Female directors to tip Oscar stat

After bright career, Sutherland finally nabs an Academy Award

NEW YORK, Nov 9, (AP): Four.

It’s one of the most glaring numbers in Academy Awards history. That’s how many women have been nominated for best director in the awards’ 89 years of existence. Kathryn Bigelow, for “The Hurt Locker” in 2010, is the only woman to win.

“I have to say it really bums me out,” says Greta Gerwig, whose solo directorial debut, “Lady Bird,” opened last week in limited release. “Every year I see the list of people who are in the running for best director. Kathryn Bigelow got in — that’s one. Every year they nominate five guys. Every year. And four women have been nominated in the history of the Academy Awards. That’s ridiculous. And it pisses me off.”

This year, those lists may be different — or, at least, it will be especially confounding if they aren’t.

Gerwig’s sharply observed coming-of-age tale “Lady Bird,” for one, is among the most acclaimed films of the year. Patty Jenkins’ summer sensation “Wonder Woman” was a runaway hit with both audiences and critics. Next week, Dee Rees will release her Sundance Film Festival hit, the Mississippi period drama “Mudbound.” Handicapping for March’s Academy Awards is early, but each — particularly Gerwig and “Lady Bird” — is considered among the possible nominees for best picture and for best director.

While Hollywood has been overrun with the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the harsh light it has thrown on widespread gender imbalances throughout the industry, movie screens nationwide have been aglow with ambitious films by female directors who are beating the odds stacked against them.

Oscar nominations won’t change the overwhelming maleness of the industry, where greenlighting executives, top agents and academy members (despite recent efforts to reshape membership) remain overwhelmingly male. The discrepancy is particularly pronounced behind the camera, where women comprised only seven percent of directors on the 250 highest-grossing domestic releases in 2016, according to an annual study by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University. That’s two percentage points less than in 1998.

But as the “OscarsSoWhite” protest of recent years has shown, the Academy Awards can throw a spotlight on wider industry inequality.

“The severe gender imbalance strikes me as a source of considerable potential embarrassment for the academy,” said film professor Martha Lauzen, author of the San Diego State study. “Typically, a few high-profile individuals can skew our perceptions about how members of a certain group are faring but result in little, if any, substantial change. This year could prove to be unique in that nerves regarding this issue are raw.”

Long before hundreds of women began coming forward with allegations of sexual harassment and assault against Weinstein, director James Toback, producer Brett Ratner and many others, 2017 has been a movie year in many ways defined by female filmmakers. Bigelow, who thought her Oscar win would lead to some industry change, released her powerful race riot docudrama “Detroit.” Sofia Coppola, one of the four ever nominees (Lina Wertmuller and Jane Campion are the others), became just the second woman to win the directing prize at the Cannes Film Festival (another cinema institution with a poor track record of gender balance) for her point-of-view-flipping Civil War drama “The Beguiled.”

Astonishing

But there have been many more, too, including the astonishing festival selection “The Rider” by Chloe Zhao (Sony Pictures Classics will release it next year), Angelina Jolie’s intimate Cambodian genocide drama (Cambodia’s Oscar submission), Rebecca Miller’s tender documentary of her father, the playwright Arthur Miller (set to air next year) and Angela Robinson’s Wonder Woman origin story “Professor Marston and the Wonder Women.” It’s worth noting that both “Detroit” and “Professor Marston” were released by Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures, one of the few femaleled powerhouse production companies in Hollywood.

Robinson, noting the record-setting box office for Jenkins’ “Wonder Woman” (its $821.8 million worldwide gross is the most for a movie directed by a woman) has felt a hint of change is in the air.

“I do feel like there’s some give. Usually I feel like I’m banging against a rock wall,” says Robinson. “I do feel that there is a kind of energy and a kind of galvanizing anger happening that’s demanding that there be

LOS ANGELES:

“Harry Potter” thespian Evanna Lynch is starring in independent drama “Indigo Valley,” about a honeymoon trek in the Icelandic wilderness.

The project was unveiled last week at the American Film Market as a US-UK-Icelandic co-production, with Courtney Harmstone producing. “Indigo Valley” is based on a short film by Jaclyn more representation of voices.”

Rees, whose breakout film “Pariah” was about a 17-year-old lesbian African-American woman coming to terms with her identity, believes awareness for gender imbalance in the industry has increased but the dayto-day reality is still very much “a work in progress.”

“Until it’s a non-story, you know we’re not there yet,” said Rees.

It’s especially fitting that this year has also brought a new film from 89-year-old Agnes Varda, the Belgianborn filmmaking legend who was one of the leading directors of the French New Wave. Her road-trip odyssey “Faces Places,” co-directed with the street artist JR, took Cannes’ documentary award, and it has since ranked among the most celebrated movies of the year.

Also: BEVERLY HILLS, Calif:

For every era of film in the last half-century, there’s a memorable Donald Sutherland role.

Whether it’s his breakthrough performance in “The Dirty Dozen,” his portrayal of demented arsonist in “Backdraft” or playing a ruthless president in “The Hunger Games” films, Sutherland’s career spans roughly 140 films in every genre, his performances tinged with wit, charm, and often a hint of unpredictability.

None, however, have earned Sutherland an Academy Award, let alone a nomination. That will change Saturday when Sutherland receives an honorary Oscar at the film academy’s ninth annual Governors Awards ceremony.

Although Sutherland has known about the honor for weeks, it doesn’t mean he isn’t feeling some jitters.

“It had never occurred to me not even remotely ... that people would think to honor me in such a way,” Sutherland said during a recent interview.

“It’s a dinner,” he said of the ceremony, “and if you think I’m going to eat, you’re nuts.”

He likened the experience to carrying the flag of his native Canada in the Vancouver Olympics in 2010 and trying to keep up with the pageantry of the moment. “All I could think of in the middle of it was that I wished that my mother, who had been dead for probably 20 years, could see me now,” he said. “And I feel kind of that way. I wish Brian Hutton were alive and could see me now.” Bethany, who will direct and star in the film. The story follows a newlywed couple on a hiking trip as they’re unexpectedly joined by the woman’s estranged older sister, an actress recently released from rehab.

Bethany will play the older sister and Lynch will portray her newlywed sister. Jealousy, insecurity, and sexual tension run high in