Female filmmakers face countless barriers to success in the film industry, but chief among them is the bizarre reluctance of many financiers to invest in projects helmed by women.
Spanish director Isabel Coixet spoke out on this unfortunate and patently sexist reality in an interview for her latest film, Nobody Wants the Night, which opened the 2015 Berlinale. Asked about the relative dearth of women’s voices in film, Coixet stressed the importance of financing women-directed films in combating gender inequality:
Why does everybody talk about the lack of female directors and nobody does a damn thing? We need action. We need film financiers with a true and sincere sense of what they can and must do — and do it. As they say in Jerry Maguire, “Show me the money.” Maybe this is asking for something impossible. Sincere financiers, I mean … We are a shocking minority. And what’s worse, a diminishing minority. And our salaries are always lower than our male counterparts. I will never stop fighting to make films. Never. It’s my life.
[via Hollywood Reporter]