Women Rocking Hollywood 2022 panelists

WHAT'S THE PANEL ALL ABOUT?

Women Rocking Hollywood 2024: Female Filmmakers Breaking Barriers & Breaking Records

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie was the top grossing film of 2023 and is now the highest grossing comedy of all time. Barbie and 2023 releases like Polite Society, Joy Ride, Saltburn, and Past Lives show female filmmakers can and do create blockbusters, great films, and soon-to-be classics, whether or not they get recognized at awards time. Women are also excelling on the small screen. So why are the numbers of women hired by studio projects still so small, especially for women of color? We talk to creative, successful women in film about the way forward, and how gains through SAG/Aftra and the DGA are helping increase the percentage in Hollywood and beyond. Scheduled to appear and discuss the state of the business and their exciting new projects are Erica Tremblay (writer/director, Reservation Dogs, Fancy Dance), Anna Halberg (writer, House/Wife, director, the upcoming Tarot), Amy Greene (producer/stunt coordinator, The Holdovers, stunt coordinator/executive producer, Somewhere in Queens), Anna Biller (writer/director/producer, The Love Witch, the upcoming The Face of Horror), and Andria Wilson Mirza (director, Women in Film’s ReFrame, producer, Queen of My Dreams). Moderated by Leslie Combemale (founder, Women Rocking Hollywood, lead contributor, The Alliance of Women Film Journalists).

WHO ARE THE PANELISTS?

AMY GREENE

Amy is a film producer, stunt coordinator, and stunt performer, who's recent projects include the Academy Award winning SOUND OF METAL and Academy Award nominated KNIVES OUT. Other films she's been a part of have won awards at Sundance, Cannes, and The Independent Spirit Awards, including LEAVE NO TRACE, CHRONIC, and LOW DOWN. As a stunt performer, she's had the pleasure of doubling Meryl Streep, Laura Linney, Chloe Grace Moretz, Amy Ryan, Taissa Farmiga and more. As a stunt coordinator she collaborates with directors to create believable and authentic action, most recently working with Alexander Payne on his Oscar nominated film, THE HOLDOVERS.

ANNA BILLER

Anna is a filmmaker and a writer known for her feminist point of view, and for her meticulously crafted visual design. The New York Times called her cult film THE LOVE WITCH "a hothouse filled with deadly and seductive blooms," and the Telegraph called her debut novel BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE “wildly enjoyable," including it in their list of the best fiction books of the year. She is currently in development for a ghost movie set in medieval England.

ANNA HALBERG

Anna is a Japanese American writer, producer and director who brings a distinctive perspective to filmmaking. Upcoming, Halberg co-directed, co-wrote and executive produced Sony’s horror film TAROT. The film, set to release in theaters on May 3rd, stars Avantika (MEAN GIRLS) and Jacob Batalon (SPIDER-MAN) and follows a group of friends as they unwittingly unleash an unspeakable evil trapped within a cursed deck of tarot cards. Additionally, Halberg serves as a producer on the upcoming sci-fi thriller DISTANT, starring Anthony Ramos and Naomi Scott, recently finished co-writing a feature project, THE WAND, based on an original idea by Steven Spielberg, and several projects as writer/director/producer in various stages of development, soon to be announced.

ERICA TREMBLAY

Erica is a filmmaker from the Seneca-Cayuga Nation. Her debut feature film, FANCY DANCE, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Tremblay produced the film, which is based on her original screenplay co-written with Miciana Alise. The film, starring Academy Award nominee Lily Gladstone, was acquired by Apple Original Films and is set to be released in theaters and on Apple TV+ in 2024. Erica is currently writing for Season 3 of DARK WINDS at AMC and has previously written for FX's RESERVATION DOGS, where she also directed two episodes. In 2021, she was accepted into the Sundance Directors and Screenwriters Lab, and was awarded the Walter Bernstein Screenwriting Fellowship, the Maja Kristin Directing Fellowship, the SFFILM Rainin Grant, and the Lynn Shelton Of a Certain Age Grant. Her short film, LITTLE CHIEF, premiered at Sundance in 2020. Tremblay lives on Cayuga Lake in upstate New York, where she studies her Indigenous language.

ANDRIA WILSON MIRZA

Andria is the Director of ReFrame, the screen industry's gender equity coalition founded and led by Sundance Institute and Women In Film. Previously, Andria was Executive Director of Inside Out, Canada’s largest LGBTQ film festival. There, she established the world’s only LGBTQ Feature Film Financing Forum, launched two development funds, co-founded the North American Queer Festival Alliance (NAQFA), and spearheaded a 4-year partnership between Inside Out and Netflix. As a producer, Andria runs Baby Daal Productions with her wife, filmmaker Fawzia Mirza, where she co-produced the award-winning feature THE QUEEN OF MY DREAMS, a Pakistan-Canada co-production, which recently played to critical acclaim at SXSW. Andria serves on the advisory board of Hire Survivors Hollywood.

Follow ReFrame at @ReFrameProject on Twitter and at @ReFrame_Project on Instagram!

Follow Women In Film at @WomenInFilm on Twitter!

Leslie Combemale: creator/moderator: Women Rocking Hollywood, lead contributor AWFJ.org

Leslie Combemale is moderator and creator of the Women Rocking Hollywood panel at San Diego Comic-Con and WonderCon. She has been writing about film, with a focus on women and diversity for over 18 years on sites like AWFJ.org, TheCredits.org, and her own site, CinemaSiren.com. She has a passion for artists below the line, celebrating them through her film art gallery ArtInsights, where she has been selling film art by the filmmakers for over 30 years. She is an expert on the history of animation and film art, and has been amplifying the careers of animators important to the classic animated features and tv shows, as well as production artists integral to films like Star Wars and Harry Potter, at conventions around the world for over a decade. She believes parity for women behind the camera and below the line will come, in part, through the support of the thousands of vocal fans at entertainment and comic conventions, that have loyally attended the Women Rocking Hollywood panels since its inception.

Follow Women Rocking Hollywood at @WomenRockFilm and at @CinemaSirenNews on Twitter.

You can see her work with AWFJ on this Alliance of Women Film Journalists page.

Keep updated with Women Rocking Hollywood at www.womenrockinghollywood.com.