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.
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 were from female directors. In 2019, women won 47 percent of the SXSW film awards. Josephine Mackerras’ jury grand-prize winner, a drama about a mother raising her son after her marriage falls apart, also won the festival’s CherryPicks Female First Feature Award.
From 2002 to 2019, only four female directors have won Tribeca’s top grand jury prize for narrative feature. The female winners are Feo Aladag forin 2014; and Rachel Israel forin 2017. Female directors fare much better in the category of best documentary feature: 12 of the winning directors 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.
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.
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.
Entertainment Entertainment Latest News, Entertainment Entertainment Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: BuzzFeed - 🏆 730. / 51 Read more »
Source: Reuters - 🏆 2. / 97 Read more »