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A year after pledge for parity, progress slow for women in film festivals

Wmc Features Chinonye Chukwu Director Clemency Photo By Jonathan Hickerson Courtesy Of Sundance Institute
Chinonye Chukwu, director of “Clemency,” became the first black female director to win Sundance’s top prize. (Photo by Jonathan Hickerson/Courtesy of the Sundance Institute)

For aspiring directors in the movie industry, film festivals are a crucial step in getting opportunities. And it’s no secret that there’s been a gender parity problem when it comes to festivals’ selections of movies by female directors. In an effort to address the film industry's low representation of women in power, the Swedish Film Institute introduced the 5050x2020 campaign at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, with goals that include having female directors for about 50 percent of the films at festivals by the year 2020. The 5050x2020 Collective (a group launched by French artists and executives) introduced a specific pledge for film festivals at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. Officials of several major festivals (including Cannes, Toronto, Venice, Berlin, and London) have signed the pledge in various years, and 2019 is the first full year that the pledge goes into effect for festivals that committed to the pledge in 2018, such as Cannes and Venice.

U.S. festivals are making more progress toward gender parity than their European counterparts, according to Women’s Media Center’s mid-year progress report on the major international festivals that have happened so far in 2019. Cannes in particular has received criticism for years because of its consistently low percentage of female directors, and the festival has made little progress so far toward the 5050x2020 goal that Cannes committed to in the pledge.

Sundance Film Festival

When and where: Late January to early February in Park City, Utah

Background and track record: The Sundance Institute’s annual namesake film festival is considered the most important in the United States for discovering new directors and for showing films that go on to get Oscar recognition. The festival, which launched in 1978, is committed to showcasing only films that were made outside the major studio system, although major studios are welcome to acquire films that premiere at Sundance. The festival has jury and audience awards. The major award categories for feature-length films are separated into those made in the U.S. and those made outside the U.S.

The Sundance Film Festival began giving awards in 1984. Female directors have comprised 31 percent of the winners of the U.S. Grand Jury Prize Dramatic (the festival’s top honor) from 1984 to 2019. The female winners have been Marisa Silver for Old Enough in 1984; Joyce Chopra for Smooth Talk in 1986; Jill Godmilow for Waiting for the Moon in 1987; Nancy Savoca for True Love in 1989; Karyn Kusama for Girlfight in 2000; Rebecca Miller for Personal Velocity: Three Portraits in 2002; Shari Springer Berman (co-director) for American Splendor in 2003; Courtney Hunt for Frozen River in 2008; Debra Granik for Winter’s Bone in 2010; Desiree Akhavan for The Miseducation of Cameron Post in 2018; and Chinonye Chukwu for Clemency in 2019.

Representation in 2019: Female directors had 40 percent of the new feature-length films at Sundance this year, an increase from 36 percent in 2018. In addition, female filmmakers dominated Sundance’s awards in 2019, winning 60 percent of the prizes for feature-length films and 54 percent of Sundance’s awards overall. Clemency director Chukwu became the first black female director to win Sundance’s top prize. Independent film company Neon picked up Clemency for distribution, and the movie (starring Alfre Woodard as a prison warden who's emotionally conflicted over the death penalty) is set for release in theaters in December.

Another notable Sundance highlight was the Rachel Lears–directed documentary Knock Down the House, which chronicles the political campaigns of four women, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who were first-time candidates for U.S. Congress. Knock Down the House (which won Sundance’s Audience Documentary prize) broke the record for the highest acquisition price for a documentary that premiered at a film festival. Netflix bought the film for $10 million, according to Deadline.

Berlin International Film Festival

When and where: February in Berlin, Germany

Background and track record: Since its debut in 1951, this artsy and influential festival has been geared to international films made outside of the major studio system. Berlin has a reputation for rewarding elite arthouse directors. American films are in the minority at this festival. Most of the movies selected have been from male directors; films from female directors at Berlin have not yet reached 50 percent. Most of Berlin’s prizes are given by juries, but there are some audience awards. The festival has a dismal track record of awarding the top prize (the Golden Bear) to a female director. Only six women from 1951 to 2019 (9 percent of the total) have won the Golden Bear so far: Márta Mészáros for Adoption in 1975; Larisa Shepitko for The Ascent in 1977; Jasmila Žbanić for Grbavica in 2006; Claudia Llosa for The Milk of Sorrow in 2009; Ildikó Enyedi for On Body and Soul in 2017; and Adina Pintilie for Touch Me Not in 2018.

Representation in 2019: Female directors had 34 percent of the new feature-length films at the festival, up from 31 percent in 2018. There was some progress made this year with Berlin’s international jury, which votes for the festival’s biggest categories. The international jury president was a woman (Oscar-winning actress Juliette Binoche), and four out of the six jury members were women — the first time in the festival’s history that women were the majority of the international jury. However, male filmmakers continued to win the majority of awards at Berlin, where women won 31 percent of the prizes in 2019. Female directors who won in major categories this year included Nora Fingscheidt for System Crasher (Systemsprenger) — winner of the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize, given to a feature film that opens new perspectives — and Angela Schanelec for I Was at Home, But (Ich war zuhause, aber), winner of the Silver Bear for Best Director.

South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival

When and where: March in Austin, Texas

Background and track record: As part of the annual SXSW Conference and Festivals for the entertainment and tech industries, the SXSW Film Festival (which debuted in 1994) has been gaining clout as a showcase for films geared to mainstream audiences. Most of the selections are from independent filmmakers, but some major studios also premiere their films at SXSW. American films tend to dominate the programming, and male directors have usually won SXSW’s top film prize (Jury Narrative Feature). Female directors have been 38 percent of these top winners from 1994 to 2019. They are Suzanne Myers for Alchemy in 1996; Tamara Hernandez for Men Cry Bullets in 1998; Melissa Painter for Wildflowers in 2000; Lexi Alexander for Hooligans in 2005; Jamie Babbitt for Itty Bitty Titty Committee in 2007; Judi Krant for Made in China in 2009; Lena Dunham for Tiny Furniture in 2010; Sarah-Violet Bliss (co-director) for Fort Tilden in 2014; Ana Asensio for Most Beautiful Island in 2017; and Josephine Mackerras for Alice in 2019.

Representation in 2019: Female directors had 38 percent of SXSW’s new feature-length films in 2019, compared to 36 percent in 2018. Interestingly, all eight films in SXSW’s Global section (for non-U.S. films) were from female directors. In 2019, women won 47 percent of the SXSW film awards. Josephine Mackerras’ jury grand-prize winner Alice, a drama about a mother raising her son after her marriage falls apart, also won the festival’s CherryPicks Female First Feature Award.

Tribeca Film Festival

When and where: Late April to early May in New York

Background and track record: The Tribeca Film Festival, which launched in 2002, offers mostly independent movies, but some films from major studios also premiere at the event. The festival has jury and audience awards. Most of the films selected are American. For jury awards, narrative feature films are separated into categories for those made in the U.S. and those made outside the U.S., while U.S. and non-U.S. films compete in the same documentary feature category.

From 2002 to 2019, only four female directors (or 22 percent) have won Tribeca’s top grand jury prize for narrative feature. The female winners are Feo Aladag for When We Leave in 2010; Lisa Aschan for She Monkeys in 2011; Talya Lavie for Zero Motivation in 2014; and Rachel Israel for Keep the Change in 2017. Female directors fare much better in the category of best documentary feature: 12 of the winning directors (67 percent) from 2002 to 2019 have been female. Among the leading film festivals, Tribeca has come closest to having equal gender representation for directors whose movies are chosen for the festival.

Representation in 2019: Female directors had 40 percent of the new feature-length films at Tribeca, a dip from the festival’s record-high of 46 percent in 2018. Men still won most (52 percent) of Tribeca’s awards this year, but female directors won all four of the festival’s short-film categories. The female-directed feature film that got the most accolades (three prizes) at Tribeca this year was House of Hummingbird (Beol-sae), the feature debut from South Korean director Bora Kim. The movie, which is a drama about a 13-year-old girl, also won a prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, where the movie had its world premiere.

Cannes Film Festival

When and where: May in Cannes, France

Background and track record: Widely considered to be the most prestigious and most controversial film festival in Europe, if not the world, Cannes has an eclectic mix of mainstream commercial films and avant-garde projects from major studios and independent filmmakers. The festival’s awards are from juries. The Cannes Film Festival, which launched in 1948, has had had some of the lowest percentages (less than 40 percent) of female directors out of all the major film festivals. And of the major film festivals, Cannes has the worst track record in awarding women the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or. Only one female director so far has won the Palme d’Or: Jane Campion for The Piano in 1993. (In an unprecedented move, the Palme d’Or was awarded in 2013 to more than just a director: Blue Is the Warmest Color actresses Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux won the prize, along with the film’s male director, Abdellatif Kechiche.)

Representation in 2019: Despite signing the 5050x2020 pledge, Cannes showed little or no improvement in gender parity for directors this year. Female directors had 22 percent of the new feature-length films at Cannes in 2019, decreasing from 35 percent in 2018. Cannes had a minimal increase in the number of female directors whose Competition-category films were eligible for the Palme d’Or: In 2019, four out of the 21 eligible films (or 19 percent) were directed by women, compared to three out of the 21 eligible films (or 14 percent) in 2018. Mati Diop was the female director with the highest accolades at Cannes in 2019. Her Atlantics (Atlantique) film, which was acquired by Netflix, won the Grand Prix, the festival’s equivalent of second place. Diop became the first black female director in the Cannes Film Festival’s 72-year history to have a movie in the festival's Competition category, which awards the Palme d’Or.

Final Analysis

As part of the 5050x2020 pledge, festivals have agreed to be more transparent about their submissions processes, such as revealing the gender statistics of festival programming committees, juries, and filmmakers who submit movies for consideration. If a festival gets a very low percentage of female directors who are submitting films, that’s probably because festival programmers aren’t trying hard enough to find qualified female directors, says Kirsten Schaffer, executive director of Women in Film, a Los Angeles–based advocacy group. The films that are selected for festivals usually come from “a combination of submissions and tracking lists,” Schaffer says. “Programmers are always watching what’s coming down the pike and asking people to submit [their films]. It’s also about recruitment.”

That recruitment can come from festival programmers’ personal preferences, word of mouth, industry contacts, and by programmers actively seeking out new directors. Schaffer says that programmers who don’t have enough qualified female applicants have the power to “dig deeper” to find them. And although it’s important to have diversity on committees of festival programmers, that diversity is wasted if it doesn’t extend to the filmmakers whom the programmers choose to showcase at their festivals. 

According to a study by the Motion Picture Association of America, women are 52 percent of moviegoers and 50 percent of the movie-ticket buyers in the U.S. and Canada, which combined make up the world’s largest movie market in ticket sales. Melissa Silverstein — who is the founder of the activist website Women and Hollywood and is the artistic director for the Athena Film Festival in New York City — says that festivals that continue to have a majority of male directors will continue to do a disservice to all moviegoers, because the festivals present mainly a “male-centric perspective. We need to have new perspectives.” Change is coming, says Silverstein, but it’s not going to take just one year for film festivals to have an equal balance of genders for directors and other filmmakers. “There is a concerted push across the globe on this [gender parity] issue. It takes time for it to spread throughout the culture.”

The statistics in this article are for new feature-length releases at film festivals, and do not include short films, VR films, music videos, TV episodes, or previously released movies that get retrospective screenings at festivals.



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