ABOUT
HALF THE PICTURE celebrates the groundbreaking work of female and non-binary film directors and investigates the systemic discrimination that has, for decades, denied opportunities to far too many talented directors in Hollywood.
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What Happens When 40 Women Filmmakers Tell Their Own Stories
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THE NEW CURRENT
Radio New Zealand
Saturday Morning: Amy Adrion, Director of Half the Picture
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What to watch: True stories to savour at this year's Doc Edge
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Our top picks for the Doc Edge International Film Festival 2019
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The struggle to be a woman and a filmmaker: "Our ideas seem less valuable"
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Sundance-winner Amy Adrion: Spielberg's Oscars plan will shut out independent films
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Director Amy Adrion on women’s rights in Hollywood
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American Film Showcase welcomed to Thessaloniki in Greece on March 2-5, 2019
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Film festival celebrates women’s stories
PORTLAND MERCURY
Half the Picture Review: First Eye-Opening, Then Infuriating
PORTLAND TRIBUNE
Doc spotlight: "Half the Picture"
THE MONTCLARION
“A beautifully crafted love letter to female directors everywhere”
AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL
THE STRANGER
* RECOMMENDED* Half the Picture, a Documentary About How Hollywood Still Sucks for Women
TUFTS NOW
"Tell Me More: Breaking Up the Hollywood Boys Club”
THE WRAP
"Women Directors Tell All in Illuminating, Infuriating Doc"
THE DAILY BEAST
‘Half the Picture’ director Amy Adrion opens up about her documentary, which features female filmmakers like Ava DuVernay and Kimberly Peirce celebrating sisterhood in Hollywood. "A celebration of the joys of filmmaking!"
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Sundance London: Comedy ‘Eighth Grade’, Gender Equality Doc ‘Half The Picture’ Scoop Prizes
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Director Amy Adrion on Half the Picture, her vital documentary about women filmmakers
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Sundance Film Festival: Hollywood 'MUST get more female directors' after Me Too scandal
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INTERVIEW: Amy Adrion Talks Half The Picture
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Sundance London 2018: Director Amy Adrion talks ‘Half the Picture’ - “Without doubt, one of the must-see films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival: London”
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VARIETY
Female Filmmakers Center Stage at Sundance Film Festival London
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'Half the Picture': A Consciousness Raising Discussion About Women in Film
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FEMALE FILMMAKER FRIDAY: A CONVERSATION WITH HALF THE PICTURE DIRECTOR AMY ADRION
The daily californian
2018 San Francisco Int'l Film Festival offers profound variety of films - “Half the Picture” is, in every way, heartbreaking... powerful to the point that it is infuriating"
KFOG San Francisco
‘Half the Picture’ speaks to the next generation of filmmakers at SFFILM Festival - "The message to aspiring filmmakers in Adrion’s Half the Picture is clear: it’s not easy but it’s so, so much fun. And if these women have done it, so can you."
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Through Women's Eyes tells women's stories through film
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BWW Feature: AMY ADRION HALF THE PICTURE at Sarasota Film Festival
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TEXAS MONTHLY
In ‘Half the Picture,’ Female Directors Call for Long-Overdue Equality in Hollywood
FILMMAKER MAGAZINE
“Getting Five Different Looks From One Room”: DP Yamit Shimonovitz on Half the Picture
DIGITAL TRENDS
Sundance shines spotlight on Hollywood’s lack of female directors
FILM INQUIRY
SXSW Review: HALF THE PICTURE: Death By A Thousand Cuts For Hollywood Misogyny
FILMMAKER MAGAZINE
“Advocating For the Civil Rights of Women”: Editor Kate Hackett on Half the Picture
VARIETY
‘Half the Picture’ Documentary on Female Directors Sells to Gravitas
HUFFINGTON POST
Women Directors Explain Exactly What It’s Like To Work In Sexist Hollywood
REFINERY 29
You Know About The Lack Of Female Directors In Hollywood. These Are Their Stories.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
The makers of 'Half the Picture' discuss women's tenacious quest for visibility as directors
NPR / KPCW
BUSTLE
'Half The Picture' Director Amy Adrion Knows The Real Secret To Getting Women More Jobs In Hollywood
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HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
'Half the Picture': Film Review | Sundance 2018 - "THE BOTTOM LINE: Preach, Sister!"
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THE VERGE
Half the Picture proves that #MeToo alone won’t solve sexism in entertainment
WIRED
NPR, KPCC'S THE FRAME
'Half The Picture' shows how 50 women filmmakers broke into Hollywood
INDIEWIRE
FILM INQUIRY
Fighting For Equality Behind The Scenes: An Interview With Amy Adrion, Director of HALF THE PICTURE
INDIEWIRE
The Team
AMY ADRION | Director & Producer
Amy Adrion is a director and writer whose work has screened at the Sundance, SXSW, and Tribeca Film Festivals, been broadcast on STARZ, PBS and MTV, and won numerous awards. Amy's debut feature, Half The Picture, which celebrates the groundbreaking work of women film directors, had its World Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018 and won the #WhatNext Award at Sundance Film Festival: London, the Audience Award for Best Documentary at Lighthouse Film Festival, and the Impact Award at Through Women's Eyes Film Festival.
Half The Picture is at 100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and was released theatrically in Summer 2018.
Amy's short films include her UCLA thesis, Shoegazer, which was Executive Produced by Miranda July and won a Directors Guild of America (DGA) Student Film Award, and Surviving 7th Grade, of which the LA WEEKLY wrote "Surviving 7th Grade takes just seven-and-a-half sparkling minutes to initiate us into the secret rituals and self-effacing humor that just might enable a couple of nerdy (yet utterly appealing) pubescent girls to weather a stormy passage through adolescence."
Amy's television work includes directing the show Sucks Less with Kevin Smith for MTV / MTVu.
Amy is attached to direct the fierce, funny revenge Western, Picante, written by Meg McCarthy and Diana Davis-Dyer, and is in early production on a documentary about a female singer/songwriter and modern day cowgirl cattle rancher in Colorado.
jude HARRIS | Producer
Jude Harris is a producer and executive, currently the SVP of Development at Gunpowder & Sky, a multi-platform studio producing digital originals (T Bone Burnett’s DRAWN & RECORDED) and features (the upcoming zombie roadtrip movie EAT BRAINS LOVE). In their role as VP of Development for the MTV digital studio MTV(other), Jude produced MYRNA THE MONSTER, a short which premiered at Sundance, was an official selection at SXSW and is now in development with MGM and Caviar Content. They were also an executive producer of the SUPERVIDEO series of music videos (directors include Bryce Dallas Howard, Drew Barrymore, and David Ayer), the 2014 reboot of the animated cult classic LIQUID TELEVISION, and the music series $5 COVER, created by Craig Brewer and directed by Craig Brewer and Lynn Shelton.
YAMIT SHIMONOVITZ | Director of Photography
Yamit Shimonovitz recently received acclaim for her innovative cinematography on the documentaries THE PUBLIC IMAGE IS ROTTEN about rock icon John Lydon (Tribeca 2017) and LOS WILD ONES, which premiered at SXSW and won Best Cinematography at Uptown Film Fest. Her current work can be seen on television shows such as TRANSPARENT as well as in commercials for Apple, Intel and Whole Foods. Yamit was born in Israel, and is based in Los Angeles where she is a member of Local 600, the International Cinematographers Guild.
SORAYA SÉLÈNE | Director of Photography
Soraya Sélène recently won Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film & Television. Her commercial work includes projects for Unilever, TMobile, Dove, Mattell, and Apple Music, shooting artists such as Mary J. Blige, Sacha Baron Cohen and Pharrell. Born in France and raised in NYC, Soraya moved to Los Angeles in 2006 to pursue her MFA at UCLA. She also studied at the Global Cinematography Institute under renowned ASC cinematographers.
KATE HACKETT | Editor
Kate Hackett is an editor and filmmaker who has edited four independent features, among them Sean Hackett's award winning HOMECOMING and David MartinPorras's crime drama STEALING SUMMERS. She recently edited a documentary series on the Sundance Institute's MENA Theatre Lab. Her short format work includes episodes of the Yahoo Screen series TINY COMMANDO featuring Ed Helms, Gillian Jacobs and Nick Kroll, and the short film GOT THE CHECK for actress/director Shiri Appleby, featuring Colin Hanks and Alison Becker.
LAURA KARPMAN | Composer
Four-time Emmy winner and composer of the Grammy Winning piece ASK YOUR MAMA, Laura Karpman maintains a vibrant career in film, television, videogame and concert music. Her distinguished credits include the series UNDERGROUND - in collaboration with Raphael Saadiq and John Legend - STEP - a Sundance 2017 favorite - Eleanor Coppola’s PARIS CAN WAIT starring Diane Lane and Alec Baldwin, Kasi Lemmons’ BLACK NATIVITY starring Jennifer Hudson and Forest Whitaker, Steven Spielberg’s miniseries TAKEN, the Showtime series ODYSSEY 5, and MASTERS OF SCIENCE FICTION for which she received several Emmy nominations. She contributed to Sophia Coppola’s 2017 THE BEGUILED, and scored THE REAGAN SHOW for CNN Films. Laura serves as an advisor for the Sundance Film Scoring Labs and is on the faculty of the USC Film Scoring Program, and is the founding President of the Alliance for Women Film Composers and a governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
NORA KROLL-ROSENBAUM | Composer
Grammy Award-winning composer Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum collaborates with radical filmmakers and ingenious musicians on scores that include Stockholm, Pennsylvania, Powerless, After Fire, Remember Me, Joburg, Lenny, Regarding Susan Sontag, and The Cinema Travelers. She has been commissioned by the London Symphony Chorus, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and received fellowships from the Sundance Composers Feature and Doc Labs. Nora is on the board of The Alliance for Women Film Composers.
STILLS
Director's Statement
FROM AMY ADRION
For many years the discouraging statistics about women directors in film and television have been known, but a confluence of social media outrage, increased study and statistics, and a growing willingness of prominent women in the industry to call out the powerful forces working against them, have resulted in what some have termed a “genderquake moment.” That environment, coupled with the activism of a handful of fearless women directors frustrated by the lack of accountability in their industry, resulted in the ACLU’s 18 month long investigation into gender discrimination in the hiring of directors, the findings of which prompted the US Department of Justice’s EEOC investigation that began in October 2015, bringing powerful players into the fight for equal opportunity.
HALF THE PICTURE seeks to document this unique time in our industry where systemic change seems possible and asks the question, unlike previous efforts to address gender inequality in Hollywood, will this time be different?
Not only is the issue of women directors an employment discrimination civil rights issue, the larger cultural relevance of HALF THE PICTURE lies in the fact that when you only have a small sliver of the populace telling our collective stories, in this case overwhelmingly white men who make up 31% of the population but direct 85-95% of our media, many stories are left untold. Further, studies show that when women direct, the numbers and characterization of women and men onscreen is affected as well.
Directors working behind the camera have a significant impact on the creation of this country’s main export around the world, our media, which give us powerful examples and social clues about who gets to be the hero, who gets to take up space, have a voice, be an active participant in the stories around them - and who does not. These images, when repeated throughout media, have ripple effects in the lives of real people around the world.
I have been aware of women’s marginalization in media and the need for greater support of women’s voices my entire adult life. My graduate films at UCLA explored stories of women and girls’ love, loss, and perseverance and I was honored to have my films screen at the Tribeca Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival, Austin Film Festival, broadcast on PBS and MTVu, and be lauded by the Directors Guild of America where I won a DGA Student Film Award.
When movement around the issue of women directors was gaining steam, I knew this was a story that needed to be told - these are my heroes, women who wouldn't take no for an answer fighting powerful forces, making movies and shows I wanted to see. After many years of stagnation, it seemed the timing could finally be right for something to change. I had to be there.
HOST A SCREENING!
