AMPAS ADDS WOMEN DIRECTORS: With our commitment to reviewing all new releases written and/or directed by women, FF2 Media now plays an important role in breaking down barriers. AMPAS invited 683 new members this year, 49 of whom are female directors. Who are they? What are their stories? We already know them, and we are here to tell you!
Patricia Rozema is a Canadian film director, writer and producer who studied philosophy and English literature at Calvin College in Michigan. After a brief stint as a print and then television journalist, Rozema directed her first feature, I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing which won the Prix de la Jeunesse at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.
Rozema also directed the Six Gestures which was nominated for a Grammy and was awarded a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Classical Music-Dance Program. She then directed the romance, When Night Is Falling followed by Mansfield Park and Happy Days.
In 2008, she directed Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, which earned her a Director’s Guild of Canada Award nomination for Best Director. Rozema and co-writer Michael Suscy received an Emmy nomination for the 2009 HBO movie Grey Gardens.
Rozema’s newest film Into the Forest, starring Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2015.
Excerpt of FF2 Media review of Kit Kittredge: An American Girl from August 15, 2009:
Before I went to see Kit Kittredge, I was worried about being distracted. Would I sit in my seat busily comparing the movie with the books I’d enjoyed reading so much? But I left the theatre greatly impressed. With or without the books, Kit Kittredge is a wonderful movie for everyone: for families, teenagers, and adult friends too.
Read full review: http://www.films42.com/feature/kitkittredgebecca.pdf
Excerpt of FF2 Media review of Into the Forest from July 29, 2016:
From writer-director Patricia Rozema, Into the Forest is a story of sisters struggling to survive in – pause for suspense – the forest. Set in the near future, sisters “Nell” (Ellen Page) and “Eva” (Evan Rachel Wood) live in a society that has become increasingly reliant on electricity for basic survival. When an unidentified force cuts off the power supply, 300 million people are left without the technology required for daily life. But what these two need the most to survive isn’t emergency generators or cans of food, it’s each other.
Read full review: https://ff2media.azurewebsites.net/thehotpinkpen/2016/07/29/into-the-forest/
Read more about Patricia Rozema: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Rozema
Photo Credits: MANSFIELD PARK, Director Patricia Rozema on set, 1999, Miramax
