Happy Women’s History Month! Or, for anyone outside the United States, happy March! Are you sensing a theme? Perhaps one of unity through celebrating our differences? That is the goal of celebrating, after all. During the celebration, we put aside our grievances, our woes, and even our agendas to appreciate the good work that has already been done. Perhaps even a return to work? You can start your Women’s History Month celebration with our recent International Women’s Day Panel here!

Leading up to the celebration, however, we often find friction, agitation, and out-right head-on challenges. This fantastic post from a filmmaker in the Netherlands, for example, invites further investigation into top-down decision-making (be sure to check out all the links to the fantastic posts throughout this blog, too). Before we can celebrate, we have to climb, claw, and confront. For women, the challenge is all too often overcoming others’ misperceptions of what we are capable of. Women must face this challenge every day in various ways, but we all, every one of us, can work to create safe spaces to invite constructive conversations so this added barrier continues to recede.

One of the great accomplishments of Stage 32 is providing a safe and welcoming space for creatives all around the world, regardless of age, sex, race, or creed, to gather, network, build relationships and celebrate all the many perspectives that our creative projects come from! Celebrating our little victories, or even our bigger ones, on the road to our award-winning successes is one of the many things the Stage 32 Lounges are for!

Naturally, as we began celebrating Women’s History Month in the Stage 32 Lounges, women stepped up yet so many returned to the shadows to lurk. It may well be that when new subjects come up, we feel inadequate to contribute, but rest assured that any encouragement or questions from sincere curiosity will be met with gratitude. We’re all here to learn and grow. We must grow, in fact, in order to keep creating.

No matter where you are on your journey, may you be receptive to the hard conversations initiated by the female collaborators in your life and on your projects. Friction doesn’t just cause sparks - it also charges you up! And the hard truths of women in film? Well… let’s just say women’s voices are only getting stronger. There is even a thread in the Filmmaking Lounge discussing documentaries about women in film - which have been influential in your journey?

Let’s make this Women’s History Month a living history! Take this Introduce Yourself Weekend to meet more women in film and television in the Introduce Yourself Lounge, chat up more female filmmakers in the Filmmaking Lounge, and consider reading more scripts by women to see what our perspectives bring to the craft. You can even introduce your favorite women working in the industry - why not make them your networking friend so you can share your testimonial of their work?

Learning from Other Perspectives, Not Just Other Roles

Learning often starts with giving the benefit of believing you can learn something. If you know everything about everything, then there is no need to interact with anyone else, and if that’s true, please ask yourself - why are you here? Also, please consider watching Carol Dweck’s “The Power of Believing That You Can Improve” TED Talk.

Since the Stage 32 Lounges have different topics, you can imagine that it comes up often how some might learn from others. If we can acknowledge that actors can learn something from editors, perhaps the most diametrically opposed roles in the entertainment industry, then we can certainly allow ourselves to see how everyone can learn from female filmmakers, men included.

Involving women in the evolution of the filmmaking process, however, has led to some remarkable advancements. Intimacy coordinators, for example, came as a result of talking with women about how they were being treated when blocking sex scenes. Now there is a mediator to help give actors and directors the language they need to feel comfortable and safe while on set.

Learning from Film History as a Perspective on World History

Whether you enjoy learning about history or actively avoid dates and places, film has both made history and influenced it. If you've studied film history, then you'll recall that certain jobs were seen as being so meaningless to the process that they were offered to women. Editing was one such job, as we're currently discussing in the Post-Production Lounge. Of course, we know better now, and editing is now an invisible powerhouse behind directing. While editors can influence the pacing and revealing of information in a story, they still have very little control over how women are depicted throughout the story. Admittedly, we would not know of their contributions without extensive documentation of their work, including the all-important screen credit.

That's where female writers and directors are still so important. Whether Shonda Rhimes, Mindy Kaling, Issa Rae, Greta Gerwig, or Phoebe Waller-Bridge, there have been huge strides for female characters to become popular protagonists through groundbreaking female creators. If its popularity was not obvious, then its effect should be. It's no coincidence that bow and arrow sales shot up (pun intended) after the success of Hunger Games (2012) and Disney/Pixar's Brave (2012). Or the record 215% increase in chessboard sales after the release of Netflix's 'The Queen's Gambit' (2020). The importance here is audiences - ALL audiences - seeing women in roles previously assumed not applicable.

Whether as a fictional character, its creator, or the crew to support the endeavor, the more we recognize women, the more women are able to accomplish. Doesn't that seem like a win-win?

Learning from New Sources Refreshes Your Creativity

With a worldwide community at our fingertips on Stage 32, we often learn from people in different cultures and countries, like this fascinating post about film in Iran. Sometimes it's easier to embrace others' differences when there is something obvious separating you, like space or a flag. Taking the time to learn from those who seem not that different from you, yet are not in your sphere is sometimes not as apparent, and infinitely more difficult. If you love horror films, how often do you study comedy, even though they have the same "jump scare"? If you enjoy the work of Quentin Tarantino, why not research his female editor, Sally Menke?

As always, studying someone else's work is not an attempt to mimic what they do, but rather appreciate what they have contributed. It's the same practice, but a different source. What's something you've learned from studying the practices of women in film?

Thank you for taking the time to reflect on the role of women in film, past, present, and future.