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48-503: Danielle Lessovitz is an American film director , producer , and screenwriter . She began her career in 2008, releasing several short films before her feature directorial debut Port Authority , which premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival 's Un Certain Regard section. She has screened her films at more than 100 film festivals worldwide. She typically casts non-actors in her films, and focuses on marginalized communities. Lessovitz

96-473: A film school to get a bachelor's degree studying film or cinema. Film students generally study the basic skills used in making a film. This includes, for example, preparation, shot lists and storyboards, blocking, communicating with professional actors, communicating with the crew, and reading scripts. Some film schools are equipped with sound stages and post-production facilities. Besides basic technical and logistical skills, students also receive education on

144-485: A flat fee for the project, as a weekly salary, or as a daily rate. A handful of top Hollywood directors made from $ 133.3 million to $ 257.95 million in 2011, such as James Cameron and Steven Spielberg , but the average United States film directors and producers made $ 89,840 in 2018. A new Hollywood director typically gets paid around $ 400,000 for directing their first studio film. The average annual salary in England

192-1096: A focus of feminist scholarship during the 1970s. These studies began by examining barriers to equity between the sexes. In later decades, researchers began to focus on the intersectionality and overlapping nature of privileges relating to sex, race , social class , sexual orientation , and other forms of social classification. Special privileges and status are granted to males in patriarchal societies. These are societies defined by male supremacy , in which males hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property. With systemic subordination of women, males gain economic, political, social, educational, and practical advantages that are more or less unavailable to women. The long-standing and unquestioned nature of such patriarchal systems, reinforced over generations, tends to make privilege invisible to holders; it can lead males who benefit from such privilege to ascribe their special status to their own individual merits and achievements, rather than to unearned advantages. In

240-400: A general plotline and let the actors improvise dialogue, while others control every aspect and demand that the actors and crew follow instructions precisely. Some directors also write their own screenplays or collaborate on screenplays with long-standing writing partners. Other directors edit or appear in their films or compose music score for their films. A film director's task is to envisage

288-417: A group have institutional power and privilege, and argue that men are now victims relative to women. Some have taken active roles in challenging oppressive sexism and misogyny , arguing that male privilege is deeply linked to the oppression of women. They describe men's oppressive behaviors as cultural traits learned within patriarchal social systems, rather than inborn biological traits. Advocates within

336-560: A homeless white man. The films premiere marked an important moment in Cannes history, as Leyna Bloom became the first black trans actress to star as lead in a film at the festival. The film was executive produced by Martin Scorsese , who Lessovitz said she was scared to reveal the final product to, explaining that "to feel like you have one of the most if not the most important American auteurs opening up his wisdom and his mentorship to you

384-686: A lot of shame for being queer. After finishing her studies at Northwestern, she travelled across the US and internationally before ending up in New York City. While in New York, she received a Master of Fine Arts in Film Directing from New York University Tisch School of the Arts , where she was awarded a fellowship for her studies and taught by, among others, Ira Sachs . She currently works as

432-432: A middle ground where we're not working in a space that's commercial or fetishistic and sort of wanting to exploit or profit off of the beautiful cultural contributions of a class of marginalized people. Kohn said that Lessovitz's "ability to address the drama's specific hook in measured terms enables this scrappy little movie to strike a quietly progressive note". Film director The film director gives direction to

480-538: A professor of filmmaking at Rutgers University . In 2012, Lessovitz made the short The Earthquake , written in 2010 after reading about Haitian communities in Queens experiencing loss from afar after the 2010 Haiti earthquake . The film is set in Brooklyn and depicts a pregnant Haitian refugee as she worries about the health of her baby. It was screened at the 30th annual Torino Film Festival. From this film, Lessovitz

528-551: A recent trend of more attention to women directors in India, brought on partly by Amazon and Netflix moving into the industry. Of the movies produced in Nollywood , women direct only 2%. There are many different awards for film directing, run by various academies , critics associations , film festivals , and guilds . The Academy Award for Best Director and Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director are considered among

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576-403: A way to translate a screenplay into a fully formed film, and then to realize this vision. To do this, they oversee the artistic and technical elements of film production. This entails organizing the film crew in such a way to achieve their vision of the film and communicating with the actors. This requires skills of group leadership, as well as the ability to maintain a singular focus even in

624-406: A white person, something that IndieWire 's Jude Dry said Lessovitz "clearly gave a lot of thought"; interviewed by the outlet from Cannes , she said: We need to have conversations, especially as white allies ... How do we tell these stories that are important to us and relevant to us? How do we do it in a way that's consistent with the deeper humanity that runs through all of us? And we need to have

672-522: A whole is a part of the issue at hand. In both India and China , male offspring are often favored over female children. Some manifestations of son preference and the devaluation of women are eliminating unwanted daughters through neglect, maltreatment, abandonment, as well as female infanticide and feticide despite laws that prohibit infanticide and sex-selective pregnancy termination. In India some of these practices have contributed to skewed sex ratios in favor of male children at birth and in

720-729: A woman for the same job. The term "male privilege" does not apply to a solitary occurrence of the use of power, but rather describes one of many systemic power structures that are interdependent and interlinked throughout societies and cultures. Privilege is not shared equally by all males. Those who most closely match an ideal masculine norm benefit the most from privilege. In Western patriarchal societies this ideal has been described as being "white, heterosexual, stoic, wealthy, strong, tough, competitive, and autonomous". Men's studies scholars refer to this ideal masculine norm as hegemonic masculinity . While essentially all males benefit from privilege to some degree, those who visibly differ from

768-520: A yearly salary from ¥4 million to ¥10 million, and the Directors Guild of Japan requires a minimum payment of ¥3.5 million. Korean directors make 300 million to 500 million won for a film, and beginning directors start out making around 50 million won. A Korean director who breaks into the Chinese market might make 1 billion won for a single film. According to a 2018 report from UNESCO ,

816-740: Is a film criticism concept that holds that a film director's film reflects the director's personal creative vision, as if they were the primary "auteur" (the French word for "author"). In spite of—and sometimes even because of—the production of the film as part of an industrial process, the auteur's creative voice is distinct enough to shine through studio interference and the collective process. Some film directors started as screenwriters , film editors , producers , actors , or film critics , as well as directing for similar media like television and commercials. Several American cinematographers have become directors, including Barry Sonnenfeld , originally

864-403: Is surreal". Taylor B. Hinds for I AM FILM wrote that Lessovitz "displaces the ... white-male role to the outskirts of the queer culture" in the film, also forcing Whitehead's character Paul to rediscover his sexuality and masculinity while engulfed in the ball scene. Lessovitz has said that she knew of ball culture from having seen Paris Is Burning as a film student, but did not know that it

912-738: Is £50,440, in Canada is $ 62,408, and in Western Australia it can range from $ 75,230 to $ 97,119. In France, the average salary is €4000 per month, paid per project. Luc Besson was the highest paid French director in 2017, making €4.44 million for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets . That same year, the top ten French directors' salaries in total represented 42% of the total directors' salaries in France. Film directors in Japan average

960-470: The gender pay gap in the United States ; the gap is usually referred to by stating women's earnings as a percentage of men's. However, using women's pay as the baseline highlights the dividend that males receive as greater earnings (32% in 2005). In commerce , male dominance in the ownership and control of financial capital and other forms of wealth has produced disproportionate male influence over

1008-435: The working classes and the hiring and firing of employees. In addition, a disproportionate burden is placed upon women in employment when they are expected to be solely responsible for child care ; they may be more likely to be fired or be denied advancement in their profession, thus putting them at an economic disadvantage relative to men. The earliest academic studies of privilege appeared with feminist scholars' work in

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1056-452: The "Male Privilege Checklist". Psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic proposes that incompetent men are disproportionately promoted into leadership positions because instead of testing rigorously for competence, employers are attracted to confidence , charisma , and narcissism . Advocates for men's rights and father's rights as well as anti-feminist men often accept that men's traditional roles are damaging to men but deny that men as

1104-1060: The Berlin/Brandenburg TV station RBB (Berlin-Brandenburg Broadcasting) and ARTE . In recent decades American directors have primarily been coming out of USC , UCLA , AFI , Columbia University , and NYU , each of which is known for cultivating a certain style of filmmaking. Notable film schools outside of the United States include Beijing Film Academy , Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica in Mexico City, Dongseo University in South Korea, FAMU in Prague, Film and Television Institute of India , HFF Munich , La Fémis in Paris, Tel Aviv University , and Vancouver Film School . Film directors usually are self-employed and hired per project based on recommendations and industry reputation. Compensation might be arranged as

1152-528: The Coen brothers' Director of Photography; Wally Pfister , cinematographer on Christopher Nolan 's three Batman films made his directorial debut with Transcendence (2014). Despite the misnomer, assistant director has become a completely separate career path and is not typically a position for aspiring directors, but there are exceptions in some countries such as India where assistant directors are indeed directors-in-training. Many film directors have attended

1200-482: The area of women's studies during the 1970s. Such scholarship began by examining barriers to equity between the sexes. In later decades, researchers began to focus on the intersectionality and overlapping nature of privileges relating to sex, race , social class , sexual orientation , and other forms of social classification. Peggy McIntosh , one of the first feminist scholars to examine male privilege, wrote about both male privilege and white privilege , using

1248-416: The belief that sons are permanent members of the birth family whereas daughters belong to their husband's family after marriage in accordance with patrilocal tradition. Other reasons include patrilineal customs whereby only sons can carry on the family name, the obligation to pay dowry to a daughter's husband or his family, and the expectation that sons will support their birth parents financially while it

1296-400: The broader men's movement oriented towards profeminism or anti-sexism argue that traditional gender roles harm both men and women. "Liberal" profeminism tends to stress the ways men suffer from these traditional roles, while more "radical" profeminism tends to emphasize male privilege and sexual inequality . Some men may also be advocates of women's rights but deny that their privilege as

1344-467: The cast and crew and creates an overall vision through which a film eventually becomes realized or noticed. Directors need to be able to mediate differences in creative visions and stay within the budget . There are many pathways to becoming a film director. Some film directors started as screenwriters , cinematographers , producers , film editors or actors. Other film directors have attended film school. Directors use different approaches. Some outline

1392-422: The director ensures that all individuals involved in the film production are working towards an identical vision for the completed film. The set of varying challenges they have to tackle has been described as "a multi-dimensional jigsaw puzzle with egos and weather thrown in for good measure". It adds to the pressure that the success of a film can influence when and how they will work again, if at all. Generally,

1440-435: The director works with the editor to edit the material into the director's cut . Well-established directors have the " final cut privilege ", meaning that they have the final say on which edit of the film is released. For other directors, the studio can order further edits without the director's permission. The director is one of the few positions that requires intimate involvement during every stage of film production . Thus,

1488-555: The existing structure of advantages may be challenged or changed. Efforts to examine the role of privilege in students' lives has become a regular feature of university education in North America. By drawing attention to the presence of privilege (including male, white, and other forms) in the lives of students, educators have sought to foster insights that can help students contribute to social justice . Such efforts include McIntosh's "invisible knapsack" model of privilege and

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1536-495: The field of sociology , male privilege is seen as embedded in the structure of social institutions, as when men are often assigned authority over women in the workforce, and benefit from women's traditional caretaking role. Privileges can be classified as either positive or negative , depending on how they affect the rest of society. Women's studies scholar Peggy McIntosh writes: We might at least start by distinguishing between positive advantages that we can work to spread, to

1584-478: The film industry throughout the world has a disproportionately higher number of male directors compared to female directors, and they provide as an example the fact that only 20% of films in Europe are directed by women. 44% of graduates from a sample of European films schools are women, and yet women are only 24% of working film directors in Europe. However only a fraction of film school graduates aspire to direct with

1632-474: The first five years. Other examples of privileging male offspring are special "praying for a son" ceremonies during pregnancy, more ceremony and festivities following the birth of a boy, listing and introducing sons before daughters, and common felicitations that associate good fortune and well-being with the number of sons. Reasons given for preferring sons to daughters include sons' role in religious family rites, which daughters are not permitted to perform, and

1680-472: The majority entering the industry in other roles. In Hollywood, women make up only 12.6 percent of film directors, as reported by a UCLA study of the 200 top theatrical films of 2017, but that number is a significant increase from 6.9% in 2016. As of 2014, there were only 20 women in the Directors Guild of Japan out of the 550 total members. Indian film directors are also greatly underrepresented by women, even compared to other countries, but there has been

1728-624: The metaphor of the "invisible knapsack" to describe a set of advantages borne, often unaware and unacknowledged, by members of privileged groups. According to McIntosh, privilege is not a result of a concerted effort to oppress those of the opposite gender; however, the inherent benefits that men gain from the systemic bias put women at an innate disadvantage. The benefits of this unspoken privilege may be described as special provisions, tools, relationships, or various other opportunities. According to McIntosh, this privilege may actually negatively affect men's development as human beings, and few question that

1776-528: The most prestigious awards for directing, and there is even an award for worst directing given out during the Golden Raspberry Awards . Male privilege Male privilege is the system of advantages or rights that are available to men on the basis of their sex . A man's access to these benefits may vary depending on how closely they match their society's ideal masculine norm . Academic studies of male privilege were

1824-548: The nature of professional relationships that occur during film production. A full degree course can be designed for up to five years of studying. Future directors usually complete short films during their enrollment. The National Film School of Denmark has the student's final projects presented on national TV. Some film schools retain the rights for their students' works. Many directors successfully prepared for making feature films by working in television. The German Film and Television Academy Berlin consequently cooperates with

1872-549: The norm may not benefit fully in certain situations, especially in the company of other men that more closely match it. Men who have experienced bullying and domestic violence in youth, in particular, may not accept the idea that they are beneficiaries of privilege. Such forms of coercive violence are linked to the idea of toxic masculinity , a specific model of manhood that creates hierarchies of dominance in which some are favored and others are harmed. The invisibility of male privilege can be seen for instance in discussions of

1920-424: The point where they are not advantages at all but simply part of the normal civic and social fabric, and negative types of advantage that unless rejected will always reinforce our present hierarchies. Some negative advantages accompanying male privilege include such things as the expectation that a man will have a better chance than a comparably qualified woman of being hired for a job, as well as being paid more than

1968-415: The position of film director is widely considered to be a highly stressful and demanding one. It has been said that "20-hour days are not unusual". Some directors also take on additional roles, such as producing, writing or editing. Under European Union law, the film director is considered the "author" or one of the authors of a film, largely as a result of the influence of auteur theory . Auteur theory

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2016-407: The restrictions of the film's budget and the demands of the producer and studio (such as the need to get a particular age rating ). Directors also play an important role in post-production . While the film is still in production, the director sends " dailies " to the film editor and explains their overall vision for the film, allowing the editor to assemble an editor's cut . In post-production,

2064-403: The sole superiors of the director are the producers and the studio that is financing the film, although sometimes the director can also be a producer of the same film. The role of a director differs from producers in that producers typically manage the logistics and business operations of the production, whereas the director is tasked with making creative decisions. The director must work within

2112-477: The stressful, fast-paced environment of a film set. Moreover, it is necessary to have an artistic eye to frame shots and to give precise feedback to cast and crew, thus, excellent communication skills are a must. Because the film director depends on the successful cooperation of many different creative individuals with possibly strongly contradicting artistic ideals and visions, they also need to possess conflict-resolution skills to mediate whenever necessary. Thus

2160-523: The writing process. Eric Kohn for IndieWire said that for the film, Lessovitz "burrows inside a persecuted world without pandering to it". Her feature film directing debut was made with Port Authority (2019), which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival 's Un Certain Regard section. The film is set in the New York ball subculture and tells the love story of Wye ( Leyna Bloom ), a black transgender woman, and Paul ( Fionn Whitehead ),

2208-689: Was born in San Francisco . She grew up in Kansas City during the 1990s, but is currently based in New York City . She identifies as a queer woman. Lessovitz uses female pronouns and sees herself as "quite genderless", explaining: "gender [is] a sort of weird thing for me, because I don't necessarily feel one way or another". Living in Kansas City, Lessovitz was surrounded by a largely evangelical community, in which she experienced

2256-689: Was honored with a New Filmmaker Award from the Philadelphia Jewish Film Society, Best Hartland short at the Kansas City Film Festival, and the Ben Lazeroff Award for screenwriting. Lessovitz's first project to participate at the Cannes Film Festival was the dramatic film Mobile Homes (2017), directed by Vladamir de Fontenay. She co-executive produced the film with Charles de Rosen and worked as an artistic collaborator with de Fontenay in

2304-467: Was still around in the 2010s until she was invited to one while in a crisis after her father's suicide; watching people vogueing gave her "respite" in this time, and speaking to drag families helped her gain a fresh understanding of family structures. The character of Paul has several parallels with Lessovitz, but she explains that his male privilege is explored in the film, something she has never experienced. The film also confronts Paul's identity as

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