LA Times Interview: ‘Diversity doesn’t just happen’; Six women in film discuss the challenges ahead2 min read

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Less than 5% of major studio movies were directed by women last year, according to a Times analysis. Boxer’s letter comes two months after the American Civil Liberties Union asked three government agencies to look into Hollywood hiring practices with a specific eye toward possible gender discrimination.

At the same time that movie studios are coming under fire for their failure to hire women, women are working in greater numbers in independent film. Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Film Festival scheduled a slate with 40% of its films directed by women.

During the festival, The Times invited five of those directors and the head of the festival, Stephanie Allain, to our newsroom to discuss the broad issue. They are Zoe Cassavetes, whose “Day Out of Days” is a sadly comic chronicle of the humiliations of being an actress; Marya Cohn, whose “The Girl in the Book” is a drama about a young assistant book editor forced to promote a male author with whom she has a disturbing personal history; Daphne McWilliams, whose documentary “In a Perfect World” confronts the challenges of boys raised by single moms; Renee Tajima-Peña, whose documentary “No Más Bebés” tells the story of the forced sterilization of Mexican immigrant mothers at a Los Angeles hospital during the 1970s; and Delila Vallot, whose documentary “Can You Dig This” profiles urban gardeners in South Los Angeles. (The interviews were conducted individually and have been edited for clarity.)

What do you think when you hear that less than 5% of studio movies last year were directed by women?

Delila Vallot: Maybe we need to learn to play golf? I don’t really fully get it. I know we used to be in cinema during the silent era. Did you know that? Tons of female directors. I guess once guys figured out it could be monetized they were like, move over “¦ and we never quite came back from that.