Guest Post By Megan Riakos
On December 7, Australian organization WIFT (Women in Film) NSW staged a protest where members dressed as sausages stormed the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards red carpet demanding an end to the #AACTASausageParty. How did it come to this? We realized (like many women before us) that deeds, not words, make change.
Over six months ago, I entered my feature film “Crushed” into the AACTA Awards (the Australian version of the Oscars) believing that selection was based on merit. If our film fulfilled a minimum level of theatrical release, we would be in the official screening tour, allowing AACTA members to vote for films that could then become official award nominees. But what subsequently happened opened my eyes to how the industry really worked. Twenty eight films were selected for the screening tour. Of these, only two (7 percent) were directed by women, and three (11 percent) featured a female protagonist.
Despite fulfilling the selection criteria, neither “Crushed” nor “All About E,” directed by another female director Louise Wadley, was included in the line up. I knew something was up, I dug a little deeper and found that of those 28 films selected, seven (25 percent) did not fulfill AACTA’s own selection criteria. Why were our films excluded despite fulfilling the criteria while a quarter of all films selected did not? Who were the judges that chose the final films? What was the selection criteria that they used to judge them? Did they consider the need for diversity in the films selected, especially considering so many films that were selected did not fulfill the criteria?
This is where the newly revamped WIFT NSW became involved, encouraged by WIFT president Sophie Mathisen, both myself and Louise Wadley’s producer, Jay Rutovitz, drafted open letters to the industry about the lack of transparency and diversity in the awards. Alongside other WIFT committee members we created the WIFT Charter for Gender Equity at the AACTA’s. We didn’t want to just complain about an issue that is often put in the too hard basket, we wanted a clear and concise charter to show how easy it is to achieve.
Even though we were armed with these two documents, we knew by now that it wasn’t going to be enough to get our voices heard. That is where the sausages came to the party. A throwaway comment about the awards being a sausage party was snapped up by Sophie — one thing AACTA could not ignore was a bunch of women crashing the red carpet in sausage suits, press releases in hand, demanding an end to the #AACTASausageParty. Or could they? Images of sausages being tackled to the ground and man-handled were beamed across the world. With headlines like “Gender Roles Not Sausage Rolls,” “Wieners Rush Red Carpet,” and “Sausages Crash the Awards in Protest,” surely they would have to respond?
No. So far the only response from AACTA has been deafening silence.
I invite you dear reader, to help. Put the pressure on AACTA: tweet, email, Facebook them with the hashtag #roasttheAACTAs. We want a rightful seat at the table. We are ready and willing to talk. We, the buns, are waiting.
