From my latest Forbes post on why there are still major issues with women-centric content in Europe, where there are more women directors than in the US.
Sometimes I think that Europe is leading the way in dealing with the gender-disparity issue for women directors. There are many countries on the continent that have funding for films, and women get some money (thought not enough and not in equal amounts to men), and also there are countries like Sweden really trying to fund equitably. But then I see this study from the European Audiovisual Observatory and I remember that no matter how it might seem on the surface, when you look at the numbers, women are far behind men in this arena. This first study of its kind is a comprehensive look at the number of female directors whose films were made and released in Europe between 2003 and 2012. Not surprisingly, those numbers, like those of other recent studies, are quite low. The study is comprised of data from Lumiere, the European Audiovisual Observatory database on cinematic attendance, and looked at 9,072 films released in European countries between 2003–2012.
Read more at Forbes.