The Velvet Vampire
![](https://bloodvine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Velvet-Vampire-Celeste-Yarnall-1971-3-1024x576.jpg)
It was Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957) that inspired Stephanie Rothman to make movies. She studied filmmaking at the University of Southern California, became the first woman to be awarded a Directors Guild of America fellowship, and went on to work as a valued assistant for exploitation titan Roger Corman (also, as it happens, a big Bergman fan).