Because women directed only 8 of 97 dramatic feature films at this year's festival. An intellectual coming of age story and an assemble piece about L.A.'s music scene are not often thrown in the same genre. The common denominator is a woman sitting in the director's chair. And where she sits effects how the film is perceived. Gender becomes a unifying identity eclipsing many differences.
Women are radically under-represented in the upper management of most industries, including film.
I don't know why women assume they have equal rights. Both Anders and Savoca accept their roles as women filmmakers with passionate realism. But the newer faces at Sundance vary in their reactions to the gender specific tags attached to their films. You have to be as aggressive with your second film as you were with the first one. And that's something she doesn't see women filmmakers doing enough, pushing to make the next movie and the one after that.