The Sarajevo Film Festival has followed Cannes, Annecy, and Locarno’s lead and officially committed to gender equality among its filmmakers and leadership. Fest director Mirsad Purivatra signed the 5050×2020 Pledge on Wednesday, per Variety. The action is Sarajevo’s “contribution to the establishment of gender parity and inclusion in the film industry,” fest organizers commented.
Unveiled earlier this year at Cannes, the Pledge aims to keep fests accountable and en route to achieving full gender parity by 2020 by gathering stats according to the filmmakers’ gender, identifying the fest members who select films to screen, and developing a schedule to achieve equality on the festival board.
According to the source, Sarajevo’s main regional feature competition this year includes 10 titles, four of which are women-helmed. Six of the 17 directors in the documentary competition are women, and among the international Kinoscope sidebar’s 17 films, eight are from women filmmakers.
Discussing its prevalence of women-made films (47 percent), Kinoscope co-programmer Mathilde Henrot said that the sidebar is reflecting women’s representation in the real world. “In many countries, half of the film school graduates are women and they manage to direct great films,” Henrot observed. “And we have the chance to watch those films and are happy to be able to show them.”
While it seems that the tides are turning and film festivals are becoming more open to consciously including the same number of women and men directors, not everyone is on board yet. Last week, the European Women’s Audiovisual Network (EWA) published an open letter calling on Venice Film Fest to take the Pledge. They penned the letter after Venice Artistic Director Alberto Barbera came out with this charming declaration: “If we impose quotas or gender equality needs, I will quit.”
The 2018 Sarajevo Film Festival will run through tomorrow, August 17.