Our last blog covered The Women In Security Documentary which highlights women’s role in an industry where they have been historically under-represented, and whose voices often went unheard. In this follow-up, we have an exclusive interview with Richard Ticho, founder of Resilient Features and executive producer of the documentary.
The film had its Irish premiere at the Women in STEM conference on 10 March. Two days later, the makers announced that the film will be available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime Video. After a United States launch in late March, additional countries will follow in April and May, with a broader global release scheduled for 1 June.
Richard kindly shared some of the stories from the production, and talked about creative decisions involved in getting the film made. What comes through in the conversation is that opportunities exist for women to enter the industry and find a place there, but challenges still remain to ensure diversity and inclusion. Here is an edited version of the conversation.
What inspired you to produce the documentary?
I have a very vivid memory of being a stage manager at ASIS (the American Society for Industrial Security). I walked up on the stage and I looked out at the audience – I think I was 18/19 years old – and the audience was all men, with maybe one or two women. They were all white. They all had grey hair or were bald. There was a very specific type of individual that was in the audience, and I remember having kind of an epiphany in that moment, seeing that representation.
I was in the event production industry business. And so the client is saying to me, “this is our audience, we want to focus on them this way”. So, in a way, we were part of the problem, because our language was masculine. A lot of what we were presenting was based on the audience that was there.
But over time, these groups [came along]: the young professional group, and then the women in security group was started. Dr. Linda Florence, who is actually part of this documentary process and on our advisory board, she was one of the early people involved with the creation of the women in security group at ASIS. What I saw there was this initial push by women who really wanted to be in the industry. And it was exciting to see that energy: you could feel the change in the seminar and the events, with more women, it was way more diverse. And I personally felt safer in the world.
[Years later] when Covid hit, that killed the event industry… but a situation like that makes you step back and look at life… I really felt that this was the first documentary that I wanted to make. So I formed Resilient Features, and I was on my way.
What are some of the stories in the documentary that stand out to you?
Just off the top, you know, Niamh [Vianney Muldoon, EMEA CISO & Innovation Lead, BNY] and Val [Dr. Valerie Lyons, BH Consulting Chief Operations Officer) and Dr. Victoria Ekhomu [Chairman/CEO, Transworld Security Systems and President, School of Management and Security] bring a real international aspect. I didn’t want it to be an American/Canada-centric film, and so we reached out.
We connected with Ireland because of its unique history with women. There was a law in place where if a woman got married she had to give up her job, and that was not too long ago. So, because of that, and also because of some of the challenges within Nigeria, I decided that those were the two countries that we would explore.
Niamh tells a great story about one of her experiences when she was working on putting together something with Splunk, and she talks about ‘hairy technical men’. There’s laughter at the beginning, but at the end, people really connect with it.
And Val is just amazing: later on in the film, she’s got some incredible insight about leaders in the industry, the need for more women in leadership. So I really appreciated them getting involved and shooting those segments in Dublin. They were very successful, and we ended up using quite a bit of their interviews. We did something like 36 interviews, and we only used 21 in the end.
Can you describe your collaboration with Yvette Freeman, the director? How do you decide what to edit when you had so much good material?
I hope you don’t mind, I’m going to take a little step back. When I sent out a one-page about the idea, I received over 150 responses from women and allies who wanted to be part of the advisory board. We had several meetings where we had 40 people, most of them women and a few allies. I had this plan to make a documentary that was going to call out all the men doing all these terrible things. I was on that kind of war path, and every single woman [on the call] said: “No, that’s a bad idea”. The Advisory Board had a huge impact on me: we created 15 questions, what we called the TWISD questionnaire, which we shared with the people who wanted to be into the in the film, and that’s what we used for vetting the interviews.
That was the first big change. That leads me to your question. We had a full-day conference in 2024, which we filmed, that included four keynote speakers, three panel discussions, three podcasts, and we conducted these 21 interviews. So we had tons of video. I was so excited. I thought: “I have so much film here, we’re going to make a movie out of this, no problem.” That’s when I engaged Yvette. She was recommended by a friend, David Ellenstein of the North Coast Repertory Theater. She is a great stage director, a celebrated actress, who spent 15 years on the shows ER and was on Orange is the New Black. So she came with a lot of gravitas behind her. She was very, very excited about it, and she came in, and she also had a very different idea of what the film should be and who should be featured in it.
And at first I fought on some things that I really wanted in the film. And I’m relatively new as a producer, working with a director with this kind of experience, so I decided to trust her. You don’t hire a female director to direct a film about women and then start tellin0g her what to do: simple! She knew what she was doing. She started cutting and making decisions that were a little challenging for me, and I’m telling you, in the end, we ended up with a really solid film that I’m very, very proud of. I’m very, very proud to have worked with Yvette and that we came to this really great working relationship. And we’ve won some awards now. Our editor, Kyle Wright, has been recognised for his work as well.
So it was a collaborative project rather than being any one person’s creation?
I never call it “my film”. It’s our film; it was a team that made it. And we couldn’t have made it without the women who are in the film being so open and transparent with us and sharing their stories.
What have you learned through the process of making this film about addressing gender equality in the security industry?
I’m not a security professional; I’ve witnessed the profession from outside. It takes incredible allyship and courage from the men who are in the industry not to care what some other men might say or what might be [going on] in their region. I’m talking from an American perspective, but globally, there are regions where women can barely get their foot in the door within in the security profession. Niamh says it in the film: “we’re all in it together”. It’s a little cliché, but it’s really true.
What advice does the film have for organisations to start improving the gender balance in their security teams?
I personally feel the film is really well balanced in the sense that it hits very specific points along the way that would be very, very helpful for anybody. It’s inspiring young people to go into the industry. It’s encouraging people to really embrace the things that get them where they’re going. So if they’re being successful, not to try to change who they are – just to be the best person they are. The women [in the documentary] are extremely articulate, and also they don’t hold back their emotions as well. You can see it’s very genuine. So if you go into watching the film with an open mind, then there’s tons of takeaways.
If you look at the film, there are big companies represented, but there are also women who lead their own companies, then we have someone who is in the Secret Service and has protected presidents. So while there is a little bit of a bent towards cybersecurity, because that’s a very prevalent thing, I think we also did a great job of covering general security as well different types of security. And most importantly, the film really highlights so much opportunity within the security profession, and that that opportunity definitely extends to women. There’s a part of me that kind of wishes that a film like this was made a long time ago: 20 or 30 years ago.
ISC2 puts female participation in the cybersecurity industry at about 22%. Do you think the film can help to improve that? What’s your measure of success?
The hope is that this will inspire women not just to get into the industry, but to stay in the industry, and also hopefully to become leaders within the industry. And for me, to see more women in leadership roles in really large companies would be nice. I do not like escalation. I prefer people who de-escalate. So I think that’s another reason I was attracted to this project.
Dr Stephanie Carter does a great job of articulating a variety of the topics we’re talking about here. I just love what she says in the film. You never know what you’re going to get when you go to interview somebody. You don’t know who’s going to be your star of your movie, or who’s going to suddenly shine on camera. And she’s certainly an example of that. She talks about the idea that you have to have the point of view of a 19 year old, the perspective of a person who’s got 30 years in the industry, a woman, a man, different nationalities: having that global and diverse group makes you stronger. Now either you believe that diversity is a benefit, or you think it’s a negative. I personally think it’s a positive.
Do you get a sense from the premieres and events that the film can be a catalyst for change?
I’ve attended 10 screenings now, and all of them have been really just beyond my expectations. After every screening, people stay and they talk – almost in every case, we’ve been ushered out of the venue, because we stayed too long! The women are so proud that this film’s made, and they feel represented. All you have to do is go to our LinkedIn page and follow some of the links: people are commenting about how inspirational it is, and talking about the people they meet and connect with at the events and take pictures with and stay or staying in touch with and build relationships.
The other thing that I’m very proud of is, Connie Matthews Reynolds, who was in the film, helped coordinate a screening in Columbus where, through sponsorships and donations, we were able to raise close to $30,000 for scholarships in the security profession.
When you were starting to make this, did you envisage that it would be a kind of roadshow or a movement? Or did that happen organically?
No, this was the plan. Because I definitely knew it would be a centrepiece for events, for people to gather, and that it would be more than just a film. So I hoped for that, but I’m also realistic and understand that documentaries get made all the time and just disappear. So to have this happen to where we’re looking at having something like 30 screenings by the time we’re done, and we’re going to be making a 30-minute version of the film that’s going to be available for sessions and to be screened at universities and schools. That’s going to be impactful. And we’re talking about a sequel, so that’s also exciting.
What can you tell us about that?
The film itself is a bit America-centric, just because of the way it was shot. So the next film is going to have a very global outlook. We’re going to head into some countries that have much more complicated scenarios than even the United States – although the United States is getting more complicated every day.
Now, can you imagine what it’s like to start a project like this, where diversity and inclusion is basically common in America, where I live, and then by the time I’m into production, all of a sudden those words become dirty words? And soon the government is actively making an effort to stop diversity and inclusion. I never meant the film to be controversial, but sometimes when I’m in certain places, we had a screening and we had women talking about diversity and inclusion, and I start getting nervous about people standing up and walking out of the theatre, because you just never know what the reaction is going to be.
How do you feel about that, because you clearly care passionately about the subject?
For me, the women speak volumes. I guess the film is my statement, as far as that goes, because it reflects my feeling that diversity is a positive thing.
