SPOTLIGHT – Page 2 – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

SPOTLIGHT November 2025: Violet Du Feng, Filmmaker, THE DATING GAME

October 30, 2025October 31, 2025 Leslie Combemale Harbor from the Holocaust, Nanking, The Dating Game, Violet Du Feng, With Please Remember Me

Emmy award winning producer and director Violet Du Feng has one of those fascinating careers full of fearless choices and independent thinking. It could be studied for clues to success by aspiring documentary filmmakers everywhere. Her place in the film community hasn’t come easily. Culturally, she exists as both an insider and outsider of two worlds, her native China and her adopted land, the US. At times that leads to struggle, but often it allows her to examine societal issues from a unique and insightful perspective.

SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT October 2025: Darlene Naponse, First Nations Activist and Filmmaker, AKI

September 28, 2025October 3, 2025 Leslie Combemale Aki, Anishinaabe filmmaker, Atikameksheng First Nation, Baswewe Films, Darlene Naponse, En’owkin Centre, Jennifer Weiss, National Aboriginal Professional Training Program, Northern Ontario, Rebecca Belmore, Simone Urdi, sundance film festival, The Film Farm

Darlene Naponse’s essential comment: “I could have made very different films if I’d been somewhere else, but I decided to stay in community and work in and with community. I could have stayed in the city and had that network to draw on, and it was longer getting and building a network and building and getting my career out, but it was really important. When I was starting out I was wanting to tell a lot of stories specifically because there was so much perception around indigenous people that was not correct, and I was challenging those perspectives. It’s really essential getting to tell your own story the way you want to.”

SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT September 2025: Anu Valia, Filmmaker, WE STRANGERS

August 31, 2025September 1, 2025 Leslie Combemale Anu Valia, CollegeHumor, immigrant parents, Kirby Howell-Batiste, leslie combemale, New York Film Academy, NYU, reframe, ReFrame Rise, sundance institute, tisch school of the arts, We Strangers, women in film

A recent Movie of the Week for AWFJ, We Strangers, bowled over the entire MOTW team. Though it is writer/director Anu Valia’s feature film debut, it shows a remarkable agility with storytelling and a clear commitment and trust with her collaborators both above and below the line. Valia is no stranger to creating art onscreen, having helmed and penned the Sundance Film Festival darling Lucia, Before and After, which won the Short Film July Award at the fest in 2017. She’s also been directing for the small screen for years. Shortly before the release of We Strangers, it was announced she was selected as one of the filmmakers in the WIF (formerly Women in Film) and ReFrame’s new class of ReFrame Rise for 2025 and 2026.

SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT August 2025: Amie Doherty, Composer and Orchestrator, FREAKIER FRIDAY

August 1, 2025August 1, 2025 Leslie Combemale Amie Doherty, ascap, berklee college of music, Dave Matthews Band, disney, dreamworks, Ellie Cumming, freakier friday, jeff russo, Nisha Ganatra, spotlight, Sundance Institute Music and Sound Design

Amie Doherty is an extraordinarily talented, inspired and creative composer doing wonderful work in her field, regardless of her gender. She’s a trailblazer who continuously develops and expands her own aesthetic as a musician and artist through her career choices. She has collaborated with female directors — with Nisha Ganatra, Clea DuVal, Elaine Bogan, and Jessica Gao, to be specific — who choose to hire female composers. And, she has been generous in opening opportunities for other women composers, orchestrators and conductors. She shares her experiences with AWFJ in an exclusive interview.

SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT July 2025: Millicent Simmonds, Deaf Actress and Disabilities Pride Advocate

June 29, 2025July 3, 2025 Leslie Combemale a quiet place, American Sign Language, ASL, Ballerina Overdrive, Color the World, deaf actor, Deaf community onscreen, Disability Pride, Emily Simmonds, Grey House, millicent simmonds, nywift muse award, spotlight, Wonderstruck

For July, which is Disability Pride Month, we focus our monthly SPOTLIGHT on actress and activist Millicent Simmonds who has portrayed complex and compelling Deaf characters on screen since her childhood. Millie, as she’s known to family and friends, has consistently advocated for a more enlightened understanding of folks with disabilities. She continues to redefine what it means to be a ‘Deaf actor.’ As the host of the 2021 Media Access Awards, she used ASL to sign that she is “not a Deaf actor, but an actor who happens to be Deaf.” She has brought to life unforgettable characters including Regan Abbott in A Quiet Place, and she has leveraged her success in the service of advocacy for better accessibility for the Deaf. Millicent Simmonds is a perfect representative for Disability Pride.

SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT June 2025: Cheryl Dunye, Iconic Queer Filmmaker

June 1, 2025June 4, 2025 Leslie Combemale Ava DuVernay, Cheryl Dunye, Dunyementary, Jingletown Films, Karina Hodoyán, leslie combemale, national film registry, Shaz Bennett, spotlight, the criterion collection, The Gilda Stories

It’s high time we created a SPOTLGHT feature on trailblazing female filmmaker Cheryl Dunye. Her 1996 feature film debut, The Watermelon Woman, made history as the first feature-length narrative written and directed by an out Black lesbian about Black lesbians. Along with classics like My Own Private Idaho and Paris is Burning, the film is considered a seminal work of the Queer New Wave movement. Dunye quite literally invented a film genre, the “Dunyementary,” a style of cinema in which the lines of documentary, fiction, and personal life are blurred together. Many films, projects on the small screen, and art videography have been inspired by her work over the years. These projects, that center queerness or Blackness or both, would otherwise not exist.

SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT May 2025: Rachel Feldman, Filmmaker, LILLY

May 1, 2025May 1, 2025 Leslie Combemale blue harbor entertainment, brian de palma, leslie combemale, Lilly, nyu film school, patricia clarkson, Rachel Benoff, Rachel Feldman, spotlight, Steven Bochco

Rachel Feldman has been an activist for fair pay and women’s equality in the film world for decades. After a successful career as a child actor, she trained as a writer, and director, ultimately building a career as an episodic director and advocating for women in front of and behind the camera way before it was “in fashion”. She’s been writing guest articles, committing to better onscreen representation for women and diverse voices, and just generally standing completely outside most people’s comfort zones for her entire career. Those choices have culminated in Lilly, a film she co-wrote, actively produced, and directed. This story of courage, gumption, and working class heroism is her first narrative feature releasing in theaters. It may have taken way longer than it should have, but the tale she tells is a big screen debut that suits her perfectly.

SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT April 2025: LISA CORTES, Film Producer, Director, Activist

March 30, 2025March 30, 2025 Leslie Combemale All In: The Fight for Democracy, Cortes Filmworks, Def Jam, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, lee daniels, lisa cortes, little richard i am everything, liz garbus, Monster’s Ball, New York Film Academy, New York Women in Film and Television’s Muse Awards., precious, Shola Lynch, Yale

Lisa Cortés is the perfect example of a woman who found the less-traveled way to success, and did so not once but twice. She is an inspiration for all aspiring women in film, whether they’re working above or below the line, who believe in their talent and have a vision for themselves and their careers. She has gone from bringing new artists and music to fans around the world to completely pivoting to a new career, creating award-winning films that expose the world to subjects ‘overlooked by the mainstream’. Each new project promises another fascinating often under appreciated or understood subject. We can’t wait to follow her as she brings each one to the screen!

SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT March 2025: Mona Fastvold, Filmmaker, Oscar Contender, THE BRUTALIST

March 1, 2025March 4, 2025 Christina Jeurling Birro best original screenplay, Brady Corbet, Christopher Abbott, female directors, female screenwriters, Mona Fastvold, oscars 2025, Sondre Lerche, spotlight, The Brutalist, The Sleepwalker, vox lux

2025 not only elevates Fastvold into Hollywood’s Oscar pantheon, this year will see the release of a new feature, a femme-centric truth-based musical biopic about Ann Lee, the leading founder of the Shaker movement, who was proclaimed the female Christ by her followers. Again, Fastvold and Brady Corbet collaborated on the script, but this time she is directing and he is credited as a producer. Amanda Seyfried stars in the titular role, and the ensemble includes Christopher Abbott and Tim Blake Nelson. Working in an equal and ongoing filmmaking partnership with Brady Corbet, Mona Fastwold is utilizing the full repertoire of her talents and skills to take full command of her career. The AWFJ March 2025 SPOTLIGHT is on Mona, and we look forward to experiencing more of the Fastvold cinematic universe!

SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT February 2025: Rachel Morrison, Director, THE FIRE INSIDE

January 30, 2025January 30, 2025 Leslie Combemale american sociey of cinematographers, asc, Cameraperson, cinematographer, dee rees, mudbound, oscars, rachel morrison, ryan coogler, the fire inside, women cinematographers. female directors

Cinematographer/director Rachel Morrison has the distinction of being the first female DP to be both nominated for an Academy Award, for the 2012 Dee Rees drama Mudbound, and lens a Marvel feature film, with 2018’s Black Panther. As an Oscar nominee, she broke a 90-year male monopoly on the category. Although she is a trailblazer and an outspoken advocate for women in film, she has said she wishes nothing better than for the screen industries to get beyond gender, and for women to be known simply for their work. Only through talented women like Rachel Morrison getting hired and recognized will that be achieved. When she was inducted as a member of the American Society of Cinematographers, only 18 out of the 390 members were women.