Cinema, women and magic

What does it take to make a good movie? Talent, passion, creativity, strong personality? Well, it seems that gender also plays important role in American film industry.

 According to recent researches in 2013, women made up only 16% of all directors, producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors. Only four female filmmakers have ever been nominated for an Academy Award for best director and Kathryn Bigelow is the only female director that has taken home an Oscar so far. Crazy, right?

Three brave and talented women from Minneapolis took a risk to show the world that cinema doesn’t have gender limitations. Cara Green Epstein, Maribeth Romslo and Mim Epstein made Dragonfly, a movie where screenwriter, directors, executive producers, three main characters, production designers, animator, and storyboard artist are all women.

“It wasn’t intentional, - says Maribeth. - Once we decided to make our ideas come true, we suddenly realized a really cool thing: we were three women at the helm of a feature film, something that almost never happens”.

Dragonfly is not about women. It’s about family, relations and some magic in our everyday life. It tells the story of one Minnesota family divided by divorce and illness. Young, but talented Abby Fry plays a little girl who struggles to understand her mom and herself while solving a mystery of the magical “dragonfly” mailbox.

Dragonfly is still at the stage of production, but its creators are very excited and passionate about it. They repeat after Kathryn Bigelow: “It’s irrelevant who or what directed a movie, the important thing is that you either respond to it or you don’t”.