The movies accessible to viewers often come down to film markets at major festivals. High-profile fests such as Cannes host markets where sales and distribution professionals present, buy, or pass on film concepts. And, as a new study commissioned by Birds’ Eye View reveals, film markets are dominated by men; ergo, men tend to control which movies audiences ultimately see and how they see them.
Women account for only 32 percent of high-status employees at film markets. This means that women’s voices are underrepresented in the roles that hold the most influence. As a press release for the study stresses, it’s possible this “gender imbalance and lack of diversity [skew] taste against female-led productions.”
As the level of influence in professional roles decreases, the number of women holding positions increases. Fifty-one percent of mid-status employees are women, as are 64 percent of low-status employees.
Credit: Birds’ Eye View
The number of women in high-status roles is growing, but at a very slow pace. In 2008 28 percent of high-status employees were women. “At this speed, we predict it will take until around the year 2040 to reach parity,” the press release remarks.
The gender gap is especially wide among buyers, whom the study designates “the most important people at film markets.” For instance, women represented just 36 percent of buyers at Cannes’ Marché du Film this year.
“Unfortunately, most women buyers I know do all the screenings, take all the meetings, read all the scripts, do all the coverage, and generally run the acquisitions departments,” a female buyer told study author Stephen Follows. “Yet, crucially, [they] are not in decision making roles. Which is of course directly reflected in the resulting slates. Which is of course directly reflected in cinema listings.”
Given the general dominance male-directed and -driven films have at the box office and the cultural conversation, the Birds’ Eye View study doesn’t come as a shock. But it does provide more context on the entire filmmaking process and, as a press release notes, “adds an important piece of information to understand how and why there are so few films made by women in production and in cinemas.”
“The reason for commissioning this research was because the market and audience-facing side of the film industry is under-discussed in terms of its connection to the issues around gender bias and the barriers to entry faced by female filmmakers,” said Mia Bays, director-at-large of Birds’ Eye View. “Yet time after time, through our work in distribution and exhibition, we see a consistent lack of market confidence in films by women — even after they win awards, get strong critical responses out of festivals, generate buzz. By the time the dust settles, they either don’t get distribution at all or if they do, the release is small and the lack of faith shows in the campaigns or the support from cinemas. And it all starts with the acquisitions part of the pipeline.”
That part of the pipeline — like most — needs more women.
