On #MeToo Anniversary, Women Still Represent Just 25% Of Film Directors Working In Europe

deadline.com:

Women represent only a quarter of all film directors working in the European film industry, according to a new study by the Strasbourg-based European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO).

The report coincides with the fifth anniversary this month of the launch of the #MeToo movement in 2017, which at the same time as sounding the alarm about sexual harassment in the film business also put the spotlight on gender inequality as one of the underlying causes.

Five years after that earthquake moment, achieving gender parity across the industry still appears a long way off. Covering the period from 2017 to 2021, the EAO study looked at gender splits within the key feature film positions of director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, composer and cast. “Women are still poorly represented among professionals working in key roles behind the camera,” read the report.  “In all categories, the proportion of women among active professionals is growing slowly and did not substantially change during the time frame analysed.” “Between 2017 and 2021 women only accounted for 25% of all directors of European feature films.

The gender gap was even more visible among composers and cinematographers, where women only represented 10% of the workforce,” it added.