The Berlin International Film Festival will no longer feature gendered acting awards, an August 24 press release stated. Instead of the traditional Best Actress and Best Actor awards, nominees at the 2021 festival can win the “Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance” or the “Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance.”  This announcement made by the festival’s directors, Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian, marks the first use of gender neutral awards at an international festival. The directors said, via press release, “We believe that not separating the...

While in middle school, I found myself in the beam of a youth group chaperone’s flashlight while dancing “too close” to a boy in a Michigan church. “Leave room for Jesus!” the chaperone shouted at us through the crowd of fellow awkward 13-year-olds. The incident was illuminating in more ways than one: it got me thinking about how parts of me didn’t belong in the world of religious repression, but it was also just funny as hell. Which is how I would describe the experience of...

DC Comics has made it clear they are here to not only take film, television, and comics by storm, but they intend to do so consciously and with diverse representation in mind.  On Saturday, DC Comics (which is a subsidiary of Warner Brothers) unveiled the first part of their two-part online event DC Fandome. The 24-hour fan event was jam-packed with celebrity appearances and the roll-out of new trailers for upcoming films, video games, and comic books.  COVID-19 has forced all comic cons to be canceled and...

If you liked Portrait of a Lady on Fire, get ready for Ammonite: a film starring Saoirse Ronan and Kate Winslet. Directed by Francis Lee, Ammonite has the same breathtaking seaside setting as that of a Portrait of a Lady on Fire as well as a lesbian love story set in the 1800s. Kate Winslet plays Mary Anning, a paleontologist made famous by her geological discoveries. Now retired, she makes a living off of selling common fossils to tourists in order to support herself and her ailing...

Warner Brothers' DC Comics universe showed fans sneak peeks of upcoming projects this weekend. This includes the first look at The Batman from director Matt Reeves, another Wonder Woman 1984 trailer and James Gunn’s star-studded The Suicide Squad 2 cast. The Wonder Woman 1984 teaser not only gave fans a look at Chris Pine's time-displaced WWI hero Steve Trevor, they also saw Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman fighting Kristen Wiig's Cheetah. The movie tracks Kristen Wiig’s character’s transformation from human to a human-like cheetah. “You've always had...

According to Deadline, Sony Pictures is focusing on the female characters at the center of the Marvel Universe. One of the most sought-after women directors in Hollywood, Olivia Wilde, has been chosen to direct and develop a secret Marvel film project about a female Marvel character. While not confirmed, many believe that the film will focus on Spider-Woman. Wilde’s recent directorial debut was a success with the coming-of-age movie Booksmart. Her film earned Katie Silberman a Writers Guild of America nomination for best original screenplay and...

Heartfelt and hilarious, Kris Rey’s forthcoming film I Used To Go Here explores a young woman’s self-perception and feelings of failure in a way that balances both humor and heaviness. The film follows a writer named Kate (played by Community’s Gillian Jacobs) who returns to her alma mater to promote her new novel. Steeped in nostalgia for her college days, Kate falls in with a peculiar group of undergrads and attempts to rekindle a connection with her former crush, a sordid English professor played by...

Nia DaCosta is about to become a household name. According to Deadline, DaCosta has just been tapped to direct the sequel of the highly successful Captain Marvel movie, which will make her the first ever Black woman to direct a movie for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If DaCosta's name already sounds familiar, it might be because she  directed 2018's highly acclaimed Little Woods and the upcoming Jordan Peele-produced Candyman sequel. DaCosta was born and raised in New York and attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. "There...

“We want complex characters with multifaceted experiences.” These words are the resounding call of 2020 as the confluence of the Black Lives Matter protests and queer POC activism make plain our fundamental need to redesign our media—and Maisie Richardson-Sellers is making her own wish come true. An Oxford graduate, actor, writer, and queer WOC activist—is there such thing as a quadruple threat?—Richardson-Sellers is reshaping representation within the film industry. Although many know her as Charlie on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, she is also drawing attention for her...

Charlize Theron has been at the forefront of changing how women are portrayed in action films for almost 20 years. During Friday’s San Diego Comic Con, Theron took the time to sign in from home and speak to online audiences. She discussed women in action films, how women fight, and how fear helps push her to achieve her goals.  Over the years, a lot has changed about how women are portrayed in action films. Many times, women are depicted as trophies while the men get to...