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Friendship is out at 6 locations to a stellar debut weekend of $451k, and per theater average of $75.43k. That’s the highest limited opening this year and a boost the indie market’s been waiting for even as the broader box office picks up.

Only Watermelon Pictures’ documentary The Encampments, which debuted on one screen in late March to $77k, had a higher per theater opening of $77k.

R-rated comedy Friendship stars Tim Robinson as suburban dad Craig, whose life is turned upside down by the arrival of a new neighbor (Paul Rudd). As Craig’s attempts to make an adult male friend, things spiral out of control, and their blossoming relationship threatens to ruin both of their lives. The TIFF-premiering film saw dozens of sellouts in both New York and Los Angeles with raucous crowds and great word-of-mouth. Fans of Tim Robinson and his Netflix series I Think You...

Patricia Clarkson is an actor who always hits the true note, but it’s been quite a while since she nabbed a movie role as full-scale and invigorating as the one she has in “Lilly.” The movie, which opened yesterday, is a whistleblower drama, based on the life of Lilly Ledbetter, who was the image of a homespun citizen — an Alabama wife and mother working as a supervisor at the local Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company plant — when she became an activist almost in spite of herself.

At Goodyear, Ledbetter started out in 1979 slinging tires on the factory floor. She then climbed the managerial ladder, only to keep getting knocked back down. Her work record was top drawer, but she was the only supervisor at the plant who was a woman, and that made a lot of people around her nervous. Near the end of her 20 years there, she learned she...

This article is part of ScreenRant's Exclusive Summer 2025 Movie Preview. Keep an eye out for the full feature next week!

As part of ScreenRant's summer movie preview, a new image has been revealed for Lilly. The upcoming biopicstars Patricia Clarkson as Lilly Ledbetter, a small town woman who seeks legal recourse after being mistreated by her employer. The movie follows Ledbetter's life over the course of several decades, starting in her early years working for Goodyear and continuing through her high-profile Supreme Court case. The movie is directed by Rachel Feldman, who co-wrote the film with Adam Prince. In addition to Clarkson, Lilly stars Josh McDermitt, Thomas Sadoski, Deirdre Lovejoy, and John Benjamin Hickey.

Now, ScreenRant can exclusively reveal a new image from Lilly. The image shows Clarkson's titular character sitting in a car, looking up at an unseen character. Lilly's eyes look bright as she gazes at the person above her.

"You think they should get away with how they treated me?" "No." Fight the power! Blue Harbor Ent. has debuted an official trailer for an indie drama titled Lilly, made by filmmaker Rachel Feldman. Arriving in theaters this May. This political thriller is based on the life of fair pay activist Lilly Ledbetter, telling her story as she takes her fight from a small town in Alabama all the way to the Supreme Court and The White House. The film premiered at the 2024 Hamptons, Heartland, Denver, and Fort Lauderdale Film Festivals last year. When a hard-working Alabama factory supervisor discovers her company has been paying her half of what her male counterparts received for 20 years, she begins a historic fight towards justice. Patricia Clarkson fiercely portrays the remarkable true story fair pay activist Lilly Ledbetter. This powerful dramatic film stars Patricia Clarkson as Lilly, along with John Benjamin Hickey, Josh McDermitt,...

Patricia Clarkson has played sinners, saints, and now, the singularly most impactful equal pay activist, Lilly Ledbetter.

Clarkson leads eponymous biopic “Lilly” about the hard-working Alabama tire factory supervisor whose goal was to lift her impoverished family into the middle class. As Lilly endures harassment in her work environment for the sake of the best paycheck in her county, she later realizes that she has been duped — and paid significantly less than her male counterparts — just as her retirement approaches. Lilly earned less than half of what her male colleagues received for 20 years, and she begins a historic fight toward justice to remedy the sexist practice.

As the official synopsis teases, Lilly “discovers that the system has been cheating her, paying her close to half of what the men with the same job were earning. Outraged, Lilly fights this injustice to the Supreme Court, the corridors of Congress, and eventually...

The 2025 Athena Film Festival has revealed this year’s festival award recipients and the 2025 Athena List, its Black List-inspired selection of unproduced screenplays focused on female leadership.

This year’s Breakthrough Award, in partnership with Netflix, goes to We Strangers writer-director Anu Valia. The $25,000 prize is given to a feature-length film directed by a first- or second-time filmmaker without a U.S. theatrical distribution deal.

The Chinonye Chukwu Emerging Writer Award goes to Vasundhara Koshy for The Laburnum House. The $10,000 prize, distributed in partnership with Christine A. Schantz, is designed to help a feature-length writer who previously participated in an Athena Film Festival Writers Lab develop their script. The award is named for the Clemency writer-director whose script for the acclaimed Alfre Woodard-starring death-row drama was on the Athena List.

And the festival will honor Jalena Keane-Lee with the second annual Jaya Award for her documentary Standing Above the Clouds,...

Exclusive: Blue Harbor Entertainment will release the Patricia Clarkson-starring drama Lilly, based on the true story of working-class hero Lilly Ledbetter, exclusively in theaters beginning May 9.

Clarkson, who was nominated for an Oscar for her supporting role of Joy Burns in 2003’s Pieces of April, stars as the title character Ledbetter, a real life Alabama tire factory supervisor who aspired to lift her family into the middle class after having grown up in poverty.

She endures a work environment plagued by pervasive harassment for the sake of the best paycheck in the county. As she looks to retire, Lilly discovers that the system has been cheating her, paying her close to half of what the men with the same jobs were earning. Outraged, she fights this injustice to the Supreme Court, the corridors of Congress and eventually the White House all while powerful forces try to shut her down.

As the 40th Santa Barbara International Film Festival comes to a close, the winning films have been chosen.

Claudia Puig, Sbiff director of programming, announced the winners on Saturday during a ceremony at El Encanto, following screenings, filmmaker Q&As, industry panels and celebrity tributes taking place throughout the city since Feb. 4.

“It’s an undeniable pleasure to celebrate such a diverse and wonderful array of winning films,” said Puig. “We have been so excited to showcase storytelling from 60 countries around the world in our slate of 185 films at Sbiff. The jury winners this year hail from Cyprus, Spain, Germany, Iran, Taiwan and the U.S. and exemplify the best of creative independent filmmaking, covering subjects ranging from immigration, pay equity, environmental dangers, unwanted pregnancy, neuroscience and hempcrete construction. Congratulations to all the winning filmmakers, and a big thank you to our dedicated jurors.”

After Zoe Saldaña received the Sbiff...

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (Sbiff) has announced the winners of their 40th annual film awards. All three short award recipients are now eligible for the 2026 Academy Awards.

“It’s an undeniable pleasure to celebrate such a diverse and wonderful array of winning films,” said Sbiff director of programming Claudia Puig. “We have been so excited to showcase storytelling from 60 countries around the world in our slate of 185 films at Sbiff. The jury winners this year exemplify the best of creative independent filmmaking, covering subjects ranging from immigration, pay equity, environmental dangers, unwanted pregnancy, neuroscience and hempcrete construction.”

The 2025 Sbiff Awards ceremony took place on Feb. 15 at the El Encanto in Santa Barbara. The winning films were chosen by jury members Margaret Lazarus, Max Barbakow, Estrella Araiza, Shawn Patterson, Jeff Christian, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Gregory Nava, Andres Castillo, and Jeff Arch.

See the full list of winners below:

Audience Choice Award: “Out of Plain Sight,...

“Satisfied,” a documentary about Renée Elise Goldsberry’s life while creating her iconic onstage role in “Hamilton” and “Black Box Diaries” — the Oscar-nominated documentary about a director’s investigation into sexual assault — are part of the 2025 Athena Film Festival at Barnard College’s line-up.

Aff announced its narrative and documentary feature lineup ahead of the event taking place from March 6-9 on the Barnard campus in New York City. This year marks the festival’s 15th anniversary and comes with a partnership between Barnard’s Athena Center for Leadership and the Women and Hollywood initiative.

“Our 2025 festival marks 15 years of championing diverse, authentic narratives through a powerful, women-centered lens,” artistic director of Aff Melissa Silverstein said. “The impact of this endeavor is shaped by the creators who bring these stories to life, as well as the audiences who support and amplify their reach.”

Check out this year’s line-up below:...

It’s ordinary people, and not superheroes, who bring about justice and change in the real world. In “Lilly,” writer-director Rachel Feldman follows the era-defining work of one such everyday woman: trailblazer Lilly Ledbetter, a pioneer from humble beginnings who took her employer, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., to court on the basis of gendered pay discrimination. But while Ledbetter’s contributions toward the fight for equal pay are immortalized with the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (which essentially states that each unfair paycheck starts a new cycle of discrimination), her legacy sadly doesn’t receive the polished and sophisticated treatment that it deserves in “Lilly,” a puzzling film that can’t decide what it wants to be.

The unfortunate inelegance of Feldman’s film announces itself right at the start, as the movie struggles to establish its tone as a narrative feature that heavily leans into documentary footage.

Countless Christian dramas are being aired on television and Ott spaces that discuss in detail faith and its impact on human decisions. Faith has a huge role to play in families and friendships if they find themself at any crossroads. The Baxters is one such show by Amazon MGM Studios that focuses on a family that are devout Christians and is going through many obstacles. They chose to turn to each other, the church, and faith to seek answers to their problems. The show was released on Prime Video on March 28, 2024.

The Baxters is a ten-episode show with a run time of twenty-two minutes to forty minutes, covering the drama that unfolds in the Baxter family. Kari Baxter, who is an interior decorator by profession, caught her husband of six years, Tim Jacobs, having an affair with his student on campus. Tim Jacobs is a professor at a local university...

Exclusive: Josh Lucas is set to star opposite Kristen Wiig in Apple TV+ comedy series Mrs. American Pie, executive produced by Laura Dern. Based on Juliet McDaniel’s book, Mrs. American Pie hails from creator Abe Sylvia (The Eyes of Tammy Faye) and director Tate Taylor (Breaking News in Yuba County). Dern also is eyeing a “key role” in the series.

Written by Sylvia and directed by Taylor, Mrs. American Pie is set during the powderkeg era of the early 1970s and follows Maxine Simmons (Wiig) and her attempt to secure her seat at America’s most exclusive table: Palm Beach high society. As Maxine attempts to cross that impermeable line between the haves and the have nots, the series asks the same questions that baffle us today: Who gets a seat at the table, how do you get a seat at the table, and what will you sacrifice to get there?...

Exclusive: Josh McDermitt (The Walking Dead) has joined Oscar nominee Patricia Clarkson, Tony Award nominee Thomas Sadoski and Josh Lucas in the cast of Lilly, the political thriller co-written and directed by Rachel Feldman, which is currently in production in Georgia.

Based on the life of Lilly Ledbetter, the Alabama woman for whom President Obama named his first piece of legislation—The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act of 2009—the film explores the psychological cost of putting one’s life on the line for justice. At the heart of the social justice drama is a love story between Lilly (Clarkson) and her husband Charles (Lucas), a man who stood by his wife despite life-threatening challenges and significant family strife.

McDermitt will play the ambitious and unethical Alabama Congressman Dan McGinty. As previously announced, Sadoski is portraying Jon Goldfarb, the Birmingham civil rights attorney who navigated Ledbetter’s legal battles.

Feldman...

Production begins this month in Atlanta, Georgia.

UK sales outfit Mister Smith Entertainment has boarded worldwide sales on Rachel Feldman’s Lilly, set to star Patricia Clarkson.

Shooting will begin this month in the US state of Georgia on the film which is based on the real-life Lilly Ledbetter, a family woman from a small Alabama town who fought for equal pay for equal work in the American courts. Her activism led to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act of 2009, the first piece of legislation signed by President Obama.

The cast also includes Josh Lucas and Thomas Sadoski. Veteran...

Exclusive: Josh Lucas (Ford v Ferrari) will join Oscar nominee Patricia Clarkson (Sharp Objects) and Tony winner Thomas Sadoski (The Newsroom) in the political thriller Lilly, which is entering production in Georgia in October.

Based on the life of Lilly Ledbetter, the Alabama woman for whom President Obama named his first piece of legislation—The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act of 2009—the film explores the psychological cost of putting one’s life on the line for justice. At the heart of the social justice drama is a love story between Lilly (Clarkson) and her husband Charles (Lucas), a man who stood by his wife despite life-threatening challenges and significant family strife.

As previously announced, Sadoski plays Jon Goldfarb, the Birmingham civil rights attorney who navigated Ledbetter’s legal battles.

Rachel Feldman is directing from a script she wrote with Adam Prince.

The independently financed film will be produced by...

Actor Thomas Sadoski has joined Patricia Clarkson in an upcoming film about the life of pay equity activist Lilly Ledbetter.

Sadoski, of HBO’s “The Newsroom,” has booked the key role of Jon Goldfarb — the civil rights attorney who backed Ledbetter all the way to the Supreme Court in her compensation battle. In 2009, President Barack Obama named a piece of legislation for her.

A David vs. Goliath tale, the film will follow the aggrieved Alabama wife and mother who railed against being paid 40% less than her male factory worker counterparts over a 20-year period. Beginning production this August, it aims to show one woman’s fight for justice while also painting a heartbreaking personal story about the tension-filled stakes behind her political achievements.

Goldfarb was by Ledbetter’s side from her first trip to Washington D.C., to her audience with the country’s highest court, to Obama’s signing...

Patricia Clarkson is set to star as political advocate and women’s rights icon Lilly Ledbetter in director Rachel Feldman’s new film “Lilly.”

Ledbetter was a factory worker who fought to end gender-based discrimination that led women to be paid less than men — a fight that continues to this day across many industries. The film “Lilly” is a political thriller that will follow her roots as an Alabama mother up through how she motivated President Obama to sign a piece of legislation in her name, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.

Feldman (“The Rookie”) is directing and co-wrote the script with Adam Prince. J. Todd Harris (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”) is producing.

“When I told my mother that I’d be playing Lilly Ledbetter, she had to put the phone down to catch her breath. Playing Lilly is truly an honor. I’m thrilled to bring this extraordinary woman to life,...

Patricia Clarkson is set to portray Lilly Ledbetter, the fair pay pioneer for whom President Obama named a piece of legislation in 2009.

The “Sharp Objects” Emmy winner will lead “Lilly,” a new indie feature from director Rachel Feldman. The script was co-written by Feldman and Adam Prince (“Junglee”), from producer J. Todd Harris.

Ledbetter was a factory worker who had been paid 40% less than her male coworkers in the same role over a 20-year period. In a David vs. Goliath struggle, the aggrieved Alabama wife and mother motivated President Obama to sign his first piece of legislation in her name. The project will follow one woman’s fight for justice, while also painting a heartbreaking personal story and the tension-filled stakes behind her political achievements.

Oscar-nominated Clarkson said she feels a personal connection to the project, hailing from a political family. She is the youngest daughter of Jackie Clarkson, a...

Editors note: Rachel Feldman is a Los Angeles-based film and television director whose credits include over 75 hours of longform movies and recent series including ABC’s The Rookie, CBS’ Blue Bloods and Criminal Minds, and MGM’s The Baxters. A former chair of the DGA Women’s Steering Committee, she is working on a political thriller based on the life of equal-pay icon Lily Ledbetter.

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A Real Doctor. A Real Director.

When you’re an accomplished woman, it’s common practice for your title to be questioned as fraudulent, as Dr. Jill Biden sadly experienced last week, the focus of a condescending piece written in the Wall Street Journal. In response, Michelle Obama tweeted, “We’re all seeing what happens to so many professional women, whether their titles are Dr., Ms., Mrs., or even First Lady: All too often, our accomplishments are met with skepticism, even derision. We’re doubted...

Exclusive: Breaking Through The Lens (Bttl), the initiative set up to promote female and non-binary filmmaking voices, has selected the 10 projects that will take part in its 2020 edition during this week’s Cannes virtual market.

For the event’s third edition it will partner with producer Kathryn M. Moseley’s One Two Twenty Entertainment, which has recent credits including Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter and Body Brokers with Michael Kenneth Wiliiams.

Run by Daphne Schmon, Emily Carlton and Elpida Stathatou, Bttl would have taken part during the physical Cannes festival in May but had to pivot to online as per the rest of the market and fest.

The 10 projects hail from seven countries and include Tokyo Talents fellow Janus Victoria’s debut feature Kodokushi, and queer ensemble buddy comedy Let’s Do This from non-binary Canadian Screen Award-nominated director Lora Campbell.

Each project will benefit from development investment from One Two Twenty Entertainment,...

Breaking Through The Lens, an initiative launched three years ago to promote emerging female directors, has unveiled the shortlist of projects vying to participate in the 3rd edition of its pitching platform set to take place during the Cannes Film Festival.

The selected projects, which will be pitched to over 100 financiers and key industry people during Cannes, were announced during the European Film Market on Feb. 25.

Spanning 13 countries, this year’s shortlist of 20 titles includes Tamika Guishard’s African dance-driven feature “Rhythm in Blues;” Daresha Kyi’s U.S. documentary “Mama Bears” which follows conservative Christian mothers whose lives are transformed as they accept their Lgbtq children; Ahd Kamel’s Saudi Arabian feature “My Driver and I” set in 80s and 90s and centering on an unlikely friendship between a privileged Saudi girl and her Nubian driver; and Laura Moss’ feature debut “Birth/Rebirth,” a female-driven Frankenstein adaptation.

Set to be announced in early April,...

Meryl Streep has jumped aboard Rachel Feldman's Lilly Ledbetter fair pay movie, Lilly.

Streep has brought her backing to Feldman and fellow producers to bring the long-gestating feature based on the life of the equal pay icon to production. The Hollywood actress earlier lent her support to calls for equal pay for women in the U.S., including raising the issue while promoting her star turn in Suffragette, in which she played the iconic political activist Emmeline Pankhurst.

Feldman will direct Lilly, which earlier had the working title Ledbetter, as it portrays Ledbetter inspiring the Fair Pay Restoration Act, the first ...

Meryl Streep has jumped aboard Rachel Feldman's Lilly Ledbetter fair pay movie, Lilly.

Streep has brought her backing to Feldman and fellow producers to bring the long-gestating feature based on the life of the equal pay icon to production. The Hollywood actress earlier lent her support to calls for equal pay for women in the U.S., including raising the issue while promoting her star turn in Suffragette, in which she played the iconic political activist Emmeline Pankhurst.

Feldman will direct Lilly, which earlier had the working title Ledbetter, as it portrays Ledbetter inspiring the Fair Pay Restoration Act, the first ...

Cannes — This past Monday, five international creatives pitched their prospective series before three jurors and a packed audience of industry watchers as part of the Canneseries In Development program, a joint venture between the upstart festival and the MipTV content market.

The event, titled “Oh My Pitch: Drama Writers’ Pitch,” hosted writers Sabrina Amerell & Alexandre Manneville, Johnny Maginn, Rachel Feldman, and Agata Koschmieder, who spoke of their four projects before a rapt crowd. As part of the hour-long session, jurors Ash Atalla (Roughcut Television), Christian Wikander (Twelve Town), and Jane Gogan (formerly RTÉ) grilled the writers regarding their goals, inspirations and targeted audiences for their pitched projects.

Following all its sessions, prominent European producer-distributor Federation Entertainment will offer one selected project cat In Development co-development, production and distribution assistance, while Gallic aid La Fabrique des Formats plans to pitch in financing help.

American showrunner Rachel Feldman spoke first, introducing her project “Kinks,...

Rachel Feldman’s “Kinks,” Monica Bellucci-starrer “Radical Eye,” Nabil Ayouch’s “Black-Out” and “Perfect Monsters,” from “Roma” producer Nicolas Celis, all figure among the 16 drama series projects to be pitched at this year’s second – and expanded – In Development, a joint venture of MipTV and Canneseries.

Also making the cut at In Development, known as well as the Cannes Drama Creative Forum, is “Twenty-Four Land,” an ambitious WWII project from Portugal, and “A Good Year,” from relatively new Flemish outfit Mockingbird Pictures. Chosen from 376 submissions, up on last year’s inaugural edition, the 16-title In Development projects will be pitched at an event which play out this year over an extended schedule of three-and-a-half days as MipTV itself places ever more emphasis on project development, not just distribution.

The spread of country of origin of projects has also grown from a still predominantly European base, but taking in titles from Mexico,...

A sex therapy drama from Blue Bloods and Criminal Minds director Rachel Feldman is one of 16 projects being lined up for Mip TV and Canneseries’ In Development event.

The French TV events have joined forces to launch the second Cannes Drama Creative Forum in April where producers and creators can pitch projects to key decision-makers, including commissioning editors and co-producers.

An international jury of drama experts including Carnival Films’ Tara Cook and Platform One Media’s Eric Pack, shortlisted the projects from a record 376 submissions from 41 countries.

Feldman’s Kinks, which follows a maverick sex therapist who teeters on the slippery slope of ethical justifications for the sake of her patients, is one of four projects set as part of the Drama Writer’s Pitch, while there are 12 projects as part of the Drama Producers’ Pitch from a range of countries.

The selected projects may be eligible for development funding...

Lilly Ledbetter, the modern-day equal pay icon, has a message for Hollywood: “Equal pay for equal work is an American right!”

Ledbetter, whose one-woman crusade led to the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act of 2009, has issued a statement that will be read Saturday at a Pay Equity Summit in Burbank to call attention to the plight of underpaid women in Hollywood’s historically female crafts.

“The film industry is a landscape of huge disparities, with those at the top earning tremendous amounts, while many workers who toil to support the process, particular in jobs primarily done by women, the pay scale is unconscionably disproportionate,” Ledbetter will say (read her statement in full below). “I stand with you in clarifying your goals, articulating your demands, and fighting for justice.”

Her message will be read at the summit by director-writer Rachel Feldman, former chair of the DGA Women’s Steering Committee,...

As calls for pay equity mount, a panel discussion and town hall meeting is being planned “to confront the longstanding practices of gender pay discrimination in Hollywood.” The Pay Equity Summit, to be held September 29 at the Animation Guild in Burbank, follows the formation the #ReelEquity coalition, which is calling on Hollywood “to end outdated and unfair compensation practices and make meaningful changes within the industry.”

Organized by Women in Media and Iatse Script Supervisors Local 871, the summit will feature a statement from Lilly Ledbetter, the modern-day equal-pay icon who has joined more than 3,500 industry figures – including Ava DuVernay, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomin, Rosanna Arquette, Don Cheadle and Mandy Moore – in signing an open letter of support for the Reel Equity campaign.

Ledbetter’s statement will be read at the summit by director Rachel Feldman, who’s working on a film about her. Ledbetter’s fight for pay equality for...

Roma Downey and sitcom Ted McGinley are set to star in “The Baxters,” the scripted family drama for Downey’s LightWorkers Media platform based on the book series by Karen Kingsbury.

Production on six half-hour episodes of the streaming series begins this week in Los Angeles. LightWorkers is a joint venture of MGM TV, Downey and Mark Burnett, Downey’s husband who also heads MGM TV and Digital. Downey is shepherding the project with Will Packer and his Will Packer Media banner. It’s targeted for premiere late this year.

“The Baxters” revolves around the lives of the adult children of a large family headed by Downey and McGinley. The two TV veterans bring a level of visibility to the first scripted series to come from Downey’s streaming platform, which aims to offer uplifting news and information and faith- and family-centric entertainment content.

“We have assembled a talented cast...

Rachel Feldman, a director, screenwriter and activist, is the former chair of the DGA Women’s Steering Committee and has taught directing at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Hollywood’s female filmmakers are hoping that the current spate of scandal exposures will challenge other entrenched sexist toxicities. Employment exclusion based on gender discrimination is certainly not sexual abuse, but it is cruel, torturous and an oppression that asserts power over women and strips them of their dignity. It’s also illegal. Sexual harassment and gender discrimination are difficult to pin down and when called out — often denied. We can...

Eleven female and minority writers have been named this year's honorees of the WGA West's TV Writer Access Program. Now in its eighth year, the goal of the program is to "promote diversity and foster inclusiveness in the entertainment industry." Honorees in the one-hour drama category are: Rachel Feldman – Kinks Adrian A. Cruz – Irwindale Sharon Hoffman – The Doubling Peter Hume – Righteous Texas Donald Joh – Mulberry Tonya Kong – Skin Deep Zak Shaikh – Runaways Mollie…...

A new report over on Deadline casts a troubling light on yet another corner of the Donald Trump administration.

Back in the fall of 2015, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began interviewing a wide variety of female film and television directors about their experience in the industry in service to an investigation into Hollywood and its potentially discriminatory hiring practices. It was a heralded move — one encouraged by the Aclu and other organizations — and one widely recognized as a major step forward in cracking open the machinations of the industry’s so-called boys’ club.

Read More: One-Third of the Films At Sundance Were Directed By Women, But That Shouldn’t Be Confused With the Real World

But now, female filmmakers and their supporters are worried that Trump’s new picks for the Eeoc might derail the ongoing investigation.

As Deadline notes, Trump has already picked Republican Victoria Lipnic to...

Exclusive: The ongoing reshuffling of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission could have dire consequences for female film and TV directors who've been hoping that the Eeoc's ongoing investigation would address Hollywood's discriminatory hiring practices. "We're all talking about it," said director Rachel Feldman, one of the more than 100 women directors who have been interviewed by Eeoc investigators over the past year. "We're all very concerned that Trump's new…...

Exclusive: The ongoing reshuffling of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission could have dire consequences for female film and TV directors who've been hoping that the Eeoc's ongoing investigation would address Hollywood's discriminatory hiring practices. "We're all talking about it," said director Rachel Feldman, one of the more than 100 women directors who have been interviewed by Eeoc investigators over the past year. "We're all very concerned that Trump's new…...

Rachel Feldman, former chair of the DGA Women's Steering Committee, knows firsthand the uphill battle women directors face. "I've heard all the excuses men and women make for not hiring women directors," she told Deadline. She was one of the leaders of the movement to get the Aclu and the Eeoc to investigate Hollywood's discriminatory hiring practices, and now she's in the biggest fight of her career: to direct a film based on the life of Lilly Ledbetter, the modern-day…...

New York Women in Film and Television, which supports female directors in film, TV, and digital media, has awarded its $7,500 Alan M. & Mildred S. Ravenal Foundation Grant to Rachel Feldman for "Ledbetter," which she will direct from a script co-written with Adam Prince. The film is based on the true story of Lilly Ledbetter, namesake of The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act. Read More: "Rachel Feldman to Direct Lilly Ledbetter Biopic" The grant aims to support the production of a dramatic feature film from a female second-time feature film director over 40 years of age. The funds may be used for pre-production, production, or post-production. Feldman, a director and screenwriter with credits in both film and television ("The Commish," "Beyond the Break"), also won this year's Writers Guild of America Drama Queen Award for Best Spec Pilot. In addition, Feldman has chaired the Directors Guild of America Women’s...

Revolution Studios has purchased the Cold Spring Pictures motion picture library. Separately, New York Women in Film & Television has announced the recipient of the Nywift Ravenal Foundation Grant.

Revolution Studios’ library acquisition includes all eight films produced by the studio from 2007 to 2012. Titles include Up In The Air (pictured), Disturbia and No Strings Attached. Cold Spring Pictures LLC was created in 2006 as a production facility to co-finance motion pictures produced by Ivan Reitman and Tom Pollock’s The Montecito Picture Company.

New York Women in Film & Television (Nywift) has presented a $7,500 grant funded by the Alan M & Mildred S Ravenal Foundation to Rachel Feldman for Ledbetter. The Nywift Ravenal Foundation Grant supports the production of a dramatic feature film from a female second-time feature film director over 40.

Update with statement by Trevorrow:

In a year that has already been filled with controversy about the gender imbalance in Hollywood, Star Wars: Episode IX director Colin Trevorrow has sparked intense criticism and some discussion in comments on Twitter that even he admits might be “naïve.”

The fracas started on Wednesday with a Los Angeles Times article noting the mixed results studios have seen in 2015 bumping untested directors from obscurity to tentpoles. Asked about criticisms that studios are taking huge chances with male directors but not extending the the same opportunity to female directors, Trevorrow drew some criticism for taking such talk personally, and for attributing the disparity in part to a lack of interest in big budget studio films on the part of up and coming women.

“Obviously it’s very lopsided, and hopefully it’s going to change as time goes on. But it hurts my feelings when...

Lilly Ledbetter, the inspiration for President Obama's fair-pay act of 2009, has signed with producer/director Rachel Feldman to film a biopic about her crusade for equal pay for women. Ledbetter endured more than two decades of sexual harassment and cronyism as she worked her way out of poverty in an Alabama Goodyear factory, only to discover she was paid 40 percent less than her male counterparts. She sued Goodyear for compensation and won $3.8 million in damages but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that decision on a technicality. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg...