Out of 140 local films featured at San Diego Film Week, which ended on Sunday, only 10 were directed by women. The short “Wonderland Syndrome” was filmmaker Meghan Courtney’s directing debut. She also wrote the screenplay.
“When it comes to female directing, I didn’t really understand how important it was to have female directors and how few that there are,” Courtney said.
She said her day job is doing hair and makeup, which she refers to as a “female-fueled” industry.
“When I’ve crossed over into filmmaking and acting I didn’t realize the kind of response, especially in this time and day when we’re really trying to make filmmaking happen for women, I just didn’t really understand the importance of it until now,” she added.
Courtney originally broke into the industry through acting but went into filmmaking because she wanted to have more input on the backside of it.
"My experience directing for the first time was a whirlwind of learning and networking and opportunities and a lot of support from the community in San Diego. Filmmakers are all about helping each other in San Diego,”
Courtney joined the San Diego Film Consortium, which helped get the movie produced on a shoestring budget of about $800, according to Jodi Cilley, founder and president of the consortium. “In San Diego there is an incredibly vibrant and growing and exciting film community, producing more and more interspersing, creative, unique films,” Cilley said. She started the consortium as a way to help burgeoning local filmmakers gets their film produced and to focus on creating original content.
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“We’ve got a lot of support from the local community all the organizations, I mean, it’s getting there. The next step is though how do we get funding and distribution onto some of these projects,” Cilley said.
Courtney said she was originally inspired to become a filmmaker by the women producing a reality TV show she was on several years ago. “These women that were running the show were so smart, and they made things so beautiful and they just created a TV show that was beautiful and displayed San Diego in such an amazing light,” she said.
“Wonderland Syndrome,” which is about a girl whose bipolar disorder and epilepsy and complicated by pneumonia, will be screened with three other films at MOPA in May.
