Ramona At Midlife, Brooke at Midlife…

Fifty-four-year-old filmmaker Brooke Berman on refusing to let gendered ageism sideline her from making her passion project, "Ramona at Midlife," now on the film festival circuit.

Writer/Director Brooke Berman on the set of Ramona at Midlife.

The other day, a colleague — male, 30s — posted on social media about his gratitude for the people helping him build a career in television. Now, I’m going to say upfront, I like this guy and I like his writing. I know that his post was sincere. But My God, that post worked every nerve. Not yet 40 and on the rise, working on prestige TV and new plays, supported by a strong agent team, this writer has not yet faced (and maybe never will) the crippling self-doubt that comes when opportunity dries up, when agents and managers bail, and the “community” vanishes.

In 2014, when I was 45, my film and TV agents dropped me. It stung. But I had a handful of new projects and was optimistic. After all, I’d established myself, working for over 20 years in the theater and indie film worlds. I’d published a memoir, and Uggs for Gaza, my first short film, was doing well on the festival circuit. I was writing and developing plays with interesting companies — surely it would work out.

It didn’t.

An agent that I’d been friendly with took me to breakfast and explained that a middle-aged woman screenwriter/director without a TV job was poison. “Can you rep me?” I asked her directly. “No,” she said, explaining that she needed someone who was either just breaking in or already famous.

Despite a Broadway option and “second-rounder” status at the Sundance Labs, I could not get new representation. I reached out to agents I’d known for years — and a few new ones — to no avail. Finally, an agent that I’d been friendly with took me to breakfast and explained that a middle-aged woman screenwriter/director without a TV job was poison.

“Can you rep me?” I asked her directly. “No,” she said, explaining that she needed someone who was either just breaking in or already famous. “Sell something, get a little buzz and come back to me,” she said. I left her office wanting to quit, altogether. (She also said, and I quote, “No one in the American theater gives a shit about [plays focusing on] people with kids and their problems.” But that’s another essay entirely.) I did not quit.

(Editor’s note: I can’t wait to see Ramona at Midlife Wednesday, 9/27 at the Woodstock Film Festival. Get tickets…)

In the nine years since that conversation, I have written plays, pilots and two features. I have pitched, won awards, gone to high-level labs and festivals and inadvertently started an advocacy group for female playwrights over 40 from a Facebook rant. All without agents. No vision board, manifestation guru, bullet-journaling or career coach can change the sad fact that gendered ageism is alive and well — and to bastardize the since-retracted 1986 Newsweek story claiming that a woman in her 40s has a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than getting married (which, by the way, I found to be totally untrue — I got married and had a baby at 41)—it’s pretty hard for a woman filmmaker over 40 to get a new agent.

No vision board, manifestation guru, bullet-journaling or career coach can change the sad fact that gendered ageism is alive and well — and to bastardize the since-retracted 1986 Newsweek story claiming that a woman in her 40s has a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than getting married (which, by the way, I found to be totally untrue—I got married and had a baby at 41) — it’s pretty hard for a woman filmmaker over 40 to get a new agent.

So I focused on making a film. At first, I was developing a more conventional indie that followed the conventional model — attach movie stars, get funding. But once the pandemic hit, after five years of development, I realized that Mark Duplass was right in his keynote speech at South By Southwest in 2015: “The cavalry isn’t coming.” And I wrote something smaller, that I could shoot on a shoestring budget with my friends in New York. My pandemic passion project, Ramona At Midlife.

Brooke Berman and her crew on the set of Ramona at Midlife.

Ramona is the story of a middle-aged working mother and former literary It Girl who discovers that she may be the subject of a hot filmmaker’s newest project. It’s a movie about a woman like me collating selves — past, present, future, artist, mother, lover — juggling her creative life with her responsibilities as a parent and partner. As Ramona faces up to the wins and losses of her former life — and repairs the relationships she left in ruins — she locates her true creative power and is finally ready to become her best self. She is in her 40’s. And she’s not hiding it.

Every time I worried that I’m getting too old — or doubted my journey — I worked on the script for Ramona and put the energy into setting up my film.

Every time I got triggered by a Facebook or Instagram post, I put the energy back into my film. Every time I worried that I’m getting too old — or doubted my journey — I worked on the script for Ramona and put the energy into setting up my film. I raised the money, found collaborators and partners, built a team, cast and found locations. We shot the movie in June of 2022 and premiered in June of 2023 at Geena Davis’s excellent Bentonville Film Festival, a place that encourages inclusivity and innovation. When I see or think about the agents who passed on me, I put the energy into back into my work. And this is not to say I work harder, but I do work with more awareness that I have to be the one who says yes — to myself.

The more I learn about gendered agism, the more aware I am of our fear to call it by name lest we be 1) identified by our correct age or 2) called bitter. Or are we afraid instead that the response will be “It’s not gendered ageism — it’s you.” A friend my age cautioned, you can’t ever appear bitter — because then, they stop listening to you. And you can’t complain that age or gender have played a role because the response will be: “She wasn’t good enough.” And of course that’s our fear — hasn’t that been the fear all along? Isn’t that what we were told as younger women as well?

(Editor’s note: the title character, Ramona, can be seen reading my book:)

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But we are good enough. I know we are. And I know it’s not over. We have to keep taking the steps and walking the walk. The only response is to create. And then create more. Making Ramona — and now, at 54, traveling with Ramona — I have never felt more confident or alive.