Talk about making lemons into lemonade. More than two hundred women directors have turned their rejection from a prestigious program into an unofficial organization built on mutual support and respect, according to Grazia Daily.
As the source reports, 225 female directors received rejections via email from BAFTA’s Elevate initiative, a program that supports women in “high end TV and features.” (Note: BAFTA is Britain’s counterpart to the Oscars.) However, BAFTA made a mistake and CC’d everyone on the “Thanks, but no thanks” list instead of BCC-ing them, giving all the rejected directors access to each other’s names and email addresses.
It’s a snafu on BAFTA’s part, for sure, but it also gave the 225 unaccepted women a chance to comfort one another, network, and organize. “Domestic Policy” writer-director Alicia MacDonald made the first move.
“I contacted two of my director mates who I could see were on the reject email to say ‘commiserations,’” MacDonald told Grazia. “I hesitated before ‘replying all’ — I figured sending a snarky response to BAFTA wasn’t gonna do me any favors but then thought ‘sod it’ and went with ‘Hard luck everyone!’”
“Someone would’ve started the conversation anyway but it was just amazing to watch the flurry of emails that followed — a mix of angry, consolatory, and humorous responses to the gaffe,” she added.
Eventually, the women took their conversation to Facebook and came up with the hashtag #BAFTAsLucky225. Writer-director Diane Jessie Miller (“One by One”) was the first to tweet it:
Some days we get good news, some days we get bad news… and some days bad news turns to good news… #BAFTAsLUCKY225
Soon after, #BAFTAsLucky225 took off and reached number nine on Twitter’s trending topics list. Here are a few of our favorite posts:
That moment when you get rejectedfrom @BAFTA and it has CC'd in all 225 rejected female filmmakers! #oops #baftaelevate #baftaslucky225
Big love to the #BAFTAsLUCKY225. Keep at it! #femaledirectors https://t.co/2fifqARMbd
I had always hoped to join The Avengers but #BAFTAsLUCKY225 is a pretty sweet club to be in
“Although it was a mistake… what they have done is incredible! This has brought to the forefront how many talented female directors there are out there,” Miller observed.
Miller is right: There are tons of skilled women directors available. Unfortunately, there is a major disparity between the amount of female filmmakers that can work and those that do work. Citing a Directors UK study, Grazia points out how the number of women directors in Britain has flatlined over the past 10 years. Women represent only 13.6 percent of working film directors in the UK. In effect, that means a man is six times more likely to direct a film than a woman.
And, as we’ve reported, things are still dismal in the U.S. According to a study from USC Annenberg’s Media, Diversity, & Social Change (MDSC) Initiative, women comprised just four percent of directors on the top movies from 2007 to 2016. The study’s authors concluded that there had been “no meaningful change in the prevalence of female directors” in the past decade.
As frustrating as these numbers are, we’re pleased to see women directors pushing back and speaking publicly about their limited opportunities. The 225 unsuccessful “Elevate” applicants could have accepted this disappointment and simply rolled their eyes at BAFTA’s email screw up. Instead, they decided to band together to share their stories, and make sure the public knows just how many gifted women directors there are in need of opportunity.
Check out a cartoon about BAFTA’s gaffe below.
