Daniel Crooke here. When it comes to gender inequality in the film industry, Jessica Chastain would like the means of production to know that she finds it very disrespectful. Deadline reports that Chastain has thrown her Zero Dark Thirty Aviators in the ring and founded her own production company, Freckle Films. This is obviously hugely exciting news and such an Aries move. As if her engine of multifaceted roles wasn't already roaring on overdrive, she decides to kick it up another notch and become the president of her cinematic brainchild. Hold onto your Coca-Colas because it gets better: Freckle Films will be employing all-female executives and (we assume) zero sex-stymying stereotypes onscreen.
Freckle Films has partnered in a first dibs development deal with Maven Pictures – whose execs’ credits include The Kids Are All Right, Still Alice, and Black Nativity – with two film adaptations (from female authors with female protagonists) already in the works. Ten cheers for the endlessly inspirational Chastain, who constantly reminds us of how to be an unrelenting champion on and off the screen and on Twitter. We’re not surprised that in the midst of #OscarsSoWhite and torrential reports of gender wage inequity, when the call for industry diversity is arguably louder now than it has ever been, Chastain is on the side of shaking things up in the name of representative evolution. More power to the people after the jump...
She’s amongst great company. Last year, Queen Meryl famously put her money where her mouth is and funded the New York Women in Film & Television and IRIS screenwriting lab designed to mentor twelve female screenwriters over the age of forty and develop their scripts for the screen. Ava DuVernay is six years into overseeing her distribution collective ARRAY, which platforms films made by people of color and women, catapulting their exposure from the microscopic to the megaphonic. Just this past month at Sundance, Sarah Megan Thomas and Orange is the New Black’s Alysia Reiner took their production company Broad Street Pictures’ first film, Equity, to Park City. Starring Breaking Bad’s Anna Gunn, Equity is the first female-led film about Wall Street and embodies the company’s mission to “tell wildly entertaining and thought provoking tales about brilliant women.”
As if starring in six movies in one year wasn’t enough, Chastain keeps upping her hard-working ante. We can’t wait to see how far her sharp instincts at Freckle Films can push the needles of art and progress in this industry. Your move, Hollywood.
