Indies From Venus

In the winter of 2000, another “Year of the Woman” was proclaimed in the independent film scene. Reporters had either forgotten or had never known that the Sundance Film Festival had already celebrated the year of the woman in 1989, 1991 and 1993. So for trade journalists, Sundance had hit a major milestone with its notable jump in female participants, 40 percent of the candidates in the festival’s dramatic competition were female, up from 20 percent in the previous eight years. And a woman, Karyn Kusama won the Grand Jury Prize for her film, Girlfight (2000), a feminist version of Rocky, which featured a working-class teenage girl’s entrance into the amateur boxing ring. Kusama, who had financed the $1 million film through her previous employer John Sayles and the Independent Film Channel, sold Girlfight to Sony for $3 million.


Around that same time, Kimberly Peirce enjoyed the success of Boys Don’t Cry (1999). A dramatic treatment of the rape and murder of Brandon Teena, a teenaged girl passing as a boy in Falls City, Iowa. This debut film gathered critical acclaim at festivals in Toronto, Venice, London and New York just to name a few. Boys Don’t Cry won several highly coveted Independent Spirit Awards as well as an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award for Hilary Swank’s performance as Brandon. A $2 million film, it eventually made $11.5 million in domestic box office.


The success of Kusama and Peirce’s indie debuts had a good deal to do with casting, which is not to devalue their writing and screen direction, but for Girfight a publicity campaign was developed around newcomer actress Michelle Rodriguez who possessed little experience in either acting or boxing. For Boys Don’t Cry, Hilary Swank’s status as a Beverly Hills 90210 starlet turned method actor provided immediate attention. In addition to casting, these films generated a high-concept type of ‘hook’ that heightened their marketability.

The visibility of Kusama and Peirce’s debuts would seem to set them up for enduring careers in independent film. The experiences of women directors who came before them indicate, however, that the odds would not favor Peirce or Kusama.


The problem is that women who attempt to establish careers in an independent world now dominated by mini-major studios often hit a plateau after their first film. Since Girlfight Kusama has director one major flop, Aeon Flux, and a couple Episodes of Showtime’s The L Word. Peirce also has struggled post Boys Don’t Cry and in a decade has directed only one film, Stoploss, and like Kusama worked on an episode of The L Word.


Studios have squeezed out avant-garde film and documentaries, but what of women who decide to direct the narrative features so valued by major film festivals? What precisely are the hurdles for women filmmakers? What strategies of empowerment are indie women directors crafting in the narrowly circumscribed business of cinema?