Salon.com: Where are the female directors? "Let's say you have a short at a film festival and it's doing well. Chances are high you'll be at a party and have an opportunity to pitch your idea over drinks. If your idea is good enough perhaps you'll get it financed." For women, though, chatting up an older man over drinks isn't construed as business -- it's seen as flirting. That, Veneruso says, is why women are "always on the outside" of the casual networks where much of the film business gets done.

But the movie industry is a dream factory, and the resistance to women in it seems based, in part, on the subterranean longings of the men who run it." My Fat Greek Wedding is the hit of this summer opened in April. There's always a market for great movies.