The Academy Awards are this Sunday, February 26th. Examiner.com had the opportunity to attend a very special reception recently where some of the most important women in Hollywood were honored and in attendance. It was the Athena Film Festival Opening Night at Barnard College. A production of Barnard’s Athena Center for Leadership Studies and Women and Hollywood, the Festival boasts a diverse range of films that exemplify its mission—to illuminate the stories of courageous women who have made a difference across the globe.
2012 Athena Film Festival Award Winners included Rachael Horovitz (Moneyball, Grey Gardens); Julie Taymor (SPIDER-MAN: Turn Off the Dark, Across the Universe, Frida); Dee Rees and Nekisa Cooper (Pariah); Theresa Rebeck (Seminar, Omnium Gatherum, Smash) and Julia Barry accepting the The Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of her late mother.
Other attendees included: Kathryn Kolbert (co-Founder of the Festival and the Constance Hess Williams Director of the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College), Melissa Silverstein (co-Founder and artistic director of the Festival and founder of website Women and Hollywood), Debora Spar (President, Barnard College), Katie Couric (Presenter of The Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement Award), MC of the Evening Lizz Winstead (Co-Founder of Air America Radio), Gloria Steinem, Caroline Hirsch (Founder, Caroline’s on Broadway, New York Comedy Festival) and 'Sparkle' Producer Debra Martin Chase.
It was inspiring to be surrounded by all of these amazing women in Hollywood. "I'm sort of overhwhelmed by it...you know you work for a long time and you kind of never think that anybody notices in a way, so it's great to be a acknowledged by a lot of women I respect by an institution I have so much respect for," said 'Smash' creator and executive producer Theresa Rebeck. It is a fact that there is an imbalance of power in Hollywood. "The numbers are terrible, five percecnt of films produced are directed by women, in television the women are vastly outnumbered by men, there's very much a boys club...and the assumption of a boys club, you know when you're the only woman in the room with thirteen guys repeatedly, you know there's a problem and that's my life experience," Rebeck continued.
Theresa hopes that more women will rise to positions of power in Hollywood. When we asked her if she had an important mentor, she said, "You know I actually think that's why these events are important and that's something that has been lacking, and then I have seen a lot of men being mentored and protected by men in the system in a way that there haven't been enough women in the system. My friend Julia Jordan really worked on the numbers for the theater and in the arts, she's done a lot of research, there's something that's holding the number of women in power in the media to about seventeen percent, she's very curious about why that number tends to never waiver."
'Moneyball' Producer Rachael Horovitz said, "I want to support an event like this because I think that it can only help young women." Horovitz says that an important female mentor of hers was producer Laura Ziskin (who had a lifetime acheivement award created in her name on that evening.) "It's infinite what she did for me, Laura Ziskin recently died and her daughter is here tonight. She was a fanastic producer and also a life force and when she was quite ill, I was struggling with a project and she told me to keep fighting and it was because of her words that I did." Horovitz says her advice to other young women who want to be producers or succeed in entertainment is "to keep fighting. Sounds very simplistic, but it's very difficult to do and nobody wants to keep fighting. It's a lot easier to stop fighting, it's not fun to fight and yet it's very important to fight." She added, "There's a hierachy and people only really want to talk to people with power and most of the people with power are male, so that is the challenge."
When asked what her advice is for aspiring producers Horovitz said, "I would definitely advise you, if you're trying to make your first film, to keep the budget as tiny as possible and everybody saw 'Tiny Furniture' and you see what can be done on a miniscule budget and that kind of money isn't hard to raise if you have a good script. One of my favorite contemporary filmmakers is Greg Mattola and his first film which was 'The Daytrippers,' which is briliant, I think was made on that kind of budget. That work is as good as any other film he's made and it only cost about $25,000 to make."
Debra Martin Chase, produced Whitney Houston's last film 'Sparkle.' She also produced such hits as 'Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants' and 'The Princess Diaries.' "A producer is a combination of common sense, passion for film, understanding how the business works and then just going for it, finding that property that's really great, meeting, developing relationships with actors and directors, so you can pull stuff together and package it and like anything else in the entertainment business a little bit of luck always helps," Chase told us on the red carpet.
Last but not least when asked what two empowering films she enjoyed this Academy Season, Julie Taymor told reporters 'Albert Nobbs' and 'The Iron Lady.'
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