This is a list of lesbian filmmakers. The names listed include directors, producers, and screenwriters of feature films, television movies,

documentaries A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in term ...

and short films; and have received coverage or been recognized in reliable, authoritative media and academic sources.

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Kasia Adamik Katarzyna "Kasia" Adamik (born 28 December 1972) is a Polish director and storyboard artist. She has directed TV series including ''1983 (TV series), 1983'', ''Axis Mundi (Netflix series), Axis Mundi'' and ''Absentia (TV series), Absentia.'' Her ...

(Poland) *

Jane Anderson Jane Anderson (born 1954 in California) is an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and director. She wrote and directed the feature film ''The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio'' (2005), and wrote the Nicolas Cage film '' It Could Happen to ...

(USA) *

Sini Anderson Sini Anderson (born November 6, 19??) is an American film director, producer, performance artist, choreographer, dancer and poet, from Chicago, Illinois. Anderson is widely known for directing '' The Punk Singer'' (2013), a documentary about rio ...

(USA) *

Chantal Akerman Chantal Anne Akerman (; 6 June 19505 October 2015) was a Belgian film director, screenwriter, artist, and film professor at the City College of New York. She is best known for films such as '' Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles' ...

(Belgium) *

Dorothy Arzner Dorothy Emma Arzner (January 3, 1897 – October 1, 1979) was an American film director whose career in Hollywood spanned from the silent era of the 1920s into the early 1940s. With the exception of longtime silent film director Lois Weber (who ...

(USA) * Jamie Babbit (USA) *

Marina Rice Bader Marina Rice Bader is a writer, director, and film producer. She is known for the films '' Anatomy of a Love Seen'' (2014), ''Raven's Touch'' (2015), and '' Ava's Impossible Things'' (2016). She was executive producer for ''Elena Undone'' (2010) ...

(USA) *

Christin Baker Christin Marie Baker is an American producer, director, and screenwriter from Nashville, Tennessee. She is the founder and CEO of Tello Films, a Streaming media, streaming network, production, and distribution company of films and web series wit ...

(USA) * Janet Baus (USA) *

Sadie Benning Sadie T. Benning (born April 11, 1973) is an American artist, who has worked primarily in video, painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and sound. Benning creates experimental films and explores a variety of themes including surveillance, ge ...

(USA) * Caroline Berler (USA) *

Katja Blichfeld Katja Blichfeld (born 1979) is an American writer, director, producer and casting director. She is known for co-creating and directing ''High Maintenance'', a Vimeo web series and HBO television series. She won a Primetime Emmy award for Outstan ...

(USA) *

Maureen Bradley Maureen Bradley is a Canadian film director, producer, screenwriter, media artist, professor, and curator. She has produced over fifty short films and her work has been recognized internationally. Through her work, she challenges traditional gende ...

(Canada) *

Netalie Braun Netalie Braun (Hebrew: נטעלי בראון; born June 12, 1978) is an Israeli poet, writer and filmmaker. She won the 2017 Ophir Award for the best short documentary film. Career Braun completed her BA in literature and philosophy, and an MA ...

(Israel) *

Katherine Brooks Katherine Brooks (born March 15, 1976) is an American film writer and director. Brooks is a member of the Directors Guild of America, a Jury Member for Samsung Fresh-Films 2007 (the largest teen filmmaking program in the USA) and is the recipien ...

(USA) *

Dominique Cardona Dominique Cardona (born 1955) is an Argentinian-born Canadian film director, producer, and screenwriter. She works primarily but not exclusively in collaboration with Laurie Colbert.Seana Stevenson"Catch and Release Interview: Dominique Cardona an ...

(Canada) * Ilene Chaiken (USA) * Lisa Cholodenko (USA) *

Zero Chou Zero Chou (; born 24 July 1969) is a Taiwanese director and screenwriter. Life and career Chou was born in Keelung, Taiwan in 1969. She earned a B.A. in Philosophy from National Chengchi University in 1992. She worked as a journalist before becom ...

(Taiwan) *

Laurie Colbert Laurie Colbert is a Canadian film director, producer, and screenwriter. She works primarily but not exclusively in collaboration with Dominique Cardona.Seana Stevenson"Catch and Release Interview: Dominique Cardona and Laurie Colbert" ''The Muff B ...

(Canada) *

Janis Cole Janis Cole (born 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker, producer, writer, editor and professor. She has directed several films over the span of her career. Most of these films were done in cooperation with her friend and professional partner, Holly Dale. ...

(Canada) *

Nicole Conn Nicole Conn (born October 29, 1959) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter most famous for her debut feature, the lesbian love story ''Claire of the Moon'' (1992). Her screenplay for ''Claire of the Moon'' was also released as ...

(USA) *

Catherine Corsini Catherine Corsini (born 18 May 1956) is a French film director, screenwriter and actress. Her film '' Replay'' was entered into the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. Her 2012 film '' Three Worlds'' competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2012 C ...

(France) * Jeanne Crépeau (Canada) * Catherine Crouch (USA) *

Holly Dale Holly Dale (born December 23, 1953) is a Canadian filmmaker and television director. Over the course of her career, Dale has worked in the Canadian film and television industry as a director, producer, writer, and editor. Although she has comple ...

(Canada) *

Donna Deitch Donna Deitch (born June 8, 1945, San Francisco, California) is an American film and television director, producer, and writer best known for her 1985 film ''Desert Hearts''. The movie was the first feature film to depict a lesbian love story in ...

(USA) *

Katrina del Mar Katrina del Mar is a New York–based American photographer, video artist, writer and award-winning filmmaker. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Fellowship in Video, an ...

(USA) * Vicky Du (USA-Taiwan) *

Cheryl Dunye Cheryl Dunye (; born May 13, 1966) is a Liberian-American film director, producer, screenwriter, editor and actress. Dunye's work often concerns themes of race, sexuality, and gender, particularly issues relating to black lesbians. She is known ...

(Liberia) *

Clea DuVall Clea Helen D'Etienne DuVall (born September 25, 1977) is an American actress, writer, producer, and director. She is known for her appearances in the films ''The Faculty'' (1998), ''She's All That''; '' But I'm a Cheerleader''; '' Girl, Interrup ...

(USA) * Michelle Ehlen (USA) *

Esther Eng Esther Eng ( – January 25, 1970), born Ng Kam-ha, was a Cantonese–American film director and the first female director to direct Chinese-language films in the United States. Eng made four feature films in America, and five in Hong Kong.Wei, 20 ...

(USA) *

Lynne Fernie Lynne Fernie (born 1946) is a Canadian filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist. She spent fourteen years as the Canadian Spectrum programmer for the Hot Docs Festival from 2002 to 2016, and was described as having a passion as "deep as her knowled ...

(Canada) * Jodie Foster (USA) *

Su Friedrich Su Friedrich (born December 12, 1954) is an American avant-garde film director, producer, writer, and cinematographer. Early life Su Friedrich was born in 1954 in New Haven, Connecticut. Her mother was German and came to the US with Friedric ...

(USA) * Maya Gallus (Canada) *

Nisha Ganatra Nisha Ganatra (born June 25, 1974) is a Canadian-American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actress of Indian descent. She wrote, directed, and produced the independent comedy drama ''Chutney Popcorn'' (1999) and later directed the indepe ...

(Canada) *

Dana Goldberg Dana Goldberg (; born March 1, 1979) is an Israeli poet, filmmaker and playwright. Biography Goldberg was born in Herzliya. Her father was a pilot and her mother worked at a bank. As a child, she studied many different creative fields: photogr ...

(Israel) *

Rosser Goodman Rosser Goodman is an American film and television director, writer and producer. Goodman founded her own production company, KGB Films in the 90's upon moving to Hollywood. Goodman's company is now called Circle Content in partnership with fashi ...

(USA) *

Marleen Gorris Marleen Gorris (born 9 December 1948) is a Dutch writer and director. Gorris is known as an outspoken feminist and supporter of gay and lesbian issues which is reflected in much of her work. Her film, ''Antonia's Line,'' won an Oscar for Best F ...

(Netherlands) *

Aurora Guerrero Aurora Guerrero is a writer-director from California. Early life Guerrero was born in the Mission District of San Francisco, California to Mexican immigrant parents, later growing up on the border of the cities of Richmond and El Cerrito w ...

(USA) *

Sonali Gulati Sonali Gulati is an Indian American independent filmmaker, feminist, grass-roots activist, and educator. Gulati grew up in New Delhi, India. Her mother, a teacher and textile designer, raised her independently, getting single custody for her ...

(USA) * Jill Gutowitz (USA) *

Barbara Hammer Barbara Jean Hammer (May 15, 1939 – March 16, 2019) was an American feminist film director, producer, writer, and cinematographer. She is known for being one of the pioneers of the lesbian film genre, and her career spanned over 50 years. Hamm ...

(USA) *

Leslye Headland Leslye Headland (born 1980) is an American film and television director, producer, screenwriter, and playwright. She is known for the play and 2012 film ''Bachelorette'' and 2015 film ''Sleeping with Other People''. She co-created the Netflix ser ...

(USA) *

G. B. Jones G. B. Jones (born 1965) is a Canadian artist, filmmaker, musician, and publisher of zines born in Bowmanville, Canada. She is known for producing J.D.s with her acclaimed''Tom Girls'' drawings before going on to create more musically, cinematica ...

(Canada) * Ingrid Jungermann (USA) *

Ana Kokkinos Ana Kokkinos is an Australian film and television director and screenwriter of Greek descent. She is known for her breakthrough feature film, '' Head On'' (1998), and has also directed television shows such as ''The Secret Life of Us'' and '' ...

(Australia) *

Jennie Livingston Jennie may refer to: * Jennie (singer), South Korean singer of girl group Blackpink * Jennie, a female given name, variant spelling of Jenny * ''Jennie'' (musical), 1963 Broadway production * ''Jennie'' (novel), 1994 science fiction thriller b ...

(USA) * Desiree Lim (Malaysia-China-Canada) * Phyllida Lloyd (UK) * Tucia Lyman (USA)

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Angelina Maccarone Angelina Maccarone is a German film director and writer. Personal life Angelina Maccarone was born in Pulheim, Germany, 1965. A child of immigration, she is the daughter of an Italian father - who was also a guest worker - and a German mother wh ...

(Germany) *

Lucrecia Martel Lucrecia Martel (born December 14, 1966) is an Argentine film director, screenwriter and producer whose feature films have frequented Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Toronto, and many other international film festivals. Film scholar Paul Julian Smith w ...

(Argentina) * Dee Mosbacher (USA) *

Brittani Nichols Brittani Nichols (born June 20, 1988) is an American producer, actress, comedian, and writer. In 2016, Nichols wrote, produced, and starred in the film ''Suicide Kale,'' which won the Audience Award for Best U.S. Dramatic Feature at 2016 Outfest. ...

(USA) *

Madeleine Olnek Madeleine Olnek is an American independent film director, producer, screenwriter, and playwright. She has written 24 plays and three feature films, including ''Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, The Foxy Merkins,'' and '' Wild Nights w ...

(USA) *

Jenni Olson Jenni Olson (born October 6, 1962) is a writer, archivist, historian, consultant, and non-fiction filmmaker based in Berkeley, California. She co-founded the pioneering LGBT website PlanetOut.com. Her two feature-length essay films — '' The Jo ...

(USA) *

Ulrike Ottinger Ulrike Ottinger (born 6 June 1942) is a German filmmaker and photographer. Early life From 1959 she was a visiting student at the Academy of Arts in Munich and worked as a painter. Her mother, Maria Weinberg, was a journalist and her father, Ul ...

(Germany) *

Jan Oxenberg Jan Oxenberg (1950) is an American film producer, director, editor, and screenwriter. She is known for her work in lesbian feminist films and in television. Career Oxenberg was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1950. She attended Barnard Colle ...

(USA) * Pratibha Parmar (UK) *

Stacie Passon Stacie Passon (born October 1, 1969) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer whose debut film ''Concussion'' premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and subsequently won a Teddy Award Jury Prize at the 2013 Berlin Internati ...

(USA) *

Kimberly Peirce Kimberly Ane Peirce (born September 8, 1967) is an American filmmaker, best known for her debut feature film, '' Boys Don't Cry'' (1999), which won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Hilary Swank's performance. Her second feature, '' Stop-Los ...

(USA) * Cristina Perincioli (Switzerland) *

Justine Pimlott Justine Pimlott is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, and co-founder of Red Queen Productions with Maya Gallus. She began her career apprenticing as a sound recordist with Studio D, the women’s studio at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), ...

(Canada) *

Léa Pool Léa Pool C.M. (born 8 September 1950) is a Swiss-Canadian filmmaker who taught film at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She has directed several documentaries and feature films, many of which have won significant awards including the ...

(Canada) *

Lourdes Portillo Lourdes Portillo is a Mexican film director, producer, and writer. Biography Portillo got her first filmmaking experience at the age of twenty-one when a friend in Hollywood asked her to help out on a documentary. Her formal training began se ...

(USA-Mexico) *

Yvonne Rainer Yvonne Rainer (born November 24, 1934) is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is regarded as challenging and experimental.

(USA) * Dee Rees (USA) * Yoruba Richen (USA) *

Marialy Rivas Marialy Rivas is a Chilean screenwriter and film director, known for her 2012 film '' Young and Wild'', winner of the World Cinema Screenwriting Award in Sundance Film Festival. She grew up in Chile during a violent dictatorship under Augusto Pino ...

(Chile) *

Chloé Robichaud Chloé Robichaud (born January 31, 1988) is a Canadian director best known for her debut film '' Sarah Prefers to Run''. The film premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section. Early life and education Robichaud was ...

(Canada) * Angela Robinson (USA) *

Patricia Rozema Patricia Rozema (born 20 August 1958) is a Canadian film director, writer and producer. She was part of a loosely-affiliated group of filmmakers to emerge in 1980s from Toronto known as the Toronto New Wave. Early life Rozema was born in Kin ...

(Canada) *

Marja-Lewis Ryan Marja-Lewis Ryan (born March 19, 1985) is an American writer, director, producer, and actress. She is best known for writing, co-starring, and co-producing the LGBT drama film, '' The Four-Faced Liar'', which won multiple awards, including Outst ...

(USA) *

Shamim Sarif Shamim Sarif (born 24 September 1969) is a British novelist and filmmaker of South Asian and South African heritage. Her work often focuses on various aspects of identity including gender, race, and sexuality. It often draws upon her own person ...

(UK) * Greta Schiller (USA) *

Céline Sciamma Céline Sciamma (; born 12 November 1978) is a French screenwriter and film director. She is especially known for her films ''Girlhood'' (2014), '' My Life as a Courgette'' (2016), and ''Portrait of a Lady on Fire'' (2019), winning many nominat ...

(France) * Avigail Sperber (Israel) * Ellen Spiro (USA) * Monika Treut (Germany) *

Rose Troche Rose Troche (born 1964) is an American film and television director, television producer, and screenwriter. Early life and education Troche was born to Puerto Rican parents and grew up on the north side of Chicago. In an interview she stated, " ...

(USA) *

Guinevere Turner Guinevere Jane Turner is an American actress, screenwriter, and film director. She has written such films as ''American Psycho'' and '' The Notorious Bettie Page'' and played the lead role of the dominatrix Tanya Cheex in '' Preaching to the Per ...

(USA) *

Michal Vinik Michal Vinik (in Hebrew: מיכל ויניק; born March 12, 1976) is an Israeli filmmaker, director and screenwriter. She teaches filmmaking at Tel Aviv University and Beit Berl College. Biography Vinik was born in Haifa. She graduated with ...

(Israel) * Louise Wadley (Australia) * Andrea Weiss (USA) * Aerlyn Weissman (USA-Canada) * Yvonne Welbon (USA) *

Tucky Williams Tucky Williams is an American director, producer, screenwriter, and actress. She is known for creating and portraying Evan in the Amazon streaming series '' Girl/Girl Scene''. Personal life Williams began college at the age of fifteen. She stu ...

(USA) *

Alice Wu Alice Wu (; born April 21, 1970) is an American film director and screenwriter, known for her films '' Saving Face'' (2004) and ''The Half of It'' (2020). Both of her films feature Chinese-American main characters and explore the lives of intel ...

(USA) * Monica Zanetti (Australia)

References

Kanopy Kanopy is an on-demand streaming video platform for public and academic libraries that offers films, TV shows and documentaries. The service is free for users, but content owners and content creators are paid on a pay-per-view model by the in ...

''Dykes, Camera, Action!''
2018 documentary by Caroline Berler {{DEFAULTSORT:Lesbian filmmakers Film-related lists Filmmakers Lesbians by occupation Lesbian Lesbian Lesbian filmmakers

Lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with fema ...

Lists of LGBT-related people

Film directors A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role in choosing the Casting (per ...

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See also

References

Further reading

External links