Female directors of independent films have reached a new milestone, according to the Indie Women report, which analyzed the movies showcased at various U.S. film festivals. For the first time, these festivals screened an equal number of documentaries directed by women and men.
When it comes to storytelling outside of documentaries, women directors still come up a bit short. The festivals continue to feature more narrative films directed exclusively by men than those with at least one female director. But the margin is narrowing. Last year, the festivals averaged ten narrative films directed solely by men and seven films with at least one female director. This represents an uptick from the previous year when the ratio was ten to six.
The research was conducted by Dr. Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University. Lauzen examined women working behind the scenes on films screened or streamed at 20 high-profile film festivals in the U.S. from July 2022 through June 2023. In total, this study analyzed 11,094 credits on 754 films. Lauzen defined independent films as those made outside the studio system, but the study does include some films produced by independent companies owned by the major studios.
“Independent films directed by women continue to make incremental progress at high-profile festivals in the U.S. where their films are enjoying slightly better exposure than in previous years,” Lauzen noted in a press release for the report. “Independent films, and documentaries in particular, are more welcoming of women because there are fewer barriers to entry than on large studio films,” she added in an email.
An advantage of having female directors is their tendency to foster greater female representation among the film’s crew. Films with at least one woman at the helm had substantially higher percentages of women working as writers, editors, and cinematographers. For example, in films with at least one female director, women accounted for 30% of cinematographers and 48% of editors. On films with exclusively male directors, women comprised only 12% of cinematographers and 22% of editors.
One might expect that success in directing independent films would pave the way for more opportunities for women in high-budget movies. Indeed, the recent blockbuster success of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (which has already grossed over $1.4 billion) has brought greater attention to female directors of top-grossing films. However, the truth is that women remain a minority in this field. While women hold 42% of the director roles in the festival films, their representation drops to 22% among the directors of the top 100 highest-grossing films.
“For years, industry observers have anticipated that the larger numbers of women working on independent features would eventually result in significantly higher numbers of women working on top-grossing features. While the percentages of women working in some roles on larger budget films have increased slightly, we are still waiting for that surge to occur,” Lauzen explained.
If you wish to seek out and support a few independent female-led films from the last year, Joy Ride, Past Lives and You Hurt My Feelings are among some of the most popular.
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