The Lilly Ledbetter Film

Feb 3
6 min read

Updated: Feb 4

Today, we have the opportunity to speak with Kate Kelley, an associate producer on the film LILLY, about the life and achievements of fair pay advocate Lilly Ledbetter, starring Patricia Clarkson in the lead role. LILLY was filmmaker Rachel Feldman’s passion project and baby. Kate shares that Feldman was inspired to secure the rights to the story after seeing Ledbetter speak. She immediately connected with her fight for women's fair pay, understanding the importance firsthand. See, Feldman graduated from NYU film school at the top of her class. After graduating, she faced the same limited opportunities as other women trying to make it in the film business. At the time, only 1% of studios offered the director position to women. According to Kate, despite trying every avenue and having graduated with honors, Feldman received the proverbial pat on the head, while the men had doors open.

Recently, an Annenberg study showed that women directors reached nearly 14%, but their numbers fell last year due to revoked film approvals tied to political changes. These projects had been greenlit before 2025 and are no longer.

I have always spoken about how society misses out greatly because women's perspectives and life experiences are not allowed to be shared through film, alongside men’s films. It results in a distorted, unbalanced world, viewed only through a male perspective. Such an imbalance impairs everyone’s understanding of life and limits societal discourse.

Kate agrees. She explains that they, with the new developments, were receiving no help in their quest to fund the film. Ultimately, it was a group of women who came together to see this film through, who invested in it, and produced it. This felt like a victory, but then, Kate notes, after all the challenges, roadblocks, and work getting the film produced, it remains a persistent challenge to gain recognition for a female-made and driven film. These hurdles were further complicated by the timing of LILLY'S release.

Sylvia: Kate, what impacted the success of the film’s release?

Kate: The role I had was to help with our impact campaign. And our desire was to leverage this film as an opportunity to bring people together, to have thoughtful discussions about LILLY'S story and how it affects people today, and really build and create conversation through storytelling. We had high hopes, and we had a lot of interesting partners who were ready to go, and we were going to do all these things together. And when the film came out, it was that moment in time where we were scrubbing women and females off of websites, anything equality-related was being dismantled because of the new political climate. And because of that, we had a lot of partners either not move forward or pull out. The women-driven part, it was suddenly very negative—which is just so sad. A lot of people took the safe route, and it sucks because a lot of those people's jobs were eliminated anyway. So, it was disappointing because this was my moment to really spearhead this initiative. I felt I was doing Lilly a disservice and disappointing her, and she, at that point, had passed away. If the political shift had gone the other direction, we would have had a completely different release for the film. But, you know, it was out of our hands; the only thing you can do is control the way you react. And that said, some partners still got involved!

Sylvia: You can feel good about the partners you were able to keep under those dire circumstances.

People are being misguided. We were just discussing that. The intention behind advocating for women is often misinterpreted; it’s not about bringing decent men down. The film actually portrayed a supportive husband and showed men positively, except for those causing harm. It was a film pushing for fair pay for women because it is the right thing to do—it’s just common sense. Equal pay for equal work. Equality sets the stage for true partnerships, which benefit everyone and enrich the lives of all genders. It's a shame supporters felt pressured to pull out.

Luckily, others noticed this too, though—LILLY was just featured in the December 24th, 2025 issue of VARIETY MAGAZINE as one of “The Best Overlooked Films of 2025!”, which is a bittersweet honor, and you did get a theatrical release, and the film is on Netflix, so the film is out there. This is a huge accomplishment that most independent filmmakers of any gender no longer achieve, and you managed to achieve this under extremely difficult and changed circumstances. So, hats off to you!

Kate: Lilly was a story that needed to be told. It's our generation's Norma Rae! Because of what Lilly did, her resolve in working for the Goodyear Tire Factory for 20 years. Then one day, she was slipped an anonymous note. And on the note was her name and her male counterpart’s names, all of whom had the same job that she did--shift supervisor. They basically worked different shifts, but they were doing the same exact job. Men whom she had trained, whom she had hired, men who had far less experience—she had 20 years of experience at that point—and worked hard. She was always first in and last out. She sees from what is on this paper that she was basically being paid 40 percent of what the men were being paid. When you add her overtime and all of that in, she was basically making half what the men were making!

In the story, you saw that there was a gentleman who actually did end up speaking on her behalf, with whom she came into training with. And he was promoted, and they put him through school, and they supported him getting his master's. They had treated him very differently from how they treated Lilly.

Sylvia: How devastating. She was working long hours, had the most experience, contributing all those years, and was making half of what the men were making, and also wasn’t receiving the other benefits.

Kate: Everything that she went through and how it affected her personal relationships, like with her son. Her husband was there for her. But it also affected their relationships in town when she started speaking up. With help, she sued Goodyear and won. She was awarded three point eight million dollars, but she never saw a cent of it! It was appealed, and then that's when it went to the Supreme Court. And I think what people also don't recognize, and I don't want to assume what people understand or don't, but something that I would love to kind of hammer home in terms of what Lilly did for us is, the way that the law was interpreted was that, yes, Lilly, you were discriminated against because of your sex. And that is true. But the Supreme Court says, because you did not file your paperwork within six months of the first issued paycheck, that was discriminatory, which was in nineteen seventy nine, and even so it was when you did not know about what was being done to you—that because you didn't file your paperwork in that time, it was too late to do anything about it. The way that the law was interpreted, you would have had to file that grievance within the first six months of the paycheck being issued, regardless of whether the discriminatory information was concealed from you. And that's why Ruth Bader Ginsburg filed one of her most prominent dissents from the bench and said the law is insidious in how it treats women. Lawsuits are not fun. They are meant to be exhausting. And Lilly didn’t stop; she continued to fight to change that law for us, without ever seeing a cent for herself, because she was just a good person who did it for the higher good. If she had not done that and the law stayed the way it was interpreted, whether you were a woman, whether you were a person of color, or any minority who was filing a discrepancy with their pay, we would have dealt with the same ruling. She got that law changed. We owe her so much.

Sylvia: She left a beautiful legacy, and so have you with this beautiful film. We are blessed to have it out there for people to watch, gain insights from, and enjoy. Thank you, Kate!

Kate Kelley continues her quest to raise awareness and help people gain understanding by taking a walk in each other's shoes through story. She works for the non-profit, Shine Global, where they elevate children's lives through the use of film and storytelling.