Heartland Interview: Cady McClain of "Seeing Is Believing: Women Direct"

Director Cady McClain made "Seeing Is Believing: Women Direct" as her own way of exploring why female directors still face such huge obstacles in the film industry. For tickets and showtimes to see the film, click here.

What inspired you to make this documentary?

Thank you so much for taking the time to support this film via this interview. One HUGE issue for women who direct has been a limited amount of press support, so your attention means a lot.

I studied directing with Curt Dempster of Ensemble Studio Theater back in the early 1990’s, and it was then I discovered that directing was something I loved and wanted to do professionally. My mother, on the other hand, saw it as a profession that women simply could not succeed at and made me promise her I would not pursue it. I was also providing for her as she was recovering from cancer and died a few years later but the effect she had on me was enough to kill that dream for a long time.

Almost 20 years later, with encouragement from my husband and a friend, from 2013 to 2014 I made two short films that radically changed the way I thought of myself as an artist. I rediscovered myself as a director. I loved every bit of it and knew this was the direction I wanted to go in as a career.

As I started to research how I might go about this I started running across news articles that were sharing reports and statistics on how many women were actually getting jobs as directors. I was stunned that some the same issues that I had to overcome as an actor (sexism, objectification, minimizing of intellect and creative insight), had also been dominating life on the other side of the camera.

After being voiceless as an actor for so long, was I going to have to give up hope of working in a medium that gave me so much joy and agency as an artist? Was I going to have to find a smaller role within the field to play, simply because there was systemic resistance to me directing because of my gender?

The more I thought about it the more I began to see I had two options: I could agree with the oppression and adjust my goals accordingly or I could disagree with it, and do something about it. I decided on the latter. It was then the idea to make a documentary just popped into my head. I had never made a documentary before, nor had I gone to film school, but I had seen lots of docs on PBS growing up and those didn’t seem out of reach. I thought, “I can make a doc that makes a difference. I can show women like me that it IS possible and that there ARE women directing and having careers and here’s how.”

I made this film to encourage women to be creative leaders if that’s what they want to be, and to encourage men to see women who claim this role as wonderful visionaries they might potentially collaborate with someday on a project. It’s all a matter of perspective. We should all be saying, “Of course we could hire a woman to direct this film. Her gender is not an issue.”

What should gender have to do with whether or not you can have a creative vision and lead a team to execute that vision? What should race or age or disability or size or looks have to do with this skill? Nothing. Those factors are redundant.

How did you find all these women to give their testimony? Did any of them stand out in particular?

I started with the first woman who’s work I’d seen and been moved by, Penny Bergman. This was August of 2015. She was the stage manager for years on a soap I acted on, but she had directed this gorgeous play at Circle Rep in NYC that brought to life a Japanese Folk tale. It was then that I got to know her as an artist, although I had always known her as a craftsperson.

After Penny, I asked a woman that directed me in a film, Deborah Del Prete, who went on to become an extremely successful producer after finding directing in Los Angeles a world full of closed doors. Her story also drove me to make a film that would help to change the status quo.

Then as friends started to hear about my commitment to the project they started connecting me to women who directed, and my husband helped too (he is also an actor/director/writer) by introducing me to women he had met on sets or at film festivals and connecting me with them. Then the women I interviewed started recommending me to their friends and it just snowballed. I interviewed about 70 women total. 50 of those were hour (plus) long interviews. About 30 made it into the film. I can honestly say that every single interview was remarkable. Not a dull one in the lot. They were all 100% into sharing their journey and wisdom about leadership am deeply grateful for the honesty and generosity of these folks. The movie exists because of them giving me their time and insights. All for free, by the way.

Regarding the content of the interviews, what stood out to me was how willing they were to be totally honest with me. Every interview was a gem, but I ultimately chose to focus on the women I did because I wanted to create the best opportunity for as many women as possible to see someone in this film and think, “Oh I am like her!” I believe that is how we give ourselves permission to do something that we might be wary of: we look for others who have gone before us and succeeded.

We’re starting to see some female directors getting high-profile/big budget directing slots. Does this give you any hope for the future of the industry?

Absolutely. Because it means at the very highest level, the level of major budget studio pictures, this movement that started with a very small, very grassroots type of campaign has grown to the degree that those at the highest levels are starting to realize that they must be a part of this cultural shift. And I want to emphasize that this shift is good for men as well because it means there is less pressure on them to carry all the weight of leadership, which is the truth of leadership. It is a weight that needs to be borne with grace and dignity so that we can co-create work that we all feel proud of. I have found that men of all ages walk away from this film and are as stoked about being directors and leaders as the women are, but also they are often newly open to the idea of collaborating with a woman who is a leader with a vision, and that to me is a massive win.

What’s next for you?

I am working on completing the edit of a film I shot this summer of a live theater piece called “Paint Made Flesh,” which stars a female protagonist, and I’m also working on turning a book I wrote into a screenplay. It will be another massive labor of love but I think there’s an opportunity there to really make some people laugh while seeing a family in the worst of times. I think we could all use a good laugh these days, don’t you?