News Archive
Geena Davis Explains How to Have a Film Festival These Days
It was fairly early on in the coronavirus crisis when Geena Davis and Wendy Guerrero realized their Bentonville Film Festival could not go on as planned. The annual event in Bentonville, Arkansas, normally scheduled for late April or early May, was put on hold, along with virtually everything else in the world. But unlike Cannes and SXSW and Comic-Con, Bentonville 2020 is ultimately happening after all. Kicking off on August 10, this year’s Bentonville Film Festival will be held primarily via Zoom, with a few drive-in events still taking place in Bentonville. With its focus on underrepresented voices, and this year’s film slate more than 80% directed by women and 65% directed by BIPOC, the Bentonville Film Festival might look different this year, but it feels more important than ever. Read More…
Licensing International Holds Diversity and Inclusion Workshop
Madeline Di Nonno, chief executive officer, Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media at Mount Saint Mary’s University, kicked off the event with a presentation of the findings of their recent benchmarking study of diversity in the licensing industry, commissioned by Licensing International. Among other findings, the research shows that while 30 percent of companies surveyed currently have a diversity and inclusivity program in place, only 10 percent have budgeted financial support to those programs. “If you don’t measure, you don’t have any substantive understanding of where things stand or a benchmark by which to gauge success,” says Maura Regan, president, Licensing International. “This research is the crucial first step in creating real, lasting change in our companies and the global licensing community as a whole.” Read More…
As her film fest goes virtual, Geena Davis fights on for Hollywood diversity and inclusion
When Geena Davis isn’t acting, her side projects in the pursuit of diversity and inclusion keep the Oscar winner busy. Through the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, the nonprofit research and advocacy group she formed in 2004, she brings stats about representation to studio boardrooms year after year. Complementing that work is the Bentonville Film Festival, held annually in Bentonville, Ark., which she cofounded, and which has persevered to open its sixth iteration on Aug. 10 in a largely virtual edition due to the pandemic. Luckily, Davis has always been an optimist. As the festival’s mission to foster inclusivity across media continues to expand, she’s hopeful that going online this year will bring new audiences in to see what they’ve been doing in Bentonville, pop. 54,909. “We realized that this is an exciting opportunity to see how it will go over because now anybody in the world can watch these movies,” Davis said over Zoom from her home in Southern California. Read More…
College Television Awards Sets Virtual Ceremony
The College Television Awards, the annual event that honors excellence in student-produced programs in the U.S., will take place via a virtual ceremony on Saturday, May 30. The 40th edition of the ceremony caps a week in which the 98 nominees have been engaged in development with professional mentors in Los Angeles. The livestream will launch at 5 PM PT at TelevisionAcademy.com/CTA. “A College Television Award nomination is one of the highest honors aspiring students can receive because they are selected by members of the Television Academy,” said Madeline Di Nonno, chair of the Television Academy Foundation. “While these exceptional students aren’t able to come together this year in person, we wanted to ensure that this celebration would be equally special and memorable. By livestreaming the awards to a global audience, the foundation is able to provide greater exposure for our nominees than ever before. We’re very proud to have international student nominees from Israel, South Korea and Venezuela, among other countries; and now their families around the world can join in the celebration.” Read More…
Q&A with Geena Davis on A League of their Own
Cameron Bailey and Academy Award-winning actor and activist Geena Davis to discuss the sports-comedy classic, A League of their Own. Watch Video…
Institute Receives Two Gracie Awards
Two projects executive produced by Geena Davis and Institute CEO Madeline Di Nonno were recognized with the Alliance for Women in Media Foundations Gracie Awards. The Gracies recognize individual achievement and exemplary programming created by, for and about women in all facets of media and entertainment. This Changes Everything, airing on Starz won the award for best documentary, is an investigative look and analysis of gender disparity in Hollywood, featuring accounts from well-known actors, executives, and artists in the Industry. Mission Unstoppable (See Preview) received the Gracie Award for best Family Series. Produced by Litton Entertainment in collaboration with Lyda Hill Philanthropies’ IF/THEN® Initiative, the show airs weekly on CBS and features women STEM role models in a fun and innovative way to educate and inspire the next generation of STEM pioneers. Read More…
With ‘Four More Shots Please!,’ India Gets Its Own ‘Sex and the City’
When the HBO series “Sex and the City” first arrived on TV screens in 1998, sex had become “the reigning political story,” according to the writer Julie Salamon. The show was a product and a catalyst of a zeitgeist in which financially independent and imperfect women had carved out a space for themselves and their casual, raging sex lives. The show’s producer, director, cinematographer and editor are all women, an extremely rare feat in India. (In 2014, a study by U.N. Women and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media found that for every woman behind the camera in the Indian film industry, there were 6.2 men.) Read More…
Experts make the case for greater diversity and inclusion in marketing
To coincide with the launch of the WFA Marketer’s Approach to Diversity and Inclusion, WFA asked six industry leaders why they think prioritising diversity and inclusion in the marketing industry is so important. Madeline Di Nonno is CEO of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, a non-profit that advocates for the equal representation for women in media. In 2017, the Institute released the results of a seminal piece of research on more than 2,000 ads from the Cannes Lions archive, shining a light on how even some of the industry’s most celebrated work can perpetuate bias. Read More…
Women Rocking Wall Street
This guest is one for the ages. We sat down with The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, CEO, Madeline Di Nonno to discuss ways they’re encouraging television and other media to infuse intersectionality, diversity and inclusion in their content. Listen to podcast…
Disability Representation In Family Films Hits Historic High
Characters with disabilities are increasingly playing leading roles in the nation’s most popular family films, according to a new analysis. There was a lead character with a disability in 8 percent of the 100 top-grossing family films last year, a historic high. By contrast, this statistic sat at just 1 percent for most of the last decade. The findings come from a report looking at the representation of race, gender, sexuality, age, body size and disability in films released in 2019 that was produced by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media at Mount Saint Mary’s University. Read More…
