“The friendship and support of professional women in the same creative pursuit is a powerful thing. For me, that’s the heart of Women In Film.” — Beth Harrington, member, WIF/Seattle

From the moment Hollywood was born, women have played a leading role.

In the early days of the film industry, visionaries like Mary Pickford and Lucille Ball ran studios. Women had real power as screenwriters, producers and directors. But times changed after World War II, and along the way, women in film lost their power and profile.

By the 1970s, women were struggling just to have their voices heard. In 1973, journalist Sue Cameron revealed a galvanizing statistic in The Hollywood Reporter: according to a Writers Guild of America survey, women wrote only 2% of all television scripts.
Ida Lupino

Ida Lupino
Tichi Wilkerson Kassel

Tichi Wilkerson Kassel

Tichi Wilkerson Kassel, the late publisher and editor-in-chief of The Hollywood Reporter, decided to create an organization to help women recapture the recognition and opportunities they once had and still deserved. She called together eight women writers and producers - Marcia Borie, Norma Zarky, Zepha Bogert, Georgeanne Heller, Nancy Malone, Sue Cameron, Portia Nelson and Ilene Kahn Power – and there, on the floor of her office, Women In Film was founded.

Word spread quickly. When other women in the entertainment industry heard about the group in Los Angeles, they started their own chapters, first in Dallas, then in New York, Atlanta and beyond. (Click here for the WIF chapter history timeline.) In 1997, WIF became international, with the United Kingdom, Canada and other countries founding chapters of their own.

As membership grew, women decided that they needed more than a kindred spirit and a shared struggle for equality to achieve their goals. In 1997, the high profile inaugural Women In Film & Television International World Summit was held in New York City. The WIFTI Board was formed and bi-annual International Summit came into being- a network of our own to enhance, facilitate and encourage communication and cooperation around the world.

Today, the group of nine women has grown to more than 10,000. WIF has become the world’s largest non-profit organization benefiting the entertainment industry, with 17 chapters in the U.S. and 18 international chapters.