You Want Data? Female Directors in Film - Statistics from the Venice Film Festival

Seminar on Gender Equality & Inclusivity in the Film Industry - Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) Ask and ye shall receive. Lucrecia Martel, the president of the jury of this year's Venice International Film Festival (VIFF), had expressed an interest in seeing the gender breakdown of film submissions to the festival after Venice had been criticized by some members of the international press for having only two films by female directors in competition.

On Monday, September 2, La Biennale, together with Eurimages, Women in Film,Television & Media Italia, and Dissenso Comune, hosted the Seminar on Gender Equality and Inclusivity in the Film Industry that presented an enormous amount of data on the situation in Europe to a packed house.

Paolo Baratta, the President of La Biennale di Venezia said he "totally rejects the idea that we can be accused of anything. We can be witness. La Biennale is a witness, not the accused." Alberto Barbera, the Artistic Director of VIFF, said he and the President agreed on a lot, and that they recognize there is inequality in the film world.

La Biennale presented several different graphs that included the management of the organization -- out of 8 members of the executive committee, 5 are female and 3 are male -- as well as the makeup of the VIFF selection committee -- 14 male and 12 female, or nearly 50/50. There were so many graphs that I will concentrate on the submissions.

Overall Submissions to the 76th VIFF

That is the graph of the overall submissions to the 76th Venice Film Festival. As you can see, the submissions by males were a whopping 72.1% while females accounted for only 22.6%.

Films Selected for the 76th VIFF per number of Directors

That is a graph of the films that were selected. Of the 21 films selected for the main competition, 90.5% were directed by men. Of the overall selected films in all categories, 162 were directed by men, while 40 were directed by women. Some hope for the future lies with Biennale College Cinema, where of the 3 films selected, 67% had a female director.

Eurimages - Female Directors - Eligible Projects

There were similar findings presented by the other organizations. Eurimages is a cultural support fund of the Council of Europe, the leading human rights organization on the continent. The Council of Europe predates the European Union. All 28 members of the EU belong to the Council, which has a total of 47 member states -- no country has ever joined the EU without first being a member of the Council. It is located in Strasbourg, France, not in Brussels, Belgium, headquarters of the EU.

It is interesting to note that if the UK leaves the EU, they do not have to leave the Council. Russia is a member. Canada is an associate member, and on October 1, Argentina will be an associate member, too.

Eurimages funds art house films, and have a different way of breaking down their data, with all sorts of categories and subcategories. They've been collecting data since 2012, and have seen the percentage of female directors rise from 11% in 2008, to 28% in 2018 -- an improvement, at least, but still completely unbalanced. Out of the eligible projects, 23% were directed by women and 77% by men. Their mission is 50/50 by 2020, which they hope to achieve by providing extra points to projects with female elements.

Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage - Cinema & Audiovisual

Through the Ministry of Culture, Italy provides funding to film projects, and has similar statistics, which they break down into even more categories. The good news is that funding for films directed by women is up from 11% to 20%. The bad news is that funding for films directed by women is 20%... And there are no Italian female directors in animation.

Source: WIFTMI findings based on data from Istituto Luce Cinecittà - FilmItalia

Dissenso Comune or Common Dissent, the Italian #MeToo movement, also presented similar numbers. Graph after graph showed the same dismal statistics.

David Rooney & Susanna Nicchiarelli

David Rooney, a journalist with The Hollywood Reporter had a conversation with Susanna Nicchiarelli, whose film Nico, 1988 about the singer in The Velvet Underground, won Best Film in the Orrizonti section of the Venice Film Festival in 2017. Nicchiarelli is emphatically against quotas. "I would not have been happy if my film was accepted because I was a woman." She believes that women need more access to money, and that more young women need to be encouraged to go to film school.

President Paolo Baratta said that next year VIFF seminar would focus on those statistics -- what is the percentage of young women entering film school? In that area, La Biennale shines -- out of the 12 selected projects for Biennale College Cinema 2019-2020, the gender was split 6 male and 5 female, with one "other" individual in transition.

When you see the same numbers over and over again in front of your eyes, there is no denying the reality: there is an enormous gender gap in the film industry. Paolo Baratta said, "Numbers are a very powerful shooting weapon."

The Venice Film Festival has taken a positive step forward in addressing the situation. I have worked with La Biennale for decades, and I deeply respect President Paolo Baratta. The man will be 80-years-old in November, and I can't image life in Venice without his presence -- his intelligence, sophistication, wisdom, warmth and empathy. Let's hope this seminar kicks off rapid change.

Ciao from the Venice Film Festival,
Cat Bauer
Venetian Cat - The Venice Blog