Holmer is one of 12 directors participating in the Sundance Institute’s FilmTwo Initiative, a program launched this spring to provide filmmakers, especially women and directors of color, with tactical and creative support on their second films. This exclusion has received new attention in recent times thanks to the diversity controversy surrounding this year’s Oscar nominees and a government inquiry into gender bias in hiring. But the second films generally rely more on the Hollywood machinery, a machine that has often excluded women and minorities. “It’s scary and intimidating, and the pressures start to build up the longer you are in this phase.” Early films are often made democratically – on low-cost cameras, with crowd-funded budgets and crews made up of college friends. “Right now it’s tough,” said Holmer, speaking by phone from Brooklyn, where she lives with her husband, a math teacher at a public school.
And yet, in the midst of that success, Holmer, 31, now faces what is perhaps the biggest obstacle to a lasting career as a filmmaker: his second film. She received some of the best reviews in the festival and got a distribution deal, director, and agent. Sundance Film Festival programmers last year chose an acceptance rate more difficult than that of an Ivy League college.
His film, “The Fits,” about an 11-year-old tomboy trying to fit in, was one of less than 1% of feature films submitted. “As a director for the first time, Anna Rose Holmer is part of an elite group. “Why the second film is the biggest obstacle to becoming a filmmaker, especially for women and minorities”: a key report from Rebecca Keegan of The Los Angeles Times.