Objectives of the project

A study from Le Lab – Femmes de Cinema – identified a geographical divide in Europe between north and south. Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria had the highest percentage of gender equality in film while Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece performed most poorly. Eastern European countries fell between both groups. The average budget of funded projects was 40% less where a female director was involved and female directors were paid 23% less than males. 

Although film schools are seeing almost as many women (44%) graduating as men, the average proportion of female directors in the industry is under 20%. “The sheer scale of gender inequalities is such that awareness-raising actions alone seem unlikely to bring about substantial change,” warned Katsarova. “It appears therefore essential that proactive solutions be proposed to start redressing the imbalances with the aim of achieving a widespread and lasting improvement.” There is a real recognition across Europe of the inequality with in the film industry and a genuine desire to remove this historical, entrenched bias. 

For young women, with an eye to a future within the industry, it is crucial that equality is embedded into their reality. There are a number of issues that need to be addressed to encourage and copper fasten the resolve of women to tear through the celluloid ceiling. 

The Women In Film Industry (WIFILM) project seeks to address a number of issues highlighted by women in film themselves as being major contributing factors to their low representation in this industry sector which has an annual global budget of in excess of 100 billion dollars.

Expected Main Results

The results described below derive from all project activities.

1. WIFILM partners are proposing a multi-layered approach to encourage and sustain new entrants into the film industry. The proposed project workplan will result in 4 separate but interlinked intellectual outputs that seek to address a wide range of ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors that can be addressed to increase the prospects for women in film:
2. WIFILM ACT Curriculum – this bespoke curriculum will comprise a series of 15 short-form ‘taster’ courses in Administrative (5), Creative (5) and Technical (5) roles and positions in the film production process. The credits that run after a film showing are often nearly as long as the film itself and this is due to the variety of different actions and responsibilities involved in producing a finished film production. These short-form ‘taster’ courses, each with a duration of 4 hours, will give women interested in a film career an insight into, and a basic understanding of, each of the different actions and responsibilities involved in film production and support them in choosing the specific area of film production that best suits their skills or personality.
3. WIFILM Case Study Library – this output will present a series of role model case studies of successful women in the film industry. This library will be used as an active career guidance resource and the case studies presented will seek to address the role model deficit, the confidence deficit and the career planning deficit by tracing the steps up the career ladder of these successful women and document how they overcame perceived barriers like self-confidence, unconscious bias, isolation.
4. In-service Training Programme for VET Tutors – this training programme for VET tutors will focus on addressing 3 issues to inform and improve their practice, namely, (1) examining and understanding the gender bias in the film industry and how educators can support students to over come it; (2) introducing VET tutors to the WIFILM ACT Curriculum and supporting them to provide the necessary support through the use of transmedial education and intermediality. This element will specifically focus on the use of the smartzines produced as learning resources; (3) introducing the case study videos as active guidance resources and how they can be used to address issues like lack of self-confidence, unconscious bias and isolation. A key element of the in-service training will be the Community of Practice established linking the VET professionals in all partner countries through the WIFILM MOOC
5. WIFILM MOOC and Community of Practice – this cloud based portal will host all training materials and facilitate the interaction and exchange of best practice between the VET tutors and support collaborative film projects developed by the women learners.

Project Activities