Director Kimbely Peirce recently spoke to the 2014 AFI Directing Workshop for Women, and her words cut to the core of a reality faced by women filmmakers in the industry. She begins the talk by telling a story from interview rounds she did for her second feature, “Stop-Loss.” The most frequent question she received was, “Why did it take so long for you to make a second feature?”
Peirce goes on to discuss why this question — which, she points out, the women directors in the room wouldn’t ask one another — is so relevant, and yet why it targets the wrong thing: As if the uphill climb for a woman filmmaker to get that second feature made is some personal shortcoming, as opposed to an institutional one.
Despite the depressing stats Peirce rolls out, she says there is a silver lining. Watch below.
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