filmmakers Ani Simon-Kennedy, Joey Ally, A.V. Rockwell, Catherine Eaton and Sonejuhi Sinha — drew actors, filmmakers, producers and screenwriters, including Mamie Gummer, Zosia Mamet, Diane Lane, Carmen Ejogo, Sienna Miller, Gillian Anderson, Riva Marker, Wendy Finerman and Emily Mortimer, a mentor at last year’s workshop who went on to produce and star in the fund recipient, Wig Shop, directed by Kat Coiro.
“It was a really wonderful feeling today, to talk about ideas and tastes without being competitive,” Katie Holmes told THR. “We need to keep pushing each other forward, and celebrating each other for taking risks and putting our voices out there.”
