Most film festival organizers believe in gender equality — in theory. In practice, they talk about the importance of parity but sometimes there is no real plan and sometimes it’s about shutting women up. But Göteborg Film Festival has a plan. Its 2020 edition will feature 200 films directed by men and 200 directed by women. You read that right: half of the films will be by women directors. The Swedish fest is committing to gender parity now, not in a future time that may never come.
The announcement comes as part of Göteborg’s new 50/50 Vision equality initiative. “All over the world, filmmakers, crew members, and activists are fighting to achieve equality in the film industry and 2020 has been dubbed the year of gender parity. But the numbers show that the film industry still has a long way to go,” the fest stated in a press release, citing some upsetting stats. Ninety-six percent of Hollywood pics are directed by men, as are 81 percent of European films. So far, women have only helmed 20 percent of 2019’s Swedish films.
“The film industry still being so plagued by inequality is unacceptable. Not only from a purely financial and structural perspective, but especially in relation to the consequences regarding which films get produced and released,” stated Göteborg CEO Mirja Wester. “Göteborg Film Festival would like to start the gender parity year of 2020 by implementing what everyone is talking about: gender equality across film directors in the program of a major international film festival. We thereby hope to encourage and challenge our industry colleagues to make strides in their own work to promote equality.”
50/50 Vision was partially inspired by 5050×2020 (aka Collectif 50/50) and the Gender Parity Pledge, which sees fests promising greater gender representation and transparency by next year.
“We are thrilled that Göteborg Film Festival will launch the year 2020 with such a positive experiment, proving that programming a festival is not just about the curators’ subjective tastes, but is about making strong and unapologetic choices in order to offer to the public an accurate representation of the world we live in,” said Collectif 50/50 co-founders Delphyne Besse and Bérénice Vincent. “We hope Göteborg’s initiative will inspire other festivals to reflect on and challenge their own programming and work towards greater inclusion.”
Besse and Vincent’s statement highlights another essential aspect of the movement for gender parity at film festivals. Not only is it the right thing to do, it can help dismantle myths about what makes for a “good” or “important” movie. Festivals talk about how they pick the best “quality” but we all know that is subjective. We have been trained to believe that certain films by certain filmmakers are the best ones out there. But are they really? Look at the festival circuit, the same films fill the festival rosters each year. Imagine what would happen if people broke free.
This makes Göteborg’s proactive approach in the fight for gender equality in film especially impressive. 50/50 Vision is concrete action, and it shows an intentionality in curation and the understanding that many factors go into selecting films for a festival.
Göteborg Film Festival 2020 will be held January 24 – February 3. Check out a video about 50/50 Vision below.
