WHY RACING DAYLIGHT?

My mother died in august of 2000. My brother informed me, at her funeral, that he had four months to live. He lived six. Three months after he died my sister was told that the goiter she'd had removed the year before had been mispathologized and that she actually had a rare form of cancer; medullary carcinoma of the thyroid; from which she died after two years of multiple surgeries and numerous drugs.

I wrote RACING DAYLIGHT in the midst of this life changing season. It became a map through the then unknown land of grief. A place everyone visits and from which some never return. I knew then that I would make this film, it seemed so important.

Many will watch RACING DAYLIGHT and see the quirky characters, the sweet small town, and the lack of overt sex and violence and think of it as a 'girl' movie. And to that I reply, what's wrong with 'girl' movies? 52% of our population are female, and yet we talk about cinema targeted at this segment of the population as if it is second class by virtue of its 'girl' or 'chick' moniker. Its content often the stuff of life; love, loss, hope ... is a 'dick' flick (thank you, Gloria Steinam for the phrase) with guns, bombs, violence, and in-your-face pornography somehow more accurately reflective of the human condition? Is this the world to which we aspire? I hope not.

It is hard to get a film made. For men and women. It is even harder to gain distribution. Thank you VANGUARD for seeing our film as a story, well crafted, well told, and peopled with amazing actors. It's a subtle ride, so if you're looking to be hit in the face with fast paced action, this may not be for you. BUT ... If you are compelled by subtlety. If you like puzzles. If you don't mind that some things in life are not readily explainable, then this may well be a journey you'd like to take.

Come visit us in Cedarsville. The countryside is beautiful and the ghosts are friendly.

FROZEN RIVER WINS SUNDANCE JURY PRIZE!

Why, you may wonder, are we so excited at this seemingly unrelated triumph? For so many reasons, not the least of which is that it's star Melissa Leo is also our star. It's also a film written and directed by a woman with women in the lead roles.

CONGRATULATIONS COURTNEY, MELISSA, AND MISTY!!!

CONGRATULATIONS to JULIE CHRISTIE and RUBY DEE! Two women well over the Hollywood target age who gave us performances of beauty and integrity, and to Sarah Polley for daring to take us where many of us fear to travel with a blend of humor and pathos.

I've been in contact with Thelma Adams, film/DVD critic for US Weekly, and Melissa Silverstein, www.womenandhollywood.blogspot.com, to discuss the irony of a woman-guided film taking the top prize when the sundance critics' panel was again composed soley of men. Melissa Silverstein noted that the difference between male and female helmed films was reflected in the purchase prices as well, Frozen river selling for about 1 million, yet all the boy movies, like Hamlet2, sold for much more. Isn't the equation how it performs, not who made it?

WOMEN!!! Wake up! If you don't go to the polls, the movies, the anything ... or let the powers that be know you are not happy with the choices you're being offered, well ... our absence is viewed as apathy not disinterest. Get interested. Get vocal. When women vote women win.

Here's the rub ... many films made by women FOR women, not to sugggest that Frozen River falls into this category as it is a story with enormous humanity, but many female helmed films are made by women FOR women and are killed before they reach their target market, by male critics. 51% of the population is being told by Papa what's good for them, or that the reflections we cast of ourselves into the popular conversation are sub par, or of no interest, or more incredibly that our reflections of ourselves are WRONG. Huh? Seriously? What is that about? Will somebody please explain to me why this equation seems equitable? And if not, why it still exists?

The yardstick is still how men see women, not how we see ourselves. Level the playing field please. Give us more women critics! I suspect less of the traditional fare would survive a deluge of estrogen. Yes, judge my artistic content and execution, but on the intended playing field please. I DO NOT WANT SOME MODEL-DOTING TWENTY-SOMETHING TESTOSTERONE DRIVEN STUDIO EXEC, AD MAN, POLITICIAN TELLING ME WHO OR WHAT I AM. I do not want my work to be leveraged against what's come before as the only stamp of good and true. I can chew my own food, thank you.

Studio films target the testosterone driven "prick flick" market (thank you Gloria Steinam for the introduction of this apt term), consisting of 14-18 year old males, as if they are the only movie goers and the only repeat offenders. It's middle aged women who are buying those boxed sets of PBS and indie films, AND the "chick flicks" at a premium which we will watch over and over again. When I go to my local theater on a Monday night the audience is full of middle aged + women, and we're regulars. Hm ... what's missing here?

Though women directors sit in that esteemed chair far less than their male counterparts, the ratio of award winning films is disproportionate. Pay attention investors... a far greater percentage of women's films are winning awards, though less women are making films. Again I say hm ...

If I know Melissa Leo's in a film I'm going to see it. Not just because she's a friend, but because I know that the film is gonna be interesting, textured, complicated, not black and white but built in the grey-zone where most of us live. And the women are gonna be three-dimensional, not JUST moms and arm candy. I will go to see anything with Frances McDormand, Meryl Streep, Liv Tyler, Brenda Blethyn, Helen Mirrren, Judi Dench, Fanny Ardent, Sarah Polley, Drew Barrymore, Renee Zellweger and a host of other female actors worldwide who choose material that challenges the status quo, which challenge our view of women throughout history. Women who dare to tell her story. This win gives us hope. I like hope. It sure beats the alternative.

WOMEN, MAKEUP, HOLLYWOOD (if only ... at least 51%)

Sophia, our producer, has asked me to ramble about our choices regarding makeup in Racing Daylight.

Melanie Demitri is a gifted makeup artist and has worked on Emmy award winning teams for soaps, news, and has crafted public faces for many celebrities; Barbara Walters, Meredith Viera, Star Jones, and currently Cynthia McFadden ... she knows how to give glam. Melanie is an old friend. We were neighbors for over a decade in brownstone Brooklyn, she held my son when he was a week old, and he'll be 18 soon. So when we sat to talk about the makeup for Racing Daylight we knew each other well enough to talk in shorthand.

We both agreed immediately that if we could get our female actors to work without it, or the bare minimum, powder, it would help to establish the character of the piece. A story about a woman in her everyday. Many of of us, women I mean and some men, do enhance with a pencil, give ourselves lipcolor, but most of the women I see in my day to day do not wear much if any. Who has the time?!

Melissa was delighted! We gave her fake lashes, the kind that last for a bit and are placed one at a time. Not the full stripper set, much more modest. Melissa's lashes are very fair so the choice was to dye them or enhance, just so we wouldn't lose her eyes on camera. We used street makeup when Sadie becomes Anna, her more confident, sensual id. It's funny to think that the choice to tone down the makeup was considered novel even risky by members of our crew.

We shot the first Anna-Henry truck love scenes after we shot the Sadie-Henry truck scenes, where barefaced Sadie expresses her longing for the Civil War anecdote spouting Henry. Anna's hair was loose and she had a redder mouth, but the transformation from Sadie to Anna is all Melissa.

Stephen, our d.p., directs a lot of commericals and he was concerned that we would shoot Sadie so raw. Terrified that we were making a big mistake to the point of mutiny when Anna showed up without a glamor transformation armed only with an attitude. He asked,

"Aren't you gonna glam her up?"

"Nope. I'm making a point ..."

"But ..."

"... And that point is, that what makes a woman beautiful and sexy to somone is not what's on her face or body, but how she feels about herself."

Here he frowned, considering, so I continued,

"Let's get through a take, and after that, if you think it needs something more, well, then, we'll talk about it, then."

He seemd to think that was reasonable so we shot the scene. He turns to me after we cut and says,

"Female. This is a very female perception."

I'm not sure whether this is a 'chick flick' comment, but he continues,

"I like it. I feel like a voyeur to how women think. I like it. Very female."

We shot a couple more takes and moved on, issue vanished.

And this is why, as Gloria Steinam has said, "it's not a question of gender but of consciousness." We need to learn AND teach as we go, in the day to day.

All of our female actors were very comfortable with very little on their faces in front of an HD camera, which shows EVERYTHING. Brave souls. And they all look FABULOUS!

We want women to identify with themselves in our film. Since we didn't have to answer to anyone to make it, we considered what we wanted to say that would be subtly revolutionary in a film made by women who think for women who think, and the men who think with them.

As a footnote* John Seidman wears the most makeup in Racing Daylight as the transgender dress shop owner. But that's another story...

DINNER WITH MARTA AND GLORIA

I attended a dinner a few weeks ago hosted by Marta Kauffman (co-creator of "Friends"), Gloria Steinam and the Women's Media Center. There were about twenty of us, women in entertainment, in the room. Interesting women; Judith Aidoo, who learned to earn money from her mother who is from Ghana. Evidently it is women in Ghana who are the wheeler dealers. She made her money on Wall Street and is spending it in radio, owning several stations, on Broadway, backing the "Bridge and Tunnel' Broadway debut, and in film, where she has opened a studio and produced her first feature, "Blackout". Theresa McBride, a single mother from New Mexico who recently sold her technology company for 200 million. Her son is a d.p. who has worked on many worthy indie features, and she wondered why they weren't being seen. So she bought an online distribution venue and has now hooked up a deal with Regal Theatres and an as yet unamed tv network, to distribute the undistributed in a novel new way. Here's hoping "Racing Daylight" is one of the first to take advantage of this model. Fingers crossed.

Beth Fraikorn, a sales agent, Meridith Wagner of Lifetime, Melissa Silverstein, who runs several blog sites, Amy Schor Ferris, a writer, Rona Oberman was in advertising and is reinventing herself, Terry Lawler and Carey Graeber of NYWIFT, Cindy Kreager, in banking, Alysse Bezahler, a UPM, Chris Hegedus, an all around award winning filmmaker, as well as the WMC crew, Carol Jenkins, Glennda Testone, Kathy Vermazen, and Rebekah Spicuglia, all accomplished women before they came together to champion women in the media.

We were told that a similar event had been held in LA a few months earlier with the same mandate; for women to make back room deals just as men do.

Now I've got to say that when I received the invitation I thought I was being invited to listen to a panel of talking heads bandy about the woeful state of women in the entertainment industry. After all the women's movement came to a standstill about 10 years ago and the numbers on women in Hollywood have backslid, so clearly there's a lot to talk about. But as the day apporached and the emails grew more detailed I realized we were being called to a summit. And it was in fact several hours of constructive talk. Not complaining, but brainstorming over excellent food, wine, and service. We talked about our kids, our lives, and our work, and I felt, on the drive home, that something had shifted.

The immediate impact on my projects; "Racing Daylight" and the upcoming "Slap&Tickle" will be known in the coming weeks. But the drums are beating. The call to action has been made. It is time to empower ourselves, to stop waiting for the 'guys' to let us into the backroom. Thanks to all of these amazing women who have invited me into the 'new' backroom, which was a private dining room at the Four Seasons. May we rally to renew a sense of consciousness not only in our media, but in our lives.