Guest Post by Katy-May Hudson

It’s mid-2016. I’m an experimental artist writing, performing, and creating new work, mostly with the NY Neo Futurists. We have a normal president in the White House — actually, we have a better than normal president in the White House. He’s charming and sane. Once his term ends, a woman is going to take over the White House. So, I’m safe to indulge in making as much experimental art as I want.

Flash forward to the start of 2017. We no longer have a sane president and my sticky, bright blue progressive bubble has popped, like a burst piece of gum, all over my face.

This political change felt like an attack, and not just on me, but on my gender. And not just on my gender, but on people with disabilities, people with brown skin, immigrants, victims of gun violence, and so on — the list could go on and on into infinitude. But the election wasn’t just an assault: it was also a jolt into action.

I had made my first short film in early 2016 and wanted to make more. I wanted to make films with women. About women. For women. I wanted to meet women with contrasting and complementary skills, with the same level of experience, with the same willingness to collaborate. I could not find this but instead what I found was a depressing trail of numbers that reflected the lack of female presence in the film and TV industry.

A study of indie film in 2017-18 found that film festivals screened almost three times as many narrative features directed by men as by women. High profile film festivals in the U.S. employed more than twice as many men as women in key behind-the-scenes roles. Eighty-five percent of the independent films screening at these festivals had no women cinematographers, 77 percent had no women writers, 73 percent had no women editors, 67 percent had no women executive producers, 66 percent had no women directors, and 33 percent had no women producers.

These are just a taste of the numbers I came across. They do not look at race, sexual orientation, or disabilities — and it’s safe to assume that the stats for these women in the biz are markedly worse.

With this discovery came a series of questions. Why are the majority of gatekeepers male? Why are the key creatives male? How can we be given the opportunity to tell our stories, at a professional level, if it is near impossible to penetrate this men’s club and enter from any level? And how can we change this?

It didn’t take long for me to see that there needed to be more work done at various entry points so that women can be given opportunities to penetrate this predominantly male industry. We needed to employ a trickle-down effect, so that one opportunity could lead to a bigger opportunity and then something even bigger and so on.

I didn’t want to appease the patriarchal systems in place for a seat at the table. I wanted to build my own table and welcome people like me to sit at it. I didn’t want to ask for permission of men that were in more senior roles than me. I didn’t want to ask them if I could learn from them while they hit on and patronized me. I didn’t want to wait patiently for my shot — one that may never come — and deal with all of that in the meantime. No. I wanted to grab back.

So, I stopped asking for permission and started giving it. I stopped waiting for my invite and started inviting people.

I started the Brooklyn Women’s Film Festival (BWFF) in late 2016. I envisioned it as a collaborative community that would support diverse female voices. I put out an open call for submissions and the next thing I knew I was inundated with a wealth of beautiful stories. Stories that were funny, tragic, scary, nuanced, scientific, militaristic, violent, quiet, loud. Stories that subverted the norms of what kind of work female filmmakers are perceived to make.

I rallied a team of badass female judges and together we curated an exceptional selection of short films. We started inviting industry folks and the general public to come along and see these films in the hope that it would directly lead to women getting hired in more senior key creative roles, landing distribution deals, and getting more opportunities to work on films with higher budgets. And according to feedback from previous participants, screening at the fest has led to more opportunities — and my hope is that it will lead to many more.

I couldn’t be prouder of this community. Of how it is building and growing and how many women are willing to gather at this table to share their art, too. It’s a beautiful thing and it brings me great hope.
It is an inherently political act to continue sharing the art of a marginalized group that is under threat, but women have galvanized, and we are a force majeure.

BWFF 2018 is screening 60 short films in two short days, June 23 and 24, at The Wythe Hotel. More information including tickets and programming can be found on the fest’s website.

Katy-May Hudson is an interdisciplinary artist and the Creative Director of She Said Productions. She has collaborated with organizations such as Youtube TV, Whohaha, New York Women in Film and TV, The NY Neo Futurists, Time’s Up NY, Film Fatales, ART/NY, Funny or Die, The Australian Community Organization, SVA Theater, University of Delaware, and Hofstra University.