Thanks to names like Katniss, Elsa and Anna, 2013 was a quietly revolutionary in Hollywood. In a boys club that believes a female-led feature can’t really do big business, "Catching Fire" and "Frozen" were two of the three highest grossing films of the year, both grossing over $400 million at the box office (only "Iron Man 3" grossed over that amount). The message was clear: Female-led movies can draw an audience and a big, diverse one at that.

It’s a message and trend that Susanna Fogel desperately wants to see continue.

"I think the gender inequality of Hollywood comes out in overt ways, but more often in subtler ways," Fogel said. "If you’ve got a narrative about a male protagonist, women and men will go see that movie in the theater. If you have a narrative about a woman, it’s harder to get the same support from a male audience. You have women writing about women because that’s their story and not making great strides in their careers."

That notion, however, didn’t stop Fogel from co-writing and directing her first feature film "Life Partners," which is showing at the Milwaukee Film Festival on Sunday, Oct. 5 at 7:15 p.m. at the Oriental Theatre. It’s a star-studded indie affair, featuring the likes of Leighton Meester ("Gossip Girl"), Gillian Jacobs ("Community"), Gabourey Sidibe ("Precious"), Adam Brody ("The O.C.") and "SNL" alums Kate McKinnon and Abby Elliott. It’s a mighty step forward for Fogel and her friend and writing partner Joni Lefkowitz.

"My writing partner and I have written a lot of unproduced gems (laughs) over the years, and this is the first thing we’ve been lucky enough to get support to make," Fogel said. "So it’s really exciting."

"Life Partners" is an idea that’s been rolling in Fogel and Lefkowitz’s head all the way since the fall 2011. Back then, with the encouragement of their friend – and Milwaukee native – Jordana Mollick – they and a bunch of fellow struggling female comedy writers decided to write a series of short plays to produce something and keep their creative juices flowing. Fogel and Lefkowitz’s play wound up being "Life Partners."

"It was a meditation on the idea that Joni, who’s a lesbian, and I, who’s straight, would have these awkward conversations about marriage in the context of the fact that I was allowed to get married and she wasn’t that wasn’t, at the time, widely talked about as a human rights violation," Fogel recalled. "We’d have these conversations like, ‘If I got married, would it be awkward for you to be my maid of honor if you weren’t allowed to have a wedding?’"

With Mollick’s help, as well as a go-around in the Sundance Screenwriters Lab – a five-day workshop to intensively tinker a script – they took those relationship ideas and created a story about a straight girl (Jacobs) who promises her gay best friend (Meester) that she won’t get married until their rights are equal, a deal that goes great until she meets a guy who might be The One.

According to Fogel, it’s a screenplay that owes much to fellow female filmmaker Nicole Holofcener ("Enough Said"), one of the script’s advisors at the Screenwriters Lab and one of her writing icons.

"We’ve always really idol-worshiped her," Fogel said. "What I love about her work is that the women are very funny and compelling, and not in a hapless romantic comedy kind of way. They’re tough, complicated, funny women who are just as funny as the men around them. And they’re also not always that likeable, which is something I respect about her writing."

Fogel also believes that the political slant to their original "Life Partners" script also gave them a boost going into the Screenwriters Lab, adding some dramatic heft to what could’ve been thought of a dime-a-dozen friendship tale. However, as the script evolved, "Life Partners" moved away from its political rumblings – partially because the world around the movie was evolving as well.

"When we were about to shoot, the whole DOMA thing came up, and it looked like it was going to get overturned," Fogel said. "We had this question of, ‘What happens if DOMA gets overturned? Is this a period piece?’ There were multiple scenes of the two characters not having equal rights, and it suddenly looked like by the time it came out, they would."

Fogel and Lefkowitz ended up restructuring the story in the editing room, focusing it less on gay marriage politics and more on female friendships – another topic that doesn’t really make it to the big screen very often, as well as one with plenty of untapped nuance, drama and humor.

"We’re incredibly co-dependent but also incredibly passive aggressive, which is something that, I think, defines many female friendships in life," Fogel said. "It’s a funny, rich dynamic. With men, it seems like they’re either bros or they’re nemeses. It’s kind of more polar, whereas I think women have such high thresholds for dysfunctional one-upmanship in the context for a super-close friendship. It’s so interesting."

So far, other viewers have felt that way too with "Life Partners."

"Making this movie, as low budget as it is, people have really responded well because they feel like that’s a story that they connect to and don’t see represented," Fogel said. "It’s been a nice part of making the movie, just hearing girls say, ‘That’s like me and my friend. I never get to see anything that reminds me of how it felt when my friend got married.’ It’s nice to think that we’re speaking to that audience that’s underserved."