Women in Film returned for its annual WIF Honors on Thursday night, once again recognizing the women working on the frontlines to change the entertainment industry for the better.
The event, held at The Ray Dolby Ballroom in Los Angeles, kicked off with the presentation of the Jane Fonda Humanitarian Award, selected and presented by the icon herself. Fonda explained that, “there’s great joy in being an artist, an actor — being paid for your work and recognized, fantastic, wonderful; but to be an activist that’s something else again. To act is to put on a performance, but to be an activist is to perform in service of the world.” She continued, “It’s hard to imagine a more perfect recipient of this recognition,” speaking of this year’s chosen honoree, America Ferrera.
“From her very first moment on the screen in Real Women Have Curves it was obvious that this wasn’t a woman who was just going to succeed in Hollywood, this was a woman who was going to help change it,” Fonda said of the Barbie star, who got teary-eyed at her seat.
Upon taking the stage, Ferrera used her speech to throw the love right back at Fonda, saying, “I know I speak on behalf of so many women in this industry when I say how grateful we are to you for modeling the courage that we aspire to embody… When we go to make our art, as women in film, we are either upholding the stories that have shaped our lives historically, or we are challenging them with new stories that compel us toward a different and more just reality. Jane, in every aspect of your work, you showed us how to do this.”
Next up, Jon Hamm presented the night’s first Crystal Award for Advocacy to Past Lives director Celine Song and star Greta Lee — the latter with whom he worked with on The Morning Show, saying, “I can attest that she is absolutely deserving of all of accolades she is getting and many more.”
The Past Lives pair sat down for a brief conversation following their award, where Song acknowledged that “how effortless telling this story felt for me, how natural it felt for me, is the result of a long history of women in film.” Lee, who stars opposite Teo Yoo in a film that follows the relationship between two childhood friends over the course of 24 years, also spoke about how working on the project, “Became more about my own personal sense of loss, actually, in terms of my identity and speaking Korean again, to that extent.”
Following the chat, Yara Shahidi was presented with the Max Mara Face Of The Future Award by Maria Giulia Prezioso Maramotti.
“Because of the work you all have done, my most impactful times on set have been surrounded by empowered women in every department, at every executive level. I’m grateful that I got to come into an industry and challenge the norm,” Shahidi said in her speech, adding, “Being here really gives me continued hope because this is a room united in a shared commitment and that’s really rare.”
Closing out the event, Flamin’ Hot star Annie Gonzalez presented the second Crystal Award for Advocacy to the film’s director Eva Longoria and writer Linda Yvette Chávez. In their conversation, Chávez recalled being told that Longoria wanted her to write the film and was willing to wait for her to finish work on her Netflix series Gentefied. “I hadn’t met her yet, but the minute I met her I was like, ‘Oh, she’s like every one of my cousins, she feels like home, immediately felt that I was home,” the writer recalled.
Longoria also reflected on how she had to fight to direct the project, and would practice pitching in front of several of her industry mentors. “I would do the pitch and then they would go, ‘OK, stop. I want you to walk outside and go put your white male privilege pants on and speak as if you have the job.’ And I never thought about that; I was like, ‘Oh yeah, men do that all the time, they just assume they have the job.’ So it really changed something in me.” And in response to the questions she’s gotten about if she can believe the success Flamin’ Hot has had, Longoria added, “Yes, motherfucker, I was there.”