Half the Picture (2018)

One of my all time favorites.

Best movie ever!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Half the Picture (2018) is a documentary directed by Amy Adrion. The problem discussed in this movie is that women direct only a small percentage of movies. Not only that, but this percentage is not getting larger. In fact, it may be getting smaller.The weakness of the film is that it's primarily a "talking head" documentary. We hear the same problematic story from woman after woman. Even if they direct a very successful film, their phone doesn't ring with calls from producers who want them to direct another film. The consensus is that most producers are men, and they just don't trust women to properly direct a movie.I knew about the grim prospects for women directors before I saw Half the Picture, but it was useful to get the facts first hand from the directors themselves.The problem I find with a movie like this is that nobody suggests any action, except maybe discrimination lawsuits. If someone in the audience wants to help change the situation, how would they do it?If you're a movie buff and/or a feminist, this film is well worth seeking out. We saw it on the large screen at Rochester's wonderful Little Theatre. It will work well on DVD.

Excellent portrait of Hollywood's current state, relative to women directors.Entertaining and yet profound call for immediate change.A must see.

This film played at Through Women's Eyes International Film Festival in Sarasota, Florida, as well as at the Sarasota Film Festival. At TWE it played to a sold out audience and was incredibly well received.The film accurately and carefully documents the difficulty faced women directors. No surprise really, but still shocking in 2018. This is film which should be seen by every woman interested in film, whether you are in the film industry or a devoted movie goer.Through Women's Eyes can recommend this film without hesitation!!!

Half the Picture was well-received in its regional premiere (after screening at Sundance) at Austin's SXSW Film Festival. Anyone who has followed film will have noticed the phenomenon of how few films are directed by women. Whereas 20% of Congress is now women, there have only been a mere 5 women nominated for an Oscar for Best Director. The question is "Why?" The film is mostly a talking head film in which female directors, sometimes eloquently, sometimes humorously, tell their stories about trying to make it in the ultimate "old boy's club." It is a personal and inspiring film, but seems to lack a clear explanation and direction of why sexism has held on so long to the Director's Chair in supposedly liberal Hollywood. It touches on some interesting questions without clearly exploring them. It touches on the idea of how this affects the nature of the final films but doesn't really explain it in detail. It touches on an explanation rooted less in outright sexism and more in an institutional sexism that prevents women directors from accessing financing but doesn't really dig into the issue. It touches on the history of women in cinema without fully exploring the roots of sexism in Hollywood and in the studio system as a whole Rather than just speaking to female directors, the film could have benefited by speaking to more film historians, academics, and legal who study the financing of the industry. That sort of approach could have given it more grounded scholarly focus. Oddly, the film suffers in that in trying to give women directors a voice that it never interviews a single man who might have offered supportive insight or a broader context for the deeper institutional issues. Half the Picture is inspiring, charming, and entertaining and yet it lacks depth and its scattershot approach itself only tells half the story that it could have.