Great Women of Film
by Helena Lumme, Mike Manninen (Photographer)

In their first book and exhibition, The Creative Manifesto, published in their native Finland, writer Helena Lumme and photographer Mika Manninen were criticized for dressing the Scandinavian country’s finest talents in rags and portraying them as beggars and peasants. “We got yelled at so many times on the street,” recalls Manninen.

“It was too controversial,” adds Lumme with a laugh. “After that, we didn’t work for six months.”

The couple have since moved to Los Angeles and reversed their approach, with dramatically different results. Instead of debasing the acclaimed, the husband-and-wife team decided to use their stylized portraits and their subjects’ own words to honor Hollywood’s less esteemed. Their last book and exhibition, Screenwriters: America’s Storytellers in Portrait, gave respect to the Industry’s lowly regarded scribes as it toured the world. “These guys really have something to say. But why is it always that when a movie comes out, the director and actors are interviewed but not the writer?” asks Lumme rhetorically. It didn’t take long for the Finns to find another slice of Hollywood who deserved similar promotion. “It was the women,” says the author, who has also worked as a commercial director. “Women’s contributions have been forgotten in film history. All the committees, all the foundations, all the money that’s been spent to help women’s employment in the industry, it hasn’t changed anything in the past ten years.”

The pair are hoping to rectify that with their latest art project, Great Women of Film. The coffee table book and photographic exploration portrays well known actresses such as Susan Sarandon and Joan Allen, as well as women virtually unknown outside the ranks of their traditionally male-dominated crafts. Financing the labor of love with their own credit cards for more than a year, the couple sought out, interviewed, and photographed females who practice movie magic in a myriad of fields, including writing, producing, directing, editing, cinematography, and even visual effects. The resulting photography exhibition will premiere at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills in February, where their Screenwriters project was previously displayed to great success.

“We just don’t call them photographic exhibitions or photographic books,” explains Lumme, who videotaped the interviews in order to produce a documentary on the subject. “They also have a message or mission behind them. So it’s not just taking pretty pictures.”

One glance at the impressive photos reveals the great collaborative effort combining Lumme’s artistic vision, Manninen’s technical wizardry, and their subjects’ own desires. They used special-effects technician Christy Sumner’s own pyrotechnic and rigging skills to capture her in costume hovering above a blazing inferno, while they relied on Mother Nature to provide the proper background for trailblazing actress/director/producer Jodie Foster as a pioneer. “We had to wait for the snow to come down, probably a month,” remembers Manninen, who also works as a cinematographer and director. “She drove up to our house, then we drove up to the Angeles National Forest about an hour-and-a-half drive, through an insane snowstorm. We really got a lot of snow. We were there for two to three hours, and got totally frozen.”

The photographer explains why first assistant director Betsy Magruder is portrayed with a badge and a gun. “The first assistant director’s job is to juggle everything, to be the sheriff and the boss and the nurse. So we made her a sheriff.”

Not only do the women give advice to aspiring filmmakers, but the book also includes essays on the history of women in films, and resources for women and men who want to start cinematic careers. In fact, she originally wanted to call the project Great Women of Film, & How To Become One, but the subtitle was rejected.

“Part of the vision of the book is to tell in very easily understandable form what these people do. It’s the Brentwood version of ‘Filmmaking for Dummies’” explains Lumme, with another laugh.

Exhibition, Great Women of Film, The large-format photography exhibition spotlighting 30 women of the film industry will premiere February 8, 2002 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and will continue in the Grand Lobby Gallery at the Academy through April 21, 2002. Viewing hours are Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and weekends noon to 6 p.m.

About the Author; Helena Lumme is an author and filmmaker who created and developed Screenwriters: America's Storytellers in Portrait, an internationally acclaimed exhibition and book. She is also the founder of the Women's Film & Art Foundation. She lives in Los Angeles, California. Mika Manninen is a photographer whose work has appeared in Vanity Fair and Fast Company, as well as on the covers of books and CDs in Europe and the US. He lives in Los Angeles, California

Other Remarkable Books; Screenwriters : America's Storytellers This book salutes the men and women who have created hundreds of America's most beloved films. For the first time in the history of the much-documented film industry, this landmark book celebrates - in spectacular photographs and in the screenwriters' own unforgettable words - 47 of the film world's best writers including 18 Academy Award winners and 36 nominees for Best Screenplay.

The award winning author Helena Lumme and photographer Mika Manninen spent two years photographing and interviewing the 47 screenwriters featured in the book. Their idea was to present unique, intimate portraits of the writers and let them speak, not from behind a character, but in their own words.

In his contribution to SCREENWRITERS, Julius Epstein, who with his brother Philip and Howard Koch wrote Casablanca, shares the original ending to his Academy Award winning screenplay, and concludes: "We'll never know whether that line would have been better."Nora Ephron (You've Got Mail)" likens her creative process to making a pizza, Ted Tally (Academy Award winner for The Silence of the Lambs) lists his own TOP 10 COOL THINGS ABOUT BEING A SCREENWRITER, and Buck Henry (The Graduate, Catch 22, To Die For) puts it succintly, "Screenwriting is like having sex, only different."