Sheriffs, gun-toting outlaws, wagon trains, saloons, bar brawls and shootouts – Spaghetti Western will be rich with many much-loved Hollywood ingredients. Yet this will be very different from the old-fashioned cowboy film. The entire project is female-led, aims to be fully funded by women and comes from Scotland.
More than that, it will be a Wild West movie with a very special flavour – Sicilian cooking.
Spaghetti Western is the latest initiative from Dumfries and Galloway’s Wigtown-based and US-born writer and director Jessica Fox who hopes it will help open the door for more female influence over the movie industry.
She, and London-based producer Diana Phillips, believe it’s essential to have more films created from the female gaze and with female financing.
Spaghetti Western is set in 1881 when Elena Fardella, a young Sicilian widow, finds herself thrust into the battle for control of the remote, dust-blown town of Eden, New Mexico.
Her only weapon is her skill as a cook and determination to use food to bring people together.
Will the penne prove mightier than the sword?
Fox, known for her award-winning movie Stella and her romantic memoir Three Things You Need To Know About Rockets has put together a vibrant international creative team, including the Grammy award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musician Rhiannon Giddens.
Development funding is in place, thanks to female angel investors, and the team is calling on other women to seize the chance to be part of a project aiming to change the movie-making landscape.
Fox said: “It’s a fun, authentic, deliciously different take on the Wild West – how it was really won, as gun toting bad guys face the ultimate showdown when Sicilian cookery comes to town.
“But the project is far bigger, it’s about empowering women of the 21st century to start transforming the movie industry, by getting involved as investors, directors and producers.
“It’s a sector that’s overwhelmingly dominated by men. Men decide who and what to fund, the film and TV that we watch and our cultural narratives. Even the films with female central characters are largely made through the male gaze.
“It’s time that changed, with fresh stories and ideas that bring new perspectives to the big screen – and with that, new audiences.
“The only way that’s going to happen is if we begin making movies that are funded by women and offer the insights and experience they need to truly take the leading role.
“She who holds the purse strings tells the story.”
Investors are being offered a variety of benefits in addition to a potential return, including the chance to make an appearance on film.
Phillips said: “We have a brilliant script, a great creative team, the music has been recorded and development funding is in place – now we are looking for women to come forward as investors and collaborators so we can make a great movie and a real difference to the movie industry.”
Among the women who have come together to provide development funding for Spaghetti Western is Professor Lynne Cadenhead, chair of Women’s Enterprise Scotland and chief operating officer of TRICAPITAL Angels Ltd.
She said: “Funding remains one of the biggest barriers to getting women’s stories on screen. The truth is, whoever controls the purse strings tells the story — and it’s time for that to change. Spaghetti Western offers a groundbreaking model for women to back each other creatively, take control of the storytelling, and build a legacy that lasts.”
Giddens and her band have already recorded songs for the soundtrack that will feature in the movie. It is hoped filming will begin first quarter 2026.
Women in the movies
Geena Davis Institute – 2024 GDI Film Study Report
- Female characters are just 37.8% of all characters on screen in the films analysed in the with just 36.3% of female characters being leads.
- Female characters are almost five times more likely than males to be objectified and three times more likely to be wearing sexually revealing clothing.
