Ms. Francesca Rizzo was my immediate predecessor as President of CineWomen NY and took charge of the organization in 2000 at a time when CineWomen NY was at the brink of dissolution, suffering from depleted funding, dwindling membership (under 40 members) and a loss of focus and initiative. Instead of letting the organization die, Ms. Rizzo grabbed the reins, brought in a new, dynamic board of directors and began a campaign to re-image CWNY, introduce new programs and strengthen others, increase membership and reverse negative trends that had been slowly sapping the strength of the organization. Without her energy, leadership, experience and initiative, it is fair to say that CineWomen NY would no longer exist.

Thanks to her leaders hip, we quintupled our membership, we had month CineNYtes (CWNY networking meetings attended by 30 – 50 people), a bi-monthly CWNY Screening Series at NY’s prestigious Anthology Film Archives, a top-level series of hands-on workshops led by industry professional teachers, CineWomen NY’s first website which she designed with our webmaster, Andee Kinsee, CinEnews, our first monthly e-newsletter which she designed with our editor, Louise Fleming, and Cineslate, the daily production web list in which members announce projects, cast talent, crew up, acquire equipment and support each other’s efforts. We participated in the Brooklyn Film Festival with our own film block and the Beyond the Babe symposium, which Rizzo curated and hosted. We also instituted the CiNY Awards for outstanding filmmaking & performance in narrative, documentary, shorts and feature length as well as the infamous Good, Bad & Ugly Awards (examining "Hollywood" movies' depiction of women each year). We developed reciprocal relationships with NYWFT (New York Women in Film & TV), The Independent Feature Project, Guerrilla Filmmaker Magazine and The Brooklyn Film Festival.