10 Inspirational Quotes For First Time Female Filmmakers
You have an idea for a film, but you're not sure where to start when it comes to making it a reality. Or perhaps you do know how to start, but the thought of it is just so daunting you keep making excuses not to. If you are lacking in motivation or knowledge then I have something that might help light a fire under your butt. These filmmakers have stood where you are now and still managed to make films regardless. So I thought a little pick me up straight from them would be the best way to inject inspiration and motivation into your filmmaking process.
"Don’t give up. You’re going to get kicked in the teeth. A lot. Learn to take a hit, then pick yourself up off the floor. Resilience is the true key to success.” - Melissa Rosenberg
“Don’t lose faith in what you are trying to do, even though you will get pummelled emotionally left and right. There are a lot of NO's to any YES. And that’s OK.” - Jennifer Lee
"One nice thing about being a woman in Hollywood is that the women tend to be very close-knit. All of us writers and directors know each other and cling to each other for safety and support, and it’s really a completely different vibe than the men experience out here, where they’re all trying to murder each other.” - Diablo Cody
"Never give up. If you want to become one, you have to be really, really strong, never give up, because you're going to have so many 'nos.' When I wrote my first screenplay I was 17, but when I directed my first film I was 36. It gives you an idea how long it takes." — Julie Delpy
‘‘I’m always proselytizing to women, ‘You know how to do this.’ It’s almost so simple, I feel like Dorothy. I had the ruby slippers all along.” - Joey Soloway
"I would think, 'I can never make this movie. Maybe Ivan [Passer] was right; I'm too old. Maybe I'm too famous.' I was so scared that I would talk to everyone about it. And after a while I began to really hear myself, and hear this person talking about this dream they had, but being too frightened to go after the dream. There came a point where I just thought, 'My god, life is going by so fast, I have to stand up for what I believe in. I can't be so frightened anymore.' I don't want to be some old lady saying, 'I shoulda made that movie, Yentl.'" – Barbra Streisand
"Don’t take no as a full stop, treat it like a comma."
– Amma Asante
"You’d have to go to forklifters to find a lower percentage of females — 99 percent of people on my crew have never worked with a female director. A woman who’d been working as an extra for 30 years was on my set and told me: ‘I just want to tell you, right on, sister. Do you know how nice it is just to see a woman in charge?’ I kind of got teary.” - Denise Di Novi
"If there’s specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can’t change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies." – Kathryn Bigelow
"Sometimes, you just have to go in there and bowl people over with your sheer force of will." - Jennifer Yuh Nelson
If these quotes inspired your inner filmmaker to go out and get started let us know in the comments below. For more inspiration head to our Instagram @thewomensdirection