So there I was, with a movie and a mission and no one to turn to. As a woman in Hollywood (and I have been one for quite some time now) one expects her projects to be generally met with indifference, if not downright condescension, so I was ready for it. I say this because I don’t want you to worry that any of the above really bugged me — if that were all it took to turn me off, you would definitely not be reading this. But read on. Sexism being as inventive as it is these days, something eventually did manage to burrow under my skin.I had started my own production company, Heroica Films, in 1995, upon selling my first big spec script as a writer and booking a national commercial as an actor. My goal had always been to make movies by, for, and about women, and to use as many of us in front of and behind the camera as possible. A noble ambition, to be sure. But one that has unfortunately remained more of an aspirational mission statement than a reflection of any actual reality — and I am 100% sure I’m not alone.I’m not even going to let you entertain the notion that I didn’t try. I tried my ass off. I tried day in and day out. I didn’t sit around and whine about how the white man in a suit was keeping me down. As president of Heroica Films, I pitched and met and lunched and wrote and got optioned and prayed and auditioned and got re-optioned and re-met and cried and rewrote and pitched again. But I never got the funding for my own projects and, despite 30 leads and supporting roles in mainstream feature films and over 60 episodes of network television over the years, I have never been cast in a role that could pass the Bechdel test So, screw it. I wrote and produced and shot and directed and cut and scored and mixed my own films, and did that over a dozen times with shorts (once digital made it doable), all self-funded on half a shoestring. And then I shot A Single Woman (a full feature film) over a three-day weekend for $60K cash and a massive hustle.