Women in the Film Industry Erasmus Project

Project Title

Women in the Film Industry

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Gender equality / equal opportunities

Project Summary

Within the film industry, gender inequalities relating to biased representation and pay are arguably systemic and pervasive, according to Ivana Katsarova, in a briefing to the European Parliament in 2018. Between 2012 and 2016 just 19.6% of films were directed by women. In addition, Katsarova points out, roles that are traditionally associated with women, such as editing and costume design, are seeing a female over-representation while women are under-represented in areas such as sound, image and music. For over a decade the European Parliament has consistently encouraged the dissemination of films directed by women while the European Commission now measures the participation of women in key roles of projects receiving support under Creative Europe’s Media strand. Sweden leads the field in national regulatory policies and this has resulted in critical acclaim being achieved by Swedish female filmmakers over of the past decade.

The representation of women in film projects can be gauged by a test known as the Bechdel or Bechdel-Wallace test. A film passes the test if if features at least two women talking about something other than a man. Every Star Wars movie, the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy and all but one of the Harry Potter movies fail the test.

Gender bias has been shown to begin with the script. A 2017 research piece sampled 1000 scripts and showed that male characters had over 37,000 pieces of dialogue compared to just 15,000 for females. There were also 4,900 male characters as opposed to 2,000 female. This was hardly surprising when one considers that male scriptwriters were found to outnumber female by 7-1.

A study from Le Lab – Femmes de Cinema – identified a geographical divide in Europe between north and south. Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria had the highest percentage of gender equality in film while Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece performed most poorly. Eastern European countries fell between both groups.

Eurimage stats reveal that 2015 found just 29% of creative roles occupied by women with just 27% of eligible projects having a female director. In addition, the average budget of funded projects was 40% less where a female director was involved and female directors were paid 23% less than males. Although film schools are seeing almost as many women (44%) graduating as men, the average proportion of female directors in the industry is under 20%. “The sheer scale of gender inequalities is such that awareness-raising actions alone seem unlikely to bring about substantial change,” warned Katsarova. “It appears therefore essential that proactive solutions be proposed to start redressing the imbalances with the aim of achieving a widespread and lasting improvement.”

There is a real recognition across Europe of the inequality with in the film industry and a genuine desire to remove this historical, entrenched bias. For young women, with an eye to a future within the industry, it is crucial that equality is embedded into their reality. There are a number of issues that need to be addressed to encourage and copper fasten the resolve of women to tear through the celluloid ceiling. The Women In Film Industry (WIFILM) project seeks to address a number of issues highlighted by women in film themselves as being major contributing factors to their low representation in this industry sector which has an annual global budget of in excess of 100 billion dollars.

WIFILM will develop a curriculum comprising 5 short-form ‘taster’ courses that outline the key administrative, creative and technical roles and positions in the film production process; a case study library of successful women in film will be developed for use as an active guidance resource; an in-service training programme will be developed for VET tutors; and a WIFILM MOOC and Community of Practice.

Project Website

http://wifilm.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 277543 Eur

Project Coordinator

Creative Exchange UK Limited & Country: UK

Project Partners

• The Rural Hub CLG
• STORYTELLME, UNIPESSOAL LDA
• EEO GROUP SA
• INSTITUTO PARA EL FOMENTO DEL DESARROLLO Y LA FORMACION SL
• Hauptstadtallee 239 V V UG (Skills Elevation FHB)
• UNIVERSITATEA DIN PITESTI
• CENTRE FOR ADVANCEMENT OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY LTD-CARDET