Now this is a ratings system we can get behind. Originally created by Bath Film Festival director Holly Tarquini, an F-Rating indicates whether a film is directed by a woman, written by a woman, or includes significant women characters. IMDb recently made headlines when it announced that it will now use the F-Rating, and to celebrate IMDb’s adoption of this system, the BFI is hosting a Hackathon in London today.
So far, IMDb has given 21,800 women-directed and -written films the F-Rating — among them are “American Honey,” written and directed by Andrea Arnold; “Viceroy’s House,” directed by Gurinder Chadha and co-written by Moira Buffini; “Frozen,” co-directed and written by Jennifer Lee; “Animal Farm,” co-directed by Joy Batchelor; “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” (1928), written by Anita Loos; and “Metropolis,” written by Thea von Harbou.
According to the Hackathon’s webpage, this event is an opportunity for participants to learn how to “tag the third F-Rated criteria on IMDb: significant women on screen.”
Since its introduction in 2014, Tarquini’s categorization system has been utilized in over 40 UK film fests and cinemas, BBC News writes.
Gali Gold, curator of the Barbican Cinema in London, described the rating as “a simple and effective way to signpost films where the stories are told by and about women and to highlight the issue of gender imbalance within the film industry.”
Tarquini, who was inspired by the Bechdel Test, believes that the F-Rating will make it easier for interested parties to support women in film. “One of the issues with films directed by women is that they have considerably less money spent on the advertising,” she told Women and Hollywood. “Being able to browse through films directed and written by women gives everyone a simple way to support women in film.”
With IMDb’s 250+ million monthly visitors, the F-Rating will definitely push the dialogue about women’s representation in movies towards the mainstream.
Speaking to BBC News, Tarquini commented, “It’s exciting when new organizations decide to join us in shining a light both on the brilliant work women are doing in film and on how far the film industry lags… when it comes to providing equal opportunities to women.
“But our real goal is to reach the stage when the F-Rating is redundant,” she added, “because 50 percent of the stories we see on screen are told by and about film’s unfairly under-represented half of the population — women.”
Tickets for the Hackathon are free, but you will need to bring your own device (laptop, tablet, or phone). Visit the event webpage or call the BFI box office for more information. The Hackathon will begin at 18:30.
Anyone can tag movies with the F-Rating on IMDb. So if you can’t make it to the Hackathon but are interested in helping out, follow these directions:
- Sign in to IMDb.com (Set up an IMDb account via Facebook, Gmail,
Amazon, or an email address if needed) - Sort films by year
- Click the appropriate film title
- Scroll down to the bottom and click Edit Page
- Scroll down to Keywords and change the drop-down to Add 1 item
- Scroll to the end of the page and click Continue
- Add the keyword F-Rated in the text field
- Click Check these updates
- Click Submit these updates. A confirmation will appear.
Below, you can watch Holly Tarquini’s TED Talk about the importance of storytelling.
