“We need to make sure everyone is paid a living wage in all 50 states in the nation, and that goes for women, too. I want to continue to work on film projects that examine these issues, so we can better understand where we are and what we can do about it, to keep a hold of the American Dream for everyone.” She became interested in gender equality as a student at all-women Barnard College, where there was a heightened awareness around women’s rights, and she became more attuned to the inequalities they face in many industries, particularly the entertainment industry. She majored in history with a minor in religious studies, setting her sights on pursuing a career in international development and aid work. After graduating, she landed a job managing the press center for the United Nations Conference on Population and Development NGO Forum, where she learned how the media could be used as an effective tool for social change. In 1994, she took a position working as an archival researcher at Cronkite Ward Productions working on Walter Cronkite’s autobiographical series Cronkite Remembers. 24
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She moved on to film, co-producing Blue Vinyl in 2002, a documentary about the health and environmental risks associated with the manufacturing process for the plastic, polyvinyl chloride, also known as PVC. She served as a production executive for the company, Non Fiction Films, before co-founding Chicken & Egg Pictures in 2005, and later Gamechanger Films in 2013, a for-profit production financing company that invested in a slate of ten feature films directed by women, most notably The Tale by Jennifer Fox and Land Ho! by Martha Stevens and Aaron Katz. Back then, there wasn’t much in the way of financial support or mentorship opportunities for women filmmakers, she recalls. “The field has expanded quite a bit, and women filmmakers are breaking through more and more. There are new companies that have cropped up to support women, both in the fiction world and nonfiction world. There are festivals like the Athena Film Festival, focusing on women’s leadership, at Barnard. It is heartening to see more and more focus and attention on women filmmakers. It is still hard to get that first lucky break, and it is equally hard to get the big budget projects or win the awards, but there is movement and culture change, and a lot more awareness than there was five, ten, or fifteen years ago.” Her focus more recently is on inequality in a much broader sense. “I think inequality in all its forms — gender and racial inequality in particular — are the most pressing issues in the U.S. today. American Factory spoke to the decline of the middle class and well-paying factory jobs with benefits in the Midwest. The big question is, how do we continue to have a robust middle class in the U.S., when so many jobs have been outsourced overseas and unemployment is so high? “We need to make sure everyone is paid a living wage in all 50 states in the nation, and that goes for women, too. I want to continue to work on film projects that examine these issues, so we can better understand where we are and what we can do about it, to keep a hold of the American Dream for everyone.” After American Factory won the Oscar, Benello was poised to go full-steam ahead with more challenging projects,
having made new connections through the Oscar win. Then the pandemic struck, and things changed. “COVID-19 has hit our industry hard, from big Hollywood productions to independent filmmakers who haven’t been able to shoot and have lost freelance gigs. We pivoted our programs at Chicken & Egg Pictures from in-person to virtual labs and launched an AlumNest relief fund for rapid relief grants to our filmmakers. On the flip side, it is true that audiences have grown as we are all stuck at home consuming more and more content on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, HBO, etc., so there is a huge need for compelling storytelling in all its forms,” she says. To that end, Benello signed on as executive producer with the Global Fund for Women, along with YouTube and Refinery 29, to produce the series, Fundamental: Gender Justice, No Exceptions about five women activists from around the world who are fighting for gender justice by disrupting the status quo. A former board member of the Global Fund for Women, one of the world’s leading foundations for gender equality, Benello supported the work the organization does in funding grassroots women activists from developing countries. “I thought it would be great to profile some of these women activists and the movements they are a part of, so the series, directed by two-time Oscar-winner Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, seemed like a natural fit and extension of my interests,” she says. Recently, she came on board to produce Tony Award-winning playwright and performer Sarah Jones’s documentary directorial debut, SELL/BUY/DATE, which is based on her award-winning, one-woman play about sex workers. “Sarah is brilliant and very funny,” Benello says, “and we could all use more humor in this surreal and crazy moment in our world.” Benello lives in San Francisco with her husband, Allen, and two daughters, Avery and Sophie. She serves on the Board of SFFilm and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Documentary Branch. In 1999, she was the Hotchkiss Community Service Award recipient.
