THE HELLO GIRLS
A Prestige Historical Feature Film | Written and Produced by Sharon Contillo.
Status: In Active Development
LOGLINE
Two sisters discover their great-grandmother’s WWI diary days before the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony at Arlington. The worn pages reveal a story silently buried within her own family and overshadowed by men in later wars, absent from the history books entirely.
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Their great-grandmother was one of 223 American women who served as bilingual telephone operators in WWI France, and one of just six stationed at First Army Headquarters, translating critical communications under fire just twelve miles from the front lines.
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The film moves between present day and 1917, tracing a fight for recognition that spans a century.
ABOUT THE FILM
The Hello Girls is a prestige historical feature film based on true events. America's first women soldiers were a group of 223 bilingual telephone operators, many recruited from AT&T's Bell System, who served with the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I France. Selected for their technical skill, composure under pressure, and fluency in French, these women operated military switchboards as close as twelve miles from the front lines during the deadliest battles of the war.
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When the war ended, the men who served beside them came home as veterans. The Hello Girls, who wore Army uniforms, swore the Army oath, and lived under the same regulations, were denied veteran status and written out of every history book. For sixty years they fought for the recognition they earned under fire. In 1977, Congress finally granted them veteran status. In 2025, 107 years after their service, they received the Congressional Gold Medal.
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Their story is not a footnote. It is a chapter of American history that has never been told as a narrative feature film.
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KEY ATTACHMENTS
Writer/Producer: Sharon Contillo (Executive Producer, Jack Goes Home; IBM Golden Circle 2023; President, Women in Film & Video New England; Board of Directors, Women in Film & TV International
​Executive Producer/VFX Supervisor: May Leung (credits include Inception, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Dark Knight Rises, Harry Potter franchise)
Line Producer/UPM: Karri O'Reilly, PGA/DGA (credits include Academy Award-nominated Carol (Todd Haynes), Wildcat (Ethan Hawke, Telluride/TIFF), and Ron Howard's Academy Award-nominated Hillbilly Elegy)
ENDORSEMENTS
The screenplay has been endorsed by Dr. Elizabeth Cobbs, author of The Hello Girls: America's First Women Soldiers (Harvard University Press); by Mark Hough, the attorney who successfully argued for Congressional recognition of the Hello Girls' veteran status in 1977; and by Hello Girls descendants who have provided life rights and historical materials to support the production.
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​Institutional: The Doughboy Foundation
FURTHER READING
To learn more about the Hello Girls, read Dr. Elizabeth Cobbs' definitive account: The Hello Girls: America's First Women Soldiers (Harvard University Press, 2017).