Interview

Director Screenwriter

Best of 2023: Gina Prince-Bythewood, MPA Creator Award Recipient, Tells Her Story

*It’s our annual “Best of the Year” look back at some of our favorite interviews from the year.  An elite force of female soldiers, the Agojie, is all that stands between the African Kingdom of Dahomey and the combined forces of the Oyo Empire and Mahi people. The Oyo and Mahi plan to raid Dahomey ...

By Bryan Abrams  |  January 1, 2024

Interview

Director Screenwriter

Best of Summer 2023: Gina Prince-Bythewood, MPA Creator Award Recipient, Tells Her Story

*It’s our annual “Best of Summer” look back at some (not all) of our favorite interviews from the past few months. This non-comprehensive look back includes the Barbenheimer phenomenon and the wonderful interviews that followed those two history-making films, chats with the talented folks behind Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, our profile of MPA ...

By Bryan Abrams  |  August 30, 2023

Interview

Director Screenwriter

Gina Prince-Bythewood, MPA Creator Award Recipient, Tells Her Story

An elite force of female soldiers, the Agojie, is all that stands between the African Kingdom of Dahomey and the combined forces of the Oyo Empire and Mahi people. The Oyo and Mahi plan to raid Dahomey villages and sell their captives to European slavers. We open on a Mahi village where raiders heat their ...

By Bryan Abrams  |  June 13, 2023

Interview

Director

Best of 2022: “The Woman King” Director Gina Prince-Bythewood on Her Singular, Sweeping Historical Epic

It’s that time of year—we look back on a few of our favorite interviews from 2022 in our annual year-end list. When director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s most recent film, The Old Guard, premiered on Netflix in July of 2020, the critically acclaimed action drama became one of the top 10 original launches in the platform’s history. Prince-Bythewood ...

By Leslie Combemale  |  December 30, 2022

Interview

Cinematographer

Best of 2022: “The Woman King” DP Polly Morgan on Lensing Viola Davis in Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Thrilling Epic

It’s that time of year—we look back on a few of our favorite interviews from 2022 in our annual year-end list. A sweeping historical epic that blends intimacy and adventure is the kind of movie that The Woman King cinematographer Polly Morgan dreamed about making while growing up in West Sussex, England.  “My earliest memories were ...

By Loren King  |  December 23, 2022
Exploring the “State of the Film Industry” at the Middleburg Film Festival

As part of the Motion Picture Association’s 100th year, the leading advocate in advancing the business and art of storytelling for the film, television, and streaming industry has found a new way to be of service by becoming a sponsor of the Middleburg Film Festival. Now in its 10th year in operation, this festival has ...

By Leslie Combemale  |  October 18, 2022

Interview

Stunt Coordinator/Stunt Person

“The Woman King” Fight Choreographer Jénel Stevens on Raising a Warrior Army

There’s a reason that the battle sequences in The Woman King look so authentic. The actors, from star Viola Davis on down, worked for months to get into physical shape to play an army of women warriors. They learned all the right moves from a team of expert trainers that included fight choreographer Jénel Stevens. ...

By Loren King  |  September 21, 2022

Interview

Stunt Coordinator/Stunt Person

Trainer Gabriela Mclain on Getting “The Woman King” Cast into Fighting Shape

Talk about reading the room: actress-producer Maria Bello pitched The Woman King directly to Viola Davis in 2015 while standing at the podium to present her with a Women Making History Award. Davis immediately embraced the fact-based story about General Nanisca, who, in the 1820s, led an army of fierce 19th-century women warriors from the ...

By Hugh Hart  |  September 19, 2022

Interview

Costume Designer

“The Woman King” Costume Designer Gersha Phillips on Outfitting History’s Fiercest Female Army

Intensity and discipline were trademarks of the Agojie warriors who defended the African Kingdom of Dahomey in the 19th century. Their caliber of combat was so unmatched that one of their most unexpected traits often went undetected by their enemies.  “They fought with male warriors, so they would disguise themselves and look like men,” costume ...

By Kelle Long  |  September 16, 2022

Interview

Director

“The Woman King” Director Gina Prince-Bythewood on Her Singular, Sweeping Historical Epic

When director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s most recent film, The Old Guard, premiered on Netflix in July of 2020, the critically acclaimed action drama became one of the top 10 original launches in the platform’s history. Prince-Bythewood is following that with one of the most anticipated films of 2022, the historical epic The Woman King, the story of the ...

By Leslie Combemale  |  September 16, 2022

Interview

Cinematographer

“The Woman King” DP Polly Morgan on Lensing Viola Davis in Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Thrilling Epic

A sweeping historical epic that blends intimacy and adventure is the kind of movie that The Woman King cinematographer Polly Morgan dreamed about making while growing up in West Sussex, England.  “My earliest memories were Close Encounters and Empire of the Sun. Spielberg captured my imagination like many of my generation,” said Morgan over the phone ...

By Loren King  |  September 15, 2022
Viola Davis Reigns Supreme in “The Woman King” Trailer

We’ve got our first look at the Viola Davis-led The Woman King, one of the most intriguing films coming out this fall. This trailer is a thrilling glimpse at director Gina Prince-Bythewood‘s epic, which is based on true events that took place in the Kingdom of Dahomey, a powerful state on the African continent in the 18th ...

By The Credits  |  July 6, 2022