Female-focused non-profit invites industry leaders to tackle diversity issues during meals with up and coming women filmmakers.
Cinefemme today announced that Simon Barrett (Blair Witch, The Guest) will host its premiere Dinner with Dames on September 22, 2016. Dinner with Dames is a unique series of networking events that pairs show business veterans with emerging female filmmakers and serves as a catalyst for conversation about gender disparity in Hollywood. The dinners will be held monthly at Los Angeles restaurants with a different mentor/host for each event. There they will dine and dialogue with up to eight women who will share their experiences and discuss the obstacles they face as women working in Hollywood.
“The process of changing the entertainment industry’s historic inaccessibility and unwelcomeness towards creators who exist outside its predominantly male system begins with the sharing of information. I look forward to participating in an event series that prioritizes selfless communication between peers,” says Barrett.
Other industry leaders slated to host future dinners include Zoe Bell (Camino, The Hateful Eight), Brandon Blake (Entertainment Attorney at BLAKE & WANG P.A.), Dean Cundey (Jurassic Park, Back to the Future), Paul Feig (Ghostbusters, Spy), Jessica Sharzer (Nerve, American Horror Story), Elvia Van Es (Vice President of Development at TLC), Joseph Weisberg (The Americans), and Byron Willinger (The Commuter, Backward Fall).
According to Michelle Kantor, Executive Director/Founder of Cinefemme, Dinner With Dames directly connects Cinefemme’s talented creators to high-level industry players, breaking down barriers of access.
“We want to help demolish the myths that there are few female directors and ideally open the doors of opportunity for women who truly deserve it,” says Kantor.
Jenna Payne, Program Director for Dinner with Dames, says, “We look forward to exploring some solutions to this problem by collaborating with men in the industry and hope to encourage film fans everywhere to support diverse projects in the theaters, on television, and on social media.”
Each of the dinners will be by invitation only. To learn more, visit the Cinefemme website.
About Cinefemme:
Cinefemme is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by women filmmakers, for women filmmakers in 2002. Cinefemme provides fiscal sponsorship to women filmmakers and artists, as well as peer-to-peer networking, mentorship, and strategy for project fundraising. By advancing women’s careers in film and the arts, we empower women’s voices to create gender parity in the arts and equal representation in the media. For more information about Cinefemme, please contact Executive Director and Founder Michelle Kantor at michelle@cinefemme.net.
http://cinefemme.net/programs/
