(Photo courtesy of Bend Film Festival)
BendFilm’s IndieWomen mission is to support all women filmmakers at the Bend Film Festival and beyond. Female-identifying, non-binary and trans individuals are welcome to join. Your funding supports increased filmmaker representation at the Festival in order to help build filmmaking careers!
In early 2018, we lost a legend, Pamela Hulse Andrews, founder of Cascades Publications who touched so many lives and made an incredible impact on the Bend Community — especially at BendFilm. Pamela founded Independent Women for Independent Film as a way to strengthen the bonds of leading women in the arts and business and to support filmmakers at the Bend Film Festival. Since 1929, only one woman has ever won the Academy Award for Best Director. In 2010 nearly 35 years after the first woman was ever nominated, Kathryn Bigelow won an Academy Award for Best Director for The Hurt Locker.
Each year Pamela enlisted the support of 100 women to donate $100 to support women filmmakers at the Bend Film Festival. These funds help Indie filmmakers with travel and room and board so they can participate in a full-festival experience giving them access to colleagues, mentors and actors — as well as name an Indie(Woman) Filmmaker of the year award.
In 2024 BendFilm announced Karyn Kusama as Indie Filmmaker of the Year. Most recently, Kusama is an executive producer of Showtime’s coming-of-age survival drama, the nine-time Emmy-nominated Yellowjackets; prior to that, she helmed the Golden Globe-nominated Destroyer starring Nicole Kidman; other feature credits include indie thriller The Invitation, cult horror comedy, Jennifer’s Body, sci-fi love story Aeon Flux and her Cannes and Sundance award winning debut, GirIfight.
“I’m honored to be accepting the Indie Filmmaker of the Year award at the 2024 Bend Film Festival,” said Kusama. “It’s particularly special to me to be acknowledged within the indie film space, as it’s long been the stomping ground for artists who make work with a specific and deeply personal point of view — I’m humbled to have joined those ranks.”
Moving forward, BendFilm hopes to re-invigorate this program, continue pursuing Pamela’s goal and honor her legacy. Keep an eye out for IndieWomen exclusive meet-ups, special screenings and more. While many strides have been made in the filmmaking world, there is still a long way to go!
