Female directors remain a rarity in Hollywood

Juggling work and family
Having adopted a son after finishing “The Nanny Diaries,” Berman is also about to find herself in the tricky position so many female professionals do: juggling family with work. “Friends With Money” writer-director Nicole Holofcener works steadily, but if there’s a gap between her movies, she says, it’s because she wants the time to take her 9-year-old twin sons to school. And Sheridan, already the mother of a 4-year-old daughter while making “August Rush,” recently gave birth to a son.

“There definitely aren’t (many female directors). I think a huge part of that is family, you know, and just how tough it can be on family,” said Sheridan, who was nominated for an Oscar for writing 2002’s “In America” with her sister and their father, veteran director Jim Sheridan. “I guess you get that in everything, it’s part of whatever job you might have, but I think particularly in film because it’s just a machine that is unstoppable.

“I’m kind of hoping that I can get to the point where I’m in enough control that I can call the shots a little bit more with how it all works,” she added. “Having kids on set, having day care on set — I’d love to do that for other women in the crew as much as myself.”

Just getting that first gig, though, can be hard enough. Women in Film hopes to boost the number of new directors by offering scholarships to students and funds to help women finish their films. They also match up aspiring directors with writers and crews to shoot public service announcements for charities that deal with women’s issues.

“I wish that there was a secret. I wish I could say to someone what to do,” Holofcener said. “I guess I wrote about what was important to me. I kept it personal. I kept it simple. I didn’t try to fit into any kind of mode — ‘I’ll write a genre, I’ll write action.’ I didn’t have to do that.

“Ultimately the one I tried hardest with was ‘Walking and Talking (1996).’ That wasn’t a compromise in terms of, I just have to get my foot in. Maybe that helps — if you’re driven by the need to tell something that’s important to you, maybe that makes you ridiculously driven.”

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Going to film school also helps, said Peirce, a Columbia grad like Holofcener and Berman. So does starting out in the indie world, where you can get your hands on every element of the process. “Boys Don’t Cry” cost $1.7 million to make, whereas “Stop Loss,” a Paramount release, had a budget of more than $30 million.

“Studio people tell me that they need indie directors to make studio movies so they know they can count on them — that when they start pushing hard against them, they’re not going to crash,” Peirce said. “It’s getting women into the system. Women are making indie movies that are wonderful and if they can keep doing that, that’s great. But if they can cross over and can take on a project they can handle ... just to have done one studio movie will open up a whole lot of opportunities for them.”

Making blockbusters
The rare example of a woman operating at the highest echelons of the studio system is Nancy Meyers, whose films “The Holiday,” “Something’s Gotta Give” and “What Women Want” have grossed hundreds of millions of dollars.

Meyers makes smart, glossy romantic comedies. The question is, though, are women drawn to other kinds of material that can translate into big box office and prestigious prizes? Many say they’re interested in telling more intimate, character-driven stories — though Delpy says she’d love to do a huge sci-fi film. And as awards expert O’Neil points out, testosterone-fueled movies like “The Departed,” “Braveheart” and “Dances With Wolves” win Oscars.

Sid Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said there’s no good answer why the directors’ branch of the academy — which chooses the nominees for best director and is about 6 percent female — has only nominated three women. But he ventured that a combination of two factors could be at work: Financiers may feel reluctant to back a woman as the director of a large-scale movie, and women generally may not be interested in such material.

“Would a woman have made ‘The Departed’? Maybe that’s the next goal,” said Ganis, a longtime producer and former studio executive. “Maybe women directors will be seen as able to do ‘Terminator 5,’ or some major action movie. Maybe that is breaking the next stereotype model.’

Delpy had the same idea in mind — she just phrased it a little differently.

“A woman has to make a bunch of blockbusters, one after another,” she said, “and shut everyone’s mouth.”

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