This Week at IFP: The Film Fatales Discuss their Origins
by Erik Luers on June 6, 2014 in Uncategorized
As we well know, the nuts and bolts of filmmaking can be tough business. Thus, the support and appreciation from peers can be invaluable. Last week, the Film Fatales, a “collective of female filmmakers based in New York who have written or directed at least one feature narrative or documentary film,” made a stop at the Made in NY Media Center by IFP in DUMBO to provide insight and support to an appreciative and primarily female audience of IFP members. Inspired by a recent article in Filmmaker Magazine by fellow Fatale member Danielle Lurie, the event gathered filmmakers Ingrid Jungermann (F to 7th), Deborah Kampmeier (Hounddog) and IFP alumnus Paola Mendoza (Entre Nos), Ry Russo Young (Nobody Walks), Malika Zouhali-Worrall (Call Me Kuchu) and Fatales founder Leah Meyerhoff (I Believe in Unicorns) to discuss both the collective’s origins and reason for being. Indiewire and other media outlets were on the scene to document the event.
“In 2012 I got an email from Leah Meyerhoff,” Lurie started, “which was sent to about ten women. The email said, ‘you are getting this email because you made a feature film, you are a woman and we think we need to stick together. Come to my house in Brooklyn, let’s have some wine and some olives, and let’s talk.'”
The Film Fatales served as a support group in more ways than one, putting members in direct contact with people in the industry. “After that meeting,” Lurie continued, “we went around the group again and asked everyone what they needed. Did they need a cinematographer? Do they need money for a film about deafness (one example)? What ended up happening was this incredible thing where before people could say what they needed and others would start offering solutions. And we realized what we had was a group of women, a huge support network, that not only supported us in our struggles, but who were also wonderful resources that we could tap into if we asked. As women, we sometimes feel a little bit isolated and we don’t always ask. This is a group we can ask for help and we get it.”
Reflecting on her first encounter with the Fatales, Deborah Kampmeier, who gained much publicity for 2007 feature, Hounddog starring Dakota Fanning, spoke with honesty about the struggles she had been dealing with. “I was so thrilled to get the invite. I had wanted a community like this for 15 years. After I made my first feature, nominated for a couple of Spirit awards, I thought ‘yes! Here we go! It had been such a struggle.’ And I was not let in to the boy’s club. It took me a large amount of time to get my next feature made. And it’s not that I didn’t have another project ready to go. I was ready to go with the next one – I was trying to get my second feature ready to go five years before my first feature – and the last one went to Sundance and….I felt so isolated and so frustrated and so angry. I remember coming into the first Fatale meeting and I somehow had this idea it was going to be this cozy and touchy-feely meeting. I received a lot of tough love. I felt a little embarrassed when I left, like I could cry. And then I came to the second meeting and I cried again! Leah said to me, ‘Debra, do you really need that much money [to make another feature]?’ And I sat back and I decided I couldn’t make that feature for a few hundred thousand but that I was going to make a different feature for that amount. That’s what I did, and I did it because I got tough love from this group of women. It was very tough, it was very practical and it was great.”
Although the success of women filmmakers has been well documented, they still serve as a minority in the motion picture industry, both in the City of Angels and across the country. Set with realistic expectations, the Fatales hope to enforce change to an all too familiar system. “I think the numbers are six percent of Hollywood directors are women and in the independent world it’s about sixteen percent,” Meyerhoff noted, less surprised than frustrated. “It’s nowhere near fifty percent and those numbers have been the same for the past thirty years. Those statistics are pretty abysmal and upsetting. Instead of harping on that, I thought, ‘why don’t we all get together and figure out how we can help each other make our films.'” In the past year we have seen women from Fatales go on to co-write or co-direct with each other or recommend cinematographers….Right now, as I’m traveling the festival circuit with my film, I run into other Fatales all over the place. Obvious Child is another Fatale project. It ends up being this wonderful global network of women, and since we started the group, we’ve inspired other similar groups to start in Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, Austin….we’re just now started a chapter in London. It really is a ‘do it yourself’ community. Instead of waiting around for someone else to come help you make your film, you can help each other make films.”
For more information on the Film Fatales, feel free to check out their website here.