Randa Haines

It was the most inauspicious of beginnings. His father was killed by a girlfriend two months before he was born. His mother left him in foster care when she got out of prison. Physical and sexual abuse were daily realities, hope seemingly futile and far-fetched. But, in the most Hollywood of endings, Antwone Fisher is now a household name. An autobiographical screenplay, begun while he was a security guard on the Sony lot, found its way to Denzel Washington, who not only co-starred as his Navy therapist, but also made "Antwone Fisher" his directorial debut.

Women directors face far greater problems in Hollywood than Barbra Streisand failing to get an Oscar nomination this year for directing "The Prince of Tides." And just because John Singleton was nominated for "Boyz N the Hood" doesn't necessarily mean doors are opening for African-American filmmakers. Streisand and Singleton are the notable exceptions in an industry where doors still are largely closed to women and minorities, a new Director's Guild of America study confirms.

Fresh off his multiple Golden Globe wins for "Schindler's List," Steven Spielberg on Monday found himself nominated for the prestigious Directors Guild of America award in the company of Jane Campion for "The Piano," Andrew Davis for "The Fugitive," James Ivory for "The Remains of the Day" and Martin Scorsese for "The Age of Innocence." The five directors are the same group nominated for the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.'s Golden Globes, which were awarded on Saturday.

People concerned about abused and neglected children gathered at two benefits last week in efforts to make young futures brighter. "Making Life More Than Bearable" was the theme of Saturday night's affair, sponsored by Olive Crest Treatment Centers for abused children. Each table was delightfully decorated with a huggable teddy bear that went to an Olive Crest child.

In the entire 60-plus years that Academy Awards have been handed out, only one female director--Italy's Lina Wertmuller for "Seven Beauties"--has ever been nominated for best director. Such notable women filmmakers as Dorothy Arzner and Ida Lupino have been shut out of the Oscar nominations.

"The Hurt Locker" continues to shock and awe this award season. The gripping Iraq war drama chronicling the lives of a bomb defusing unit has won best film and director for Kathryn Bigelow from the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn., New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. On Thursday, the 58-year-old Bigelow was nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award for outstanding directorial achievement in feature film. Bigelow is only the seventh female director to be nominated for the top DGA Award.

A group of leading film makers have sent a letter to President Ronald Reagan urging him, as a former member of the film industry, to support a cultural boycott of South Africa that would include American-made movies. The letter was signed by directors Woody Allen, Jonathan Demme, Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese and Susan Seidelman, on behalf of more than 100 members of the recently formed Filmmakers United Against Apartheid, according to a spokesman.

"Because I had a lot of emotional upheaval in my life, I'm attracted to stories about characters whose lives are full of wounds and secrets," director Randa Haines says. "I'm not interested in who's going to ask me to the prom. I never went to a prom." Haines, 41, made a name for herself several years ago when she directed "Something About Amelia," the ABC Emmy Award-winning TV film about incest. Its impressive ratings and the praise it won led to an offer to direct her first feature.

Like the individual it's named after, a man who wrote the screenplay of the film based on his own life and then had to wait nearly a decade to see it arrive on screen, "Antwone Fisher" is the story of obstacles overcome. Not only is it unusual that this emotional story of how a damaged boy became a whole man made it to the screen at all, it is a measure of its strengths that it overcomes storytelling flaws that would have disabled a weaker project.