Kevin's New Book (Out Tomorrow May 22)
Hello, friends. It's Kevin. Thank you for listening.
I have some big news you may have heard from me already.
Meet BREAK THE FRAME: CONVERSATIONS WITH WOMEN FILMMAKERS, my new book. My fourth.
Out this Thursday, May 22, 2025.
BREAK THE FRAME is a collection of 24 interviews with 24 of the great directors of movies and television of our time. I spent three years researching, watching and speaking to the brilliant minds behind life-changing art and entertainment made by women.
It was the honor of my professional life to do so.
For this book, I was honored to speak to directors like Debra Granik, Patricia Cardoso, Jamie Babbit and Amy Heckerling, who were responsible for launching the careers, respectively, of Jennifer Lawrence, America Ferrera, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Rudd and Sean Penn. The women behind the Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo is in here. So is the only person to ever win the Best Documentary Oscar twice. As are the filmmakers responsible for a few movies and TV series you may have heard of like The Devil Wears Prada, Deep Impact, Captain Marvel, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Only Murders in the Building.
I could go on for hours because the accomplishments of these women, on your big screens and small, is that vast. I hope I was able to capture, within these, a little of how much pleasure their movies and tv shows have given all of us.
Will you read it and tell me?
BREAK THE FRAME comes out tomorrow, May 22nd, 2025 and is available for pre-order now wherever you get your books. We’ll be having a big kickoff event that evening at The Booksmith on Haight Street in San Francisco where I will be in conversation with the great filmmaker Tiffany Shlain, who also founded the Webby Awards.
I’ll be posting updates at BreaktheFrameBook.com where I have also listed my complete tour schedule (thus far New York, Ann Arbor, Chicago and Los Angeles), here on this newsletter and my social media channels (IG, FB and BSKY).
We’ve also released a companion podcast featuring behind the scenes conversations with several of the directors in the book including stories from the making of great movies like But I’m a Cheerleader and Real Women Have Curves.
The complete list of directors is below.
It’d mean everything to me if you ordered a copy, or told someone who you think would dig this project about it. Or if you can’t, just told me your favorite movie directed by a woman.
I love you all. See you on tour this summer…
— Kevin
Section 1: Trailblazers
Barbara Kopple
Cheryl Dunye
Amy Heckerling
Patricia Cardoso
Julie Dash
Section 2: Sages
Mimi Leder
Jamie Babbit
Jessica Yu
Tamra Davis
Aline Brosh McKenna
Debra Granik
Section 3: Documentarians
Chris Hegedus
Dawn Porter
Tiffany Shlain
Dream Hampton
Section 4: Directing in Partnership
Shari Springer Berman (w/ Robert Pulcini)
Betsy West & Julie Cohen
Anna Boden (w/ Ryan Fleck)
E. Chai Vasherlyi (w/ Jimmy Chin)
Section 5: The Female Future
Felicia Pride
Jessica Sharzer
Tanya Saracho
Alice Wu
Erin Lee Carr
###Written while taking deep breaths.
Logo by Dave Linabury.