“Super Human Anxiety” will screen TWO times at San Diego Comic-Con!
Continue readingProof of Concept Film To Screen At SD Comic-Con
WonderCon Roundup!
We came. We screened. We took over WonderCon!
Our WonderCon 2025 adventure was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!! It was filled with meeting some incredibly talented people, hosting the WonderCon premiere of “Super Human Anxiety,” and loads of fun!!
Prior to our screening at the Los Angeles International Children’s Film Festival on Saturday March 29th, we wanted to make sure event attendees knew about our screening and were encouraged to attend.
Melissa, Ashley and Lea-Ann handed out movie flyers at the panels they attended & as they walked the vendor hall. And we documented it all on the @AshleyMariaProductions Instagram page!
The Instagram Takeover
In the news - WonderCon!
Temple of Geek
DGA Award-Winning Director Ashley Maria to Premiere “Super Human Anxiety” at WonderCon 2025
Headphones & Thoughts
Why You Can’t Miss WonderCon 2025 – A Must-Attend Event for Fans
The Geekiary
WonderCon 2025 Interview: Ashley Maria of ‘Super Human Anxiety’
Featured by SXSW EDU
SXSW EDU 2025 Features Pioneers in Skirts For Tackling Issues Within Education
Excerpt from SXSW EDU call for entries article —
Calling all education-focused narrative or documentary filmmakers! Don’t miss the chance to have your film shared on the big screen at SXSW EDU 2025. Submit your film by 11:59pm PT on Friday, November 15.
The film program is a vital component of the SXSW EDU program, as films carry the potential to shed light on crucial matters and shape student’s perceptions. We take pride in spotlighting powerful films that delve into various issues impacting education around the world.
Since its inception in 2013, the SXSW EDU Film Program has helped tackle issues within education ranging from hazing and sexism to promoting student advocacy and supporting neurodiverse students including ADHD, and more. Past films screened at SXSW EDU include Pioneers in Skirts, Hidden Figures, Eighth Grade and many more that have left a lasting impression and prompted thoughtful reflection.
Following the screening, filmmakers will have the unique opportunity to participate in an audience Q&A session, forging a connection between the community and the film.
Share your powerful film with a large and diverse community of innovators and educators. Apply now through November 15 to showcase your film at SXSW EDU 2025!
See You at SXSW EDU 2025
Registration is open for SXSW EDU 2025! Take advantage early for the best rate and hotel options March 3-6, 2025 in downtown Austin.
“Pioneers in Skirts” is a social impact film about the issues that affect a woman’s pioneering ambition. Real-life stories and frank commentary leave viewers seeing their role in the solution, feeling hopeful, and motivated to act.
Watch Pioneers in Skirts online or host a group screening at your company or community!
Originally published at https://www.sxswedu.com/news/2024/submit-your-film-to-be-shared-on-the-big-screen-at-sxsw-edu/
A BIG movie grant from Big Sky
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ASHLEY MARIA PRODUCTIONS ANNOUNCES GRANT FOR “NEARLY DEPARTED”
Los Angeles, CA — June 26, 2024
We are excited and proud to announce that Ashley Maria Productions has received a $20,000 grant from the Montana Department of Commerce to make a film in Montana. The movie grant funding is awarded through the Commerce’s Big Sky Film Grant (BSFG) program.
“The grant will help fund a film written by Molly Quinlan Artwick,” shared Director Ashley Maria. “We are happy to be able to support a Montana-based cast and crew with our funding, as well as the local economy.”
The short-form film — called “Nearly Departed,” will run eleven minutes. Targeted to film in Montana during the 2025 tourist off-season, the film will be Directed by Ashley Maria and produced by her production company, Ashley Maria Productions.
“Molly wrote a heartfelt piece about grief with a dash of humor. When I first read this script, and felt my own reactions to the story and my own vulnerabilities to the topic, I knew I had to make this project a reality.” added Ashley.
What is “Nearly Departed” about?
“Nearly Departed” is a story of Charlie and Jules, two sisters at odds with each other discovering how to move on from their father’s death. This black dramady deals with the dark, trying, and often funny ways grief manifests. Faced with the loss of her father after moving across the country, Charlie struggles to find a meaningful place to let him go–and holds a secret that prevents her from saying goodbye. Jules’ own disastrous memorial to their father haunts her as she tries to help Charlie give their dad the sendoff he deserves. Things come to a head in the Montana forest, as a desperate Charlie threatens to smash their father’s urn.
Of the $2.5 million awarded through the Montana Film Office, Ashley Maria Productions was one of 21 short-form non-resident films that received grant funding.
Since the BSFG program started in 2013, nearly 350 film projects have received over $11 million of grant funding to assist with those productions. The Montana Film Office is part of the Department of Commerce and is funded by an allocation of the lodging facility use tax, commonly known as the “bed tax.” In 2023, Senate Bill 540 of the 68th Montana Legislature revised laws related to state-funded tourism promotion to require a specific allocation of lodging facility use tax for Montana-based film grants. For more information about the Big Sky Film Grant, visit montanafilm.com.
Reveel Interview: Exposing Gender Inequality in Hollywood
Exclusive interview with Reveel: Ashley Maria shines a spotlight on gender inequality in film through her documentary, “Pioneers in Skirts”.
REVEEL NEWS//Gender inequality remains a pervasive issue in the film industry, hindering women’s career advancement. However, this problem extends beyond the realm of filmmaking and permeates every male-dominated field.
Ashley Maria, a filmmaker, shines a spotlight on this pressing matter through her documentary, “Pioneers in Skirts.” In an exclusive interview, we had the opportunity to delve into Ashley’s creative process and gain insights into the making of this impactful documentary.
Watch our video interview:
The transcript of the interview —
1. In your own words, can you describe what Pioneers in Skirts is about?
The film started as a personal story about my own career in the film industry and really just the opportunities I wasn’t seeing because I was “a woman director.”
I really didn’t understand what that meant. I had won all these awards. I’d gotten all these amazing accolades, but I was still seen as just a woman director and with it came all these biases, assumptions, and really just very few opportunities. So I started to ask, is this me? Is it just me going through this? And so I went to a lot of my female colleagues and we were all kind of experiencing the same thing.
Then I called my mom. And I said, you know, I’m feeling really burnt out. I don’t know if this is the journey I want to take, if this is my career. And she said, oh, heck no. First of all, you’ve wanted to be a filmmaker since you were like five. So she and I both started on this journey of understanding. What made me burn out? What are women confronted with? What’s going on?
2. How did you go about researching and selecting the specific women and stories to highlight in the documentary?
So when we started making Pioneers and Skirts, We knew we had at least one question to answer. Why are numbers dropping for women as they get higher up in their careers? If you’ve seen all the studies, you’ve seen that women and men tend to start out equal in the workforce.
Then as you go up and up and up and up, that fractures off. What is that about? Because that’s not just happening in the corporate world. It’s happening in the film world. It’s happening in all male dominated fields.
So we took that goal and we did the research. We saw how for women, it takes two years for their ambition to drop by 60% in their careers. This is independent of motherhood status. This has nothing to do with the career they’ve chosen.
This is everything to do with what’s going on on a day-to-day basis that’s chipping away at them. So we took these understandings, studies, and then we just branched from there. The really important thing of making an impactful film is to encourage people’s mindsets. If you want to really change minds, you have to offer both ends of the story.
3. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in gathering archival footage, photographs, and firsthand accounts for the film?
In making Pioneers and Skirts, we wanted the audience to feel like they were a part of the conversation and me, I’m actually a comedy director at heart. So making a documentary like this, I had to get a little piece of that, that in there.
So we decided to use culture footage. When you watch the film, you’ll see there’s a clip from Friends, Saturday Night Live, all these funny moments when our culture is highlighting these inequities that we deal with on a daily basis as women.
So that was important to us to put that in the film so that you felt like there’s a little bit of lightness to this. Like, it’s really frustrating. We have to laugh at it or we won’t survive. But then let’s laugh about it and then let’s actually do something about it.
4. Were there any particularly moving or surprising stories that emerged during your interviews with these trailblazing women or their families?
Because Pioneers in Skirts is an investigative film and we’re talking to today’s woman about what they’re experiencing, it started out with questions. What’s going on? How do you handle these things? As we were investigating adults, we started to see how these biases that we have ingrained in us, they start to represent themselves in middle school.
We have to figure out what’s going on at a younger age for girls that is starting to ingrain these stereotypes, these assumptions about ourselves. Where is that happening and is anybody doing anything to stop it, to fix it? We didn’t know. So we went to a robotics competition and met Lia Schwinghammer, who you’ll see in the film. She was already realizing that girls just subtly don’t think they belong in science or in STEM.
5. Are there any women you would have liked to include in the documentary if time and scope permitted?
So at the end of the day, Pioneers in Skirt was going to be an impact film. With that, we knew the movie needed to be less than 60 minutes, especially if we wanted it to go on PBS. Let’s just say we had a lot more footage and a lot more segments than just 60 minutes. But if the film was too long, viewers wouldn’t watch it. So we decided to make it an hour-long film so that there could be constructive and impactful conversations. With that, like I said, we had to let some of our darlings go.
6. How do you hope this documentary will impact current perceptions and attitudes about professional gender norms? Have you seen any changes since 2020?
Since releasing the film back in 2020, we have seen how audiences respond. Girls as young as middle school age already see how they’re going to be treated differently than the boys. Young women are seeing that burnout. They’re seeing what we’re talking about. Then women later on in their careers, they’re seeing that choice where you wonder if you can continue on this path.
So we’re seeing those elements as women watch the film and men, men are also realizing not only are they maybe perpetuating some of these biases, but they see how they can actually help. They see how they can fix it. and let’s be clear, women and men all perpetuate these biases. We’re all trained a certain way and we have to unlearn it as time goes on.
7. What’s next for you as a filmmaker after completing this documentary on such an important but underexplored topic?
Because of my experience now making an impact film, I’ve decided that my next big film is going to be another impact film. The truth is I actually started out in narrative comedy, narrative horror, and had to make this film in order to feel like there was going to be a light at the end of the tunnel for me in my career and for women like me. Because I went on this journey, I see how film can really play a role in impacting change.
So the next film is called Super Human Anxiety. It’s short this time, and it follows a young teen who has superhuman strength whenever her anxiety manifests. Whenever it comes about. It’s funny, it’s for teens, it’s cute, and almost done. We want to premiere it for mental health awareness in May 2024.
“Pioneers in Skirts” is a social impact film about the issues that affect a woman’s pioneering ambition. Real-life stories and frank commentary leave viewers seeing their role in the solution, feeling hopeful, and motivated to act.
Originally published at https://reveel.net/blog/creating-pioneers-in-skirts-exposing-gender-inequality-in-hollywood/
Super Human Anxiety Movie Poster Design
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 1, 2024
Contact: info [@] ashley-maria.com
Los Angeles, CA — On this first day of Mental Health Awareness Month, the producers behind the impact film “Super Human Anxiety” are excited to announce the release of the movie poster.
Launching in May 2024, the poster promotes a movie designed as a powerful cinema-therapy resource for professionals, mentors, and parents supporting teens with anxiety. The film can also benefit adults with anxiety.
Informative storytelling + educational tools can lead to productive and healing conversations around anxiety.
“It’s a special project for me,” shared director Ashley Maria. “I based much of this this story on my personal experience with anxiety. By making a film about a superhero who has anxiety, my goal is to re-frame anxiety as a superpower. I feel that – if we learn to understand it, to control it, then anxiety CAN be a powerful part of ourselves,” continued Ashley.
When the filmmakers made the call for a poster design that emulated a comic book cover featuring the characters of the film, graphics designer Rachel Goldfinger came to the rescue. She was asked to craft a tone with a fun and colorful vibe so that audiences knew they would find joy in this film.
Starting with a live-action screen grab of the opening shot of Whitney – the lead character, Rachel positioned Whitney looking into camera.
“It’s as if she’s staring right at you and making you feel just how uncomfortable she is in this anxiety,” added Ashley.
The rest of the characters are represented as comic book illustrations. These illustrated characters are juxtaposed to Whitney’s real-life image; demonstrating the pressure of being triggered by intense social anxiety.
The film offers hope by showing that we can learn to face anxiety rather than avoid it.
“I’m proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish for such a special cause,” Rachel, a graphic designer that specializes in design and illustration for movies, music, and animation projects, noted. “I wanted the “Super Human Anxiety” movie poster to express a feeling of resilience and the hope the film brings.”
The “Super Human Anxiety” movie poster will be featured at movie screenings, on the website landing page, and in social channels.
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To learn more about the film: www.SuperHumanAnxiety.com.
To interview the film’s director, contact info [@] Ashley-Maria.com.