Women Take the Reel
Films and lectures celebrate Women’s History Month
BU Today
By Allison Thomasseau
3-22-2011
Last year, when Kathryn Bigelow became the first female to receive an Oscar for best director for The Hurt Locker, many hailed the win as a milestone for women in Hollywood. This year, however, the best director nominees were once again all men. Critics say that the lack of films helmed by women means that too often society is deprived of different points of view.
To counter that imbalance, Boston University’s Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program (WGSSP), in collaboration with the Graduate Consortium of Women’s Studies (GCWS), is sponsoring the film festival Women Take the Reel. The festival celebrates Women’s History Month and featuries movies directed and/or written by women. As part of the festival, the film Thirteen, starring Holly Hunter and cowritten and directed by Catherine Hardwicke, will be shown on campus today, March 22, at 6 p.m. A related lecture by Kathleen Rowe Karlyn, a University of Oregon associate professor and author of Unruly Girls, Unrepentant Mothers: Redefining Feminism on Screen (University of Texas Press, 2011), will take place the following day at 3 p.m.