Today in Awesome: Female Filmmakers Are Bringing ‘Twilight’ Back

I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot in my heart for the Twilight series. Whatever, it’s not like I’m even embarrassed about it. Stephenie Meyer is the only person who has ever been able to make werewolves even a little bit sexy for me, by which I mean she made werewolves SO VERY SEXY for me, Team Jacob for life.

So now Lionsgate (the studio that produced the Twilight Saga films) is launching a super-cool project to support female filmmakers. The project, entitled “The Storytellers—New Creative Voices of The Twilight Saga,” and backed by the Women in Film organization, will crowd-source for awesome female filmmakers. The winners will create  short films, based on one of the Twilight characters, to be released on Facebook.

Stephenie Meyer, Kristen Stewart, Kate Winslet, Octavia Spencer, and a whole host of other women we adore, will sit on the panel of judges that will select the directors. More information on how to enter the contest will be made available on the site Tongal.

Meyer has a history of supporting women in film. The first Twilight film was directed by Catherine Hardwicke, and all five films in the franchise were penned by Melissa Rosenberg (it’s stupidly and insanely rare to have a female writing/directing team work on a big studio film). In the wake of the success of these films, Meyer created a film production company Fickle Fish Films, and hired female writer/director Jerusha Hess, of Napoleon Dynamite fame, to adapt and helm the 2013 Keri Russell vehicle Austenland. Meyer really puts her money where her mouth is when it comes to getting female filmmakers making films, and it’s just thrilling to see her turn her attention to female directors who have yet to break out.

“The female voice is something that has become more and more important to me as I’ve worked in the film industry,” says Meyer. “I’m honored to be working with Women In Film, Lionsgate, and Facebook on a project dedicated to giving more women a chance to be heard creatively.”

It’s really important for us to fight this good fight for female filmmakers because Hollywood is not going to change unless it receives a bananas amount of pushback for its current state. And its current state is DEPLORABLE.  From 2002 to 2012, women comprised only 4.4% of the directors of the top 100 box office films. According to San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film’s annual Celluloid Ceiling survey, women only comprise 5% of Hollywood directors, and this is actually DOWN from 9% in 1998. It’s 2014. This is absolute insanity. This glass ceiling has got to break now. So big ups to Stephenie Meyer and Lionsgate for doing their part to help smash the completely unacceptable Hollywood Glass Ceiling of Sexism.

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