An Evening with Melissa Silverstein

An Evening with Melissa Silverstein

The Natalie Miller Fellowship (NMF) today announced its first international guest, leading industry figure Melissa Silverstein, founder and publisher of the hugely influential Women and Hollywood site that educates, advocates and agitates for gender equality in the entertainment business.

Silverstein will visit Melbourne in July for a special evening event and visual presentation - Why Gender Equality is Vital for Hollywood. Presented by the NMF in association with the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), the free July 27 event will be a unique opportunity for the Australian industry to gain international insight into the current position of women in the screen industry.  The event will be moderated by NMF president and producer Sue Maslin (The Dressmaker).

Silverstein will provide a comprehensive overview of the Hollywood eco-system including updated statistics, decision makers in Hollywood; the numbers of women behind the scenes and on screen; the narrative that fuels Hollywood; box office data on successful female films; the growing difference between TV and film regarding women, and ways we can all be a part of making change. Her presentation will be used as a starting point for serious discussion about strategies for change that could be applied here in the Australian screen industry as well as the US.

Now celebrating its 5^th year of recognising and nurturing the next generation of female leaders in the Australian screen community, the NMF recently doubled its annual fellowship amount for the first time to $20,000. Applications for the 2016 Natalie Miller Fellowship will close on Friday 26th August 2015.

Time: 6.00 – 7.30 pm presentation and discussion, followed by complimentary informal drinks.

Date: Wednesday 27 July 2016, ACMI Federation Square

Bookings essential: https://tickets.acmi.net.au/single/selectseating.aspx?p=24654

A bank note donation is encouraged upon entry.

Melissa Silverstein is a writer and speaker with an extensive expertise in the area of women and Hollywood. She is the founder and publisher of Women and Hollywood, one of the most respected sites for issues related to women and film as well as other areas of pop culture. She is the co-founder and Artistic Director of the Athena Film Festival. The 7^th annual Festival will take place from February 9-12, 2017. She is the co-author of The Ms. Factor: The Power of Female Driven Content. This toolkit produced in association with the Producer's Guild Women's Impact Network in the US makes the economic case for the success of women's films. Melissa recently received the Marie C. Wilson Emerging Leader Award from the Ms. Foundation for Women. In 2015 she was selected to be a film envoy for the American Film Showcase, the major film diplomacy program of the U.S. Department of State. And she published the first book from Women and Hollywood, In Her Voice: Women Directors Talk Directing, which is a compilation of over 40 interviews that have appeared on the site. She has written for The Washington Post, NY Times, Forbes, More Magazine and has been featured on CNN, the BBC as well as in Newsweek, Salon, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, NY Times, and many other publications. She was a contributor to The Tattooed Girl: The Enigma of Stieg Larsson and the Secrets Behind the Most Compelling Thriller of Our Time. 

Women and Hollywood: https://blog.womenandhollywood.com/ womenandhollywood.com 

Twitter: @melsil @womenahollywood Facebook: Facebook.com/WomenandHollywood 

NATALIE MILLER FELLOWSHIP: http://www.nataliemillerfellowship.com 

Twitter: @NMFellowship    Facebook: /NatalieMillerFellowship