Special Feature
Provocative, captivating, powerful and empowering. These are prime descriptors for the women of the Georgia film industry, as well as the content they generate.
And they cannot be contained!
Looking forward to Women’s History Month in April, it’s as if the universe has suddenly realized: one month is not enough —women’s achievements can practically fill all twelve in the professional film industry alone.
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Kathleen Bertrand
Multifaceted recording artist and writer Kathleen Bertrand is a native Atlantan and Spelman College graduate, whose performances have ranged from two Olympic Games to ...
Giulia Bundesmann
Giulia Bundesmann has grown with Primal Screen since she first came in to lead Operations. Today she brings her decades of experience helming studios big and small to her role as CEO. Giulia aims to...
Mala Sharma
With over 20 years of experience in the music industry, Sharma has made an immeasurable impact on the field. From her work with Grammy-winning music producers...
Beth Talbert
Beth Talbert is currently the Vice President of Studio Operations for Universal Production Services at the newly constructed...
Robyn Watson
Robyn Watson is Vice President of Corporate Communications at Gannett where she leads public relations and...
Oz raises up Atlanta’s Women in Film. But first, let’s set the stage.
The Celluloid Ceiling Report: A recent study on women’s roles in the film industry helps shed light on a movement that, like all movements, can start out painfully slowly. The center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University’s (SDSU’s) School of Theatre, Television and Film, shares a report, “The Celluloid Ceiling: Employment of Behind-the-Scenes Women on Top-Grossing U.S. Films in 2022.”
For the past 25 years, The Celluloid Ceiling has tracked women’s employment on the 250 top (domestic) grossing films by monitoring credits. The report provides the longest-running, most comprehensive record of women’s behind-the-scenes employment available, the SDSU website touts.
Angi Bones
Angi Bones is the President of Production at Tyler Perry Studios. She most recently produced Six Triple Eight and...
Candice Alger
Candice Alger has over thirty years of experience in the entertainment industry in corporate management, film and video...
Evelyn Mims
Evelyn Mims is a television pioneer. In 1995, she became the first African American woman in the nation to...
Suzan Satterfield
Suzan has executive produced over 100 episodes of television and managed budgets up to 2.2 million per...
Deidre McDonald
Deidre McDonald has over thirty years of media project conceptualization and implementation as an award...
According to an excerpt:
Taking the long view, the percentage of women working as directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers increased a scant 7 percentage points from 17% in 1998 to 24% in 2022. This represents a decline of 1 percentage point from 25% in 2021. By role, women comprised 18% of directors, 19% of writers, 25% of executive producers, 31% of producers, 21% of editors, and 7% of cinematographers last year. Films with at least one woman director employed substantially more women in other key behind-the-scenes roles than films with exclusively male directors.
To look at it another way (and adding in the role of film composer), in 2022, of the top 250 domestic films, roughly 76% had no women cinematographers, while 91% lacked female composers, 82% featured no women directors, 79% no women editors, and 81% were sans women writers.
Women in Action
In 2023, female powerhouses in the film industry aren’t stooping down for the celluloid ceiling. If anything, they’re busting through it and spearheading some new statistics for all who follow.
The twenty-two featured Atlanta-based female professionals are in the upper echelon of the film industry today. Among them, the president of productions at Tyler Perry Studios; the vice president of studio operations for Universal Production Services; the founding artistic director of the BronzeLens Film Festival; an Emmy-winning independent filmmaker; a founder of the Atlanta Film Society and Women in Film and Television Atlanta (WIFTA); an executive producer managing budgets of $2 million-plus; and all of them much more … writers, producers, directors, documentarians, LA transplants, human rights activists, environmental preservationists, leading film festival jurors, and the credits go on ad infinitum.
Laronda Sutton
LaRonda Sutton is an experienced entertainment industry veteran with more than two decades of experience in film...
Fran Burst-Terranella
EMMY-winning independent filmmaker and founder of Burst Forward Pictures Inc, Fran Burst-Terranella has created more than...
Shay Bentley-Griffin
Shay Bentley-Griffin began her career as a successful talent agent, before establishing Chez Casting, Inc. to quickly become...
Saptosa Foster
Saptosa Foster is an award-winning communications strategist with nearly two decades of experience in public...
Linda Burns
Linda Burns, a 30+ year industry veteran, worked her way up from PA to Producer. She graduated from Michigan with...
“…We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation, become the future.”
– Amanda Gorman
Photo of Robyn Watson / Courtesy of Wifta
Michele Rhea Caplinger
Caplinger left her NYC musical theatre roots in the early 80’s to make Atlanta her home where she began a music career recording and performing in original alternative...
Denise Santos
Actress and Producer, Denise Santos is a long time resident of Atlanta, GA, a Miami, Florida native, and of parents from Ecuador. She is best known for her Emmy nominated, NFL Super Bowl...
Tammy Hurt
Tammy Hurt’s entire life has been about music – creating it, working in the industry, and helping others understand the role it plays not only in our hearts and our community but also in our economy...
Oz’s Women in Film are clearly killing it—and paving the way for future generations to tell their stories and dream big dreams in the process.
Channeling inspiration: In her work The Hill We Climb, national youth poet laureate Amanda Gorman addresses moving forward as a country, yet, the message behind her work so aptly applies to the incredible energy and advancements of women of film, ladies who are wisely widening the walkway for future generations of storytellers and film industry executives. “… We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation, become the future.”
Now, as it turns out, is a very good time to be a woman in film—a new female archetype of literature and art. Take a look.
