The Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF) is set to celebrate Anna Serner’s commitment to gender parity in the biz. According to a press release, Serner, CEO of the Swedish Film Institute, will receive the fest’s Mind the Gap Award during its 42nd edition this October. The honor is given to “persons whose work and leadership inspires the movement towards greater equity in film.”
As part of its recognition of Serner, the fest will also screen recent Swedish films in a special program called Swedish Focus.
Serner has long been an outspoken advocate for women in film. When she was named CEO of Swedish Film Institute in 2011, she vowed to distribute state funds equally between male and female filmmakers with the 50–50 by 2020 program and has followed through on that promise. Last year, the Institute published “The Money Issue,” a report detailing the distribution of money in the film industry and how it affects working conditions for women filmmakers, as compared to their male counterparts.
“If the industry doesn’t start working with us, I’m not afraid of quotas,” Serner has said. “I think we’ve shown that they [women filmmakers] do deliver, so let them. The pure commercial money, they don’t give a shit, they want what they expect to be safe. That’s why I’m not leaving my position for a while.”
Serner will accept her honor October 5, during the fest’s gender equity event, the Mind the Gap Summit. The summit’s theme will be “money,” a nod to “The Money Issue” and the way finances contribute to the gender gap in film. Serner will serve as the event’s keynote speaker.
“We hear frequently from women filmmakers that ‘money’ is a major issue for them. That includes film financing, pay equity, and power dynamics,” stated Zoë Elton, MVFF director of programming and founder of Mind the Gap. “With this in mind, our annual Mind the Gap Summit will focus on these topics, offering women filmmakers a practical guide on how to improve in this area.”
MVFF 2019 will take place October 3-13 in venues throughout the Bay Area. The 2018 edition saw Elton and fest founder/director Mark Fishkin signing the Gender Parity Pledge, and committing to better gender representation and transparency by 2020.
