Over the past year, high-profile film festivals in the United States screened three times as many narrative films, and almost twice as many documentaries, directed by men as by women, according to a new study released by
Martha Lauzen, executive director of the
Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University.
The study, “
Women in Independent Film, 2016-17,” monitors women’s representation on domestically and independently produced feature-length films screening at 23 festivals, including AFI Fest, Los Angeles Film Festival, New York Film Festival, SXSW Film Festival, and Tribeca Film Festival.
The festivals considered screened an average of six narrative films directed by at least one woman, compared with an average of 18 directed by men. Although behind-the-scenes women tend to enjoy higher employment rates on documentaries than on narrative features, the festivals screened an average of seven documentaries directed by women versus an average of 13 directed by men.
“The marketplace capital these high-profile festivals bestow on filmmakers and their films cannot be overstated,” Lauzen said. “They are an effective and proven apparatus for generating attention. Inclusion in these festivals provides the vital first step in the public life cycle of films with limited marketing resources, and can boost the reputation of their directors.”
On a positive note,
films directed by at least one woman also had dramatically higher percentages of women working as writers, editors, and cinematographers. For example, on films with female directors, women comprised 74 percent of writers, compared to just 7 percent on films with exclusively male directors.
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