The AFI Directing Workshop for Women (DWW) is a program in the

American Film Institute The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the History of cinema in the United States, motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private fu ...

(AFI) offers free training workshops and the opportunity to direct short films. The program started in 1974.

Origins

In the 1970s, though many women acted in major motion pictures, almost none directed them. In 1974, Mathilde Krim, a scientist and

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (" ...

board member, approached the

(A.F.I.) about using her influence with the foundation to help women in film. Jan Haag, Admission and Awards Administrator at A.F.I., set up a meeting with Krim to discuss possible options. Haag, anticipating at least $200,000, needed to revise her ideas when Krim informed her that she could easily secure only $30,000. A $200,000 grant would need to go through the formal, time-consuming review process that did not necessarily ensure a positive outcome. To accommodate the limited budget, Haag and Antonio Vellani, A.F.I. administrator and future director of its Center for Advanced Film Studies (CAFS), submitted a plan to Krim to create the Directing Workshop for Women (DWW), based on the Directing Workshop at the CAFS. To save money, DWW students would use the CAFS equipment and the CAFS students would act as producers, cinematographers, etc. for DWW projects. Though the women could use CAFS equipment, the DWW needed additional editing equipment, which would cost $14,000. After these expenses were met, each student would receive a budget of $300 per film to cover expenses and would make two films. The A.F.I. also formalized an agreement with the

Screen Actors Guild The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to m ...

, which allowed their actors to volunteer to act in DWW films. Once the AFI officially obtained the Rockefeller Foundation's grant for the program, Haag's next step was to establish a review board to choose twelve students for admission. The applicant review board Haag and Vellani decided on consisted of four successful women:

Joan Didion Joan Didion (; December 5, 1934 – December 23, 2021) was an American writer and journalist. She is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism, along with Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe. Didio ...

, a writer; Marcia Nasiter, Vice President of United Artists; Kitty Hawks, an agent; and Barbara Schultz, an executive at PBS.

Sources

* https://conservatory.afi.com/dww-alums/
The AFI Directing Workshop for Women website
*Haag, Jan. “The Dream of the Marble Bridge: The Founding of the Directing Workshop *For Women of the American Film Institute, A History.” By Jan Haag. 2002. *http://janhaag.com/ESessays.html (29 January 2007).

Origins

Sources

Further reading