AFI Conservatory Directing Workshop For Women Announces Eight New Participants
The AFI Conservatory Directing Workshop for Women (DWW), AFI’s long-running filmmaker training program committed to increasing the number of women working as directors and showrunners in film and television, has today announced its eight participants for 2017–2018.
The DWW Class of 2018 filmmakers are: Beth de Araújo, Georgia Fu, Milena Govich, Tiffany Johnson, Katrelle Kindred, Nancy Mejía, Gandja Monteiro and Lorraine Nicholson. You can find out more about each filmmaker, thanks to their official biographies, right here.
The workshop was founded in 1974 and is billed as AFI’s “hands-on training program committed to increasing the number of women working professionally in screen directing. The workshop is tuition-free and is open to women with three years or more of professional experience in the arts. It provides all participants with an immersive opportunity to learn by doing, and each participant required to complete a short film or series by the end of the program.
The 2017 DWW Showcase for this year’s graduating class of participants, who began their work in the program last year, will take place on April 18, 2017, at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles.
Additionally, the workshop has also announced that this year’s Distinguished Artist is filmmaker Paul Feig and he will next “embark on a year of mentorship, collaboration and creation to make a short film or series” to help the participants in their pursuit of professional success in narrative directing. Feig is a longtime champion of female creators, and recently met with this year’s class to chat about the year ahead.
“To meet with this amazingly impassioned group of diverse, talented filmmakers is a dream come true,” said Feig in a statement. “I salute the AFI for their strong support of female storytellers. We need their voices more than ever.”
Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
