Half the Picture
Half the Picture
| 08 June 2018 (USA)
Half the Picture Trailers

At a pivotal moment for gender equality in Hollywood, successful women directors tell the stories of their art, lives and careers. Having endured a long history of systemic discrimination, women filmmakers may be getting the first glimpse of a future that values their voices equally.

Reviews
livinglifing

Listen, I am all for equality in the workplace and anywhere else. It's not only the law, but it is fair. Black or white, man or woman, everyone has the right to be treated with respect and given opportunities to succeed. But, if audience appeal leans towards movies by men, what are studios supposed to do? They cant change the viewing habits and preferences of millions of people. If you want more women directing films, go out and convince the public to buy the product they are offering. It's a business. Ask yourself if you would throw away your livelihood to make a brief point? To be politically correct all the time. Everyone is comfortable going with the flow until it hits them in their own wallet. Stop crying and find a better way to achieve what you want...

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rosegrimes

Excellent portrait of Hollywood's current state, relative to women directors.Entertaining and yet profound call for immediate change.A must see.

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terrybrackett

This film played at Through Women's Eyes International Film Festival in Sarasota, Florida, as well as at the Sarasota Film Festival. At TWE it played to a sold out audience and was incredibly well received.The film accurately and carefully documents the difficulty faced women directors. No surprise really, but still shocking in 2018. This is film which should be seen by every woman interested in film, whether you are in the film industry or a devoted movie goer.Through Women's Eyes can recommend this film without hesitation!!!

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JustCuriosity

Half the Picture was well-received in its regional premiere (after screening at Sundance) at Austin's SXSW Film Festival. Anyone who has followed film will have noticed the phenomenon of how few films are directed by women. Whereas 20% of Congress is now women, there have only been a mere 5 women nominated for an Oscar for Best Director. The question is "Why?" The film is mostly a talking head film in which female directors, sometimes eloquently, sometimes humorously, tell their stories about trying to make it in the ultimate "old boy's club." It is a personal and inspiring film, but seems to lack a clear explanation and direction of why sexism has held on so long to the Director's Chair in supposedly liberal Hollywood. It touches on some interesting questions without clearly exploring them. It touches on the idea of how this affects the nature of the final films but doesn't really explain it in detail. It touches on an explanation rooted less in outright sexism and more in an institutional sexism that prevents women directors from accessing financing but doesn't really dig into the issue. It touches on the history of women in cinema without fully exploring the roots of sexism in Hollywood and in the studio system as a whole Rather than just speaking to female directors, the film could have benefited by speaking to more film historians, academics, and legal who study the financing of the industry. That sort of approach could have given it more grounded scholarly focus. Oddly, the film suffers in that in trying to give women directors a voice that it never interviews a single man who might have offered supportive insight or a broader context for the deeper institutional issues. Half the Picture is inspiring, charming, and entertaining and yet it lacks depth and its scattershot approach itself only tells half the story that it could have.

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