The magical lecture by author and script consultant Dara Marks began, appropriately enough, with a blustery downpour. A unique co-production between New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT) and Writers Guild of America East, “Engaging the Feminine Heroic” was an invitation to honor our mythological heritage and explore the archetypal structures of our stories and ourselves.
The following morsels are my takeaways and understanding of the ideas introduced during Marks’ central thesis, which had to do with the necessity of integrating both the masculine and feminine realms into our narratives and recognizing that every hero(ine) must journey through both.
Seven concepts that struck my soul:
- Narrative has a higher function. It carries information on how to live. It is “not simply a thing, but the very air we breathe, the very thing we swim in.” The moment it passes, it becomes memory.
- The very fact that certain myths have survived through the ages indicates there is a timeless truth to those narratives. We can look to them for inspiration for our writing and our lives.
- When we’re young, we make decisions about who we are going to become. Eventually, the other aspects of ourselves go to war to get us back.
- The masculine side of our nature strives for ascension; the feminine, for connection.
- Embedded in the masculine pull towards ascension is the desire to reach inherently unattainable heights. With every benchmark achieved in art and life, it is never enough. Goalposts shift. There is always a crisis of faith.
- The crisis of faith inspires and requires a descent into the feminine underworld. We emerge “more ourselves” at the other end. Creativity grows out of the “compost [of the] debris of life.“
- “In the young feminine, [as in the Persephone myth] there is an abduction… The mature feminine hears the call.”
By the time I was ready to go home, the deluge had subsided—and I’d found a friend with an umbrella.
nywift
Related Posts
Meet the New NYWIFT Member: Belén Vilarrasa-Corriero
Welcome to NYWIFT, Belén Vilarrasa-Corriero! Belén is a Spanish-American documentary filmmaker making her directorial debut with Entre Las Paredes (Within the Walls), an intimate, feature-length project in development that follows her Abuela’s final days. Born and raised in New York City in a bilingual household, Belén brings a deeply personal lens to her work, believing that some of the most powerful stories live within our own families. Alongside her own projects, Belén works as an assistant director across narrative and commercial productions, where her focus, adaptability, and collaborative spirit help keep sets running smoothly. A graduate of the School of Visual Arts, she continues to grow her craft through diverse filmmaking experiences, driven by a dedication to emotionally resonant, visually compelling storytelling. In our interview, Belén reflects on documenting her family’s history, navigating grief and memory through film, and the projects she’s most excited to explore next.
READ MOREMeet the New NYWIFT Member: Sophia Baldassari
Let’s welcome screenwriter, script supervisor, and playwright Sophia Baldassari to NYWIFT! She was most recently an Associate Producer on the Radio Silence thriller LOSER, directed by Colleen McGuinness. Her plays and pilots have been developed/produced at Luna Stage, George Street Playhouse, the McCarter Theatre Center, Haddonfield Plays and Players, and Manhattan Repertory Theatre, and have received accolades from the O’Neill Center Young Playwrights, Theatremania Young Playwrights, Beardance International Playwriting Festival, the Neil LaBute New Theatre Festival, the Austin Film Festival, among others. She’s studied Writing at Sarah Lawrence and Egyptology at the University of Oxford, an experience she used to write a buddy comedy about the mummy of a Pharaoh’s 29th Favorite wife. She is a member of the Writers Guild of America East, The New York Script Supervisors Network, and IATSE Local 111. In our interview, we discussed uniting accessible and female driven stories with comedy and surrealism, the structural switches between playwriting and screenwriting, and the unexpected comedy of life in ancient Egypt. Let’s dive in!
READ MOREMeet the New NYWIFT Member: Sun Roller
Welcome to NYWIFT, Sun Roller! Sun Roller is a Chickasaw creative and producer raised in Oklahoma and based in New York City. With a career spanning production design, art direction, project management, and large-scale leadership, Sun Roller brings a deeply intentional, intuitive approach to every project she touches—grounded in spirituality, connection to nature, and collaboration. Sun Roller has worked across film and television on projects including Reservation Dogs, I Saw the TV Glow, Poker Face and The Lowdown. In recent years, she has expanded her work into producing, with a focus on Indigenous-led stories and community-centered narratives. When she’s not on set or behind a computer, Sun Roller can often be found outdoors soaking up the Sun and enjoying time in nature with her elder pup, Wrigley, and her partner, Annie H. In our interview, Sun Roller reflects on her path into film and television, building a career across male-dominated industries, and the stories she’s most excited to bring to the screen next.
READ MOREMeet the New NYWIFT Member: Kelli Reilly
Welcome to NYWIFT, Kelli Reilly! Kelli Reilly is a producer, director, and writer working across narrative film and documentary, based between New York and Los Angeles, and the founder of Quartermaster Creative. She studied film and television at NYU Tisch with a focus in experimental cinema and got her start working on acclaimed documentaries, including Larger Than Life: The Kevyn Aucoin Story, The Vow, and Student Athlete. Her recent producing work includes I Got You, SLICK, and The Daughter, and she is currently in post-production on the feature documentary Viva La Dita. She is also in production on the period feature The Florist and is a writer and contributor to the New York Times–recommended podcast Look Behind the Look. In our interview, Kelli discussed how she shaped her artistry, her inspirations, and her upcoming work.
READ MORE
