They're listening now. In the four years
since Codikow founded the non-profit organization POWER
UP (Professional Organization of Women in Entertainment
Reaching Up), she and a growing posse of gay and straight
women and men have won respect in Hollywood by mapping out
specific goals that put careers in motion.
"Stacy is a total powerhouse,"
enthuses director Angela Robinson, the organization's wildest
success story so far. Robinson's short film D.E.B.S.--a
pop confection about high school lesbian secret agents in
love--screened at POWER UP's first Power Premiere gala,
in 2002. By the time guests were finishing their dessert,
Robinson was in business. She's since shot two upcoming
features: a full-length D.E.B.S. and Disney's Herbie: Fully
Loaded, starring Lindsay Lohan.
Other organizations with more diffuse missions
have made gains for women in film. But Codikow, a producer
with the moxie of an old-time studio mogul, instinctively
grasped that Hollywood likes results. She decided to focus
on two things only: helping filmmakers make movies and getting
the movies seen.
The gay aspect of POWER UP fell into place
because Codikow, who was 38 when she founded the organization,
was just coming out. She quips that she started the group
partly because "I never knew any gay people besides
the girls that I went out with."
Her first phone call in assembling a board
of directors went to out writer-director Lee Rose. "She
had made [the family coming-out TV movie] The Truth About
Jane," Codikow says, "and I had watched it with
my mother." Rose said she was too busy. Codikow persisted.
"You changed my life, and I'm not hanging up until
you say yes!"
Nowadays Rose is one of POWER UP's staunchest
volunteer participants, along with director Jamie Babbit
and producer Andrea Sperling. And Codikow's romantic partner,
Lisa Thrasher, now works alongside Codikow as full-time
director of film production and distribution.
POWER UP professional members can apply
for one of three annual $20,000 grants--as writers, directors,
or writer-directors. Winners don't do the project alone,
Codikow stresses. "We're more like a studio,"
with final cut and close supervision, she says.
"It's one step better than film school,"
adds Thrasher, "because you learn business protocol
along with the creative process. We do all our own PR and
distribution too." The formula has produced films good
enough to get into the Sundance Film Festival every year
since POWER UP's founding.
Now Codikow is upping the ante again. This
year, instead of three shorts, POWER UP is making a full-length
feature. Will it work? Codikow has no doubt. "I've
always said to people, 'Things move like a train. Don't
ask questions. Hang on. We're going somewhere.'"
Stockwell was voted one of POWER UP's "10
amazing gay women in showbiz" for 2004.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Liberation Publications,
Inc.
