13/02/2016 - The report, set to be presented today in Berlin, reveals that the audiovisual industry is failing to sustain female directors’ careers

A ground-breaking report on gender equality produced by the European Women’s Audiovisual Network (EWA) reveals that industry structures are failing to sustain female directors’ careers. Women’s creative potential and perspective is not reaching Europe’s audiences.

The research across seven countries also reveals that leading national institutions are not keeping comprehensive statistics to inform policy change – this is in spite of national and regional commitments to gender equality, and a general recognition, confirmed by EWA’s pan-European questionnaire, that gender inequality exists.

EWA’s seven-country study finds significant under-representation of female directors at all stages of the production and distribution process:

• There is a significant fall-off in the proportion of women graduating from film schools and entering the film industry (44%) and the overall proportion of female directors working in the industry (24%).
• Only one in five films is directed by a woman (21%).
• The vast majority of public funding resources (84%) go into films that are directed by men.

In spite of the unbalanced marketplace, EWA’s report also shows that in 2013, female-directed films were 10% more likely to participate in a film festival and 6% more likely to win an award than a male-directed film.

In the report, EWA presents several recommendations, such as:

• To address the under-representation of female directors in educational programmes;
• To equalise the distribution of public funds;
• To achieve equal representation and greater awareness on commissioning boards;
• To incentivise producers to support female directors;
• To provide much greater support and a targeted strategy for publicity, advertising and distribution;
• To maintain and monitor the necessary statistics.

EWA Network is a pan-European members’ association, which is striving for greater on- and off-screen equality for women throughout the audiovisual sector.