Martha Coolidge

Orig­i­nal­ly from Con­necti­cut, Martha Coolidge direct­ed her first fea­ture, Not a Pret­ty Pic­ture, in 1976. Its semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal explo­ration of con­sent and vio­lence against women laid the foun­da­tions for a body of work cen­tered on the study of human rela­tion­ships. Through­out her career, she has alter­nat­ed between stu­dio pro­duc­tions, inde­pen­dent films, and tele­vi­sion. From 2001 to 2003, she served as Pres­i­dent of the Direc­tors Guild of Amer­i­ca (DGA), becom­ing the first woman elect­ed to lead the organization.