Backstage at Sundance 2008

» Need inspiration? Check out these women

As my colleague Kate Sheofsky pointed out in her earlier blog post, Game On, Sundance is a place to get inspired. I found inspiration in many different places – not the least of which was my meeting with two women who are making their way through the male-dominated area of documentary filmmaking, Susan Turley and Annie Roney.

Turley is a producer from Berkeley, California, who actually got into the business through her friend, Annie Roney, a documentary producer with Ro*co Films. Roney has the distinction of being the only documentary producer to have six of her films nominated for Academy Awards - including one win for Born into Brothels in 2004.

© Wireimage Pimentel
Lisa Tucker speaks to Susan Turley in the HP Broadcast Studio at Sundance.

It was Roney’s Oscar-nominated movie, Promises, which first got Turley into the business. After viewing the movie, Turley says she had an “epiphany”. With tears running down her face, she turned to her husband and said, “I have to do that.”

Turley started working for Roney soon after, offering to “lick stamps” just to get into the business. Her previous experience in sales in the clothing industry helped her work her way up to Vice President of World Wide Sales for five years, before going off on her own to be a producer. She did so to jump at the opportunity to work with Justine Shapiro, the filmmaker of Promises, on her new film project, “Global Moms: Iran” (working title).

Turley is also currently in production on a documentary called The Architect and the Painter: The Creative Lives of Charles and Ray Eames. The film features the Eames’ – perhaps the most important American designers of the twentieth century. Through their ground-breaking work in architecture, furniture, film exhibitions, toys and graphics, Charles and Ray brought Modernism to the American marketplace and America to the forefront of world design. The film starts production in March 2008.

For Roney, her passion continues through films that she “loves, are haunted by, and there is a market for.” Once such film is Girls Rock, a documentary about “girlhood” set at a rock and roll camp for girls in Portland, Oregon. Roney first saw the film at an IFP (Independent Feature Project) event and was so impressed by the two guys making it and the message of the film, that she wanted to do it immediately. Ironically, her own young daughter had recently expressed interest in playing the electric guitar.

Roney recommends that girls age 7 and up go see the film along with their parents.

“The film speaks to friendship, image, self-esteem, and it is not in-your-face,” she says.

Roney says often these types of documentaries don’t get made, due to the large number of males in the industry. Not saying there is a blatant gender bias in the industry, Roney suggests only that males “bring a different sensibility” than females to the industry. “You really pick what resonates with you,” she explains.

The film Girls Rock opens March 7 in seven major cities, a widespread opening for a documentary film. I for one will be taking my two daughters to see it – perhaps they will find their own inspiration there.