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There are women who want to be noticed, and women who prefer do the noticing. That’s something I couldn’t help but observe while interviewing Michele Abbott and Kathy Greenberg in the bar at the Chateau Marmont recently.

Abbott and Greenberg, who along with Ilene Chaiken created The L Word, are in many ways atypical of the image that setting likely evokes in your mind. They live, work and play in Hollywood, but unlike some of their peers, being noticed isn’t high on their list of priorities.

But you already know that if you’ve been aware of their silence over the six-season run of their show.

I met Abbott, a hilarious and talented producer, and Greenberg, a cautious yet equally funny and extremely successful screenwriter (who played a large role in bringing us Ratatouille), two years ago.

It took me that long to convince them to talk...

New Georges (Susan Bernfield, Artistic Director; Sarah Cameron Sunde, Associate Director), the Obie Award-winning downtown theater company founded in 1992, and Hip-Hop Theater Festival will present the premiere of Obie Winning Actress/Pulitzer-nominated playwright Eisa Davis' "Angela's Mixtape," directed by Liesl Tommy. Ms. Davis who was recently seen on Broadway in last season's award-winning musical Passing Strange will portray herself and Linda Powell, last seen on Broadway in the Tony-nominated revival On Golden Pond, will portray her aunt, professor and activist Angela Davis. "Angela's Mixtape" will be performed at the Ohio Theatre, 66 Wooster Street (between Spring and Broome Streets). Previews begin Monday, April 6, and the official Opening Night will be Thursday, April 9 at 7:00 p.m. Performances will run through May 2.

This entry is dedicated to Ave Montague, founder of the San Francisco Black Film Festival, who passed away late last month. Her contributions to Bay Area culture live on.

An atmosphere of trust pervaded the HBO West Coast premiere of The Black List Volume Two co-presented by the San Francisco Black Film Festival at San Francisco’s Cowell Theatre, Fort Mason; not only the trust the film’s subjects placed in filmmakers Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and Elvis Mitchell (who—in turn—trusted that these individuals would speak to the diversity of the African American experience in the 21st Century); but, the trust of the film’s first audience that their experience of the film would prove illuminating, challenging and inspiring. Said trust was well-invested all around.

The Black List: Volume Two—which debuts Thursday, February 26 (8:00-9:00Pm Et/Pt), exclusively on HBO—follows last year’s acclaimed HBO special...

Berlin -- Move over, Pink Panther. Here come the Black Panthers.

Two English-language European film projects aim to bring leading figures from the U.S. Black Power movement to the big screen soon.

Franco-Algerian producer-writer-director Rachid Bouchareb, whose film "London River" screens here in competition, is setting up a movie on the early life of Angela Davis, a leading figure of the civil rights movement and one-time FBI renegade.

Meanwhile, Berlin-based Egoli Tossell films, whose latest picture, "Hilde," screens here as a Berlinale Special Gala, is in preproduction on a feature film based on Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale.

Davis, who once studied here at Berlin's Humboldt University, became a cause celebre in the late 1960s when she was sacked from her post as philosophy professor at UCLA for being a communist. She later found herself on the FBI's "10 most wanted" list after guns used in a...