Catch up with my feature via Variety‘s New York Power of Women issue:
Gotham’s Gamechanger Films has already proved it has game. Launched in August 2013, the equity financing fund for female-helmed fiction features came out of the gate with Martha Stephens’ co-directorial debut, Land Ho! The Iceland-set road comedy premiered at Sundance in 2014. Picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, it went on to win the Film Independent John Cassavetes Award. And at the recent SXSW, Gamechanger-backed The Invitation from Karyn Kusama and Fresno from Jamie Babbit premiered. Drafthouse Films just picked up The Invitation.
Not bad for the first round of funding from 36 equity partners that underwrote a five-film slate [[correction seven]].
According to Gamechanger president Mynette Louie: “Our primary challenge is that when the industry and filmmakers hear ‘film fund for women,’ they assume that we make ‘chick flicks’ — not that there’s anything wrong with those, in spite of what most film critics (80% of whom are men) think. There are a lot of people presuming to know what projects are up Gamechanger’s alley, but we really are genre- and protagonist-agnostic.”
