The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the 10 live action shorts and 10 animated shorts that will advance on the road to the Oscars. Zero women directors made the cut for live action, and just two of the animated shorts are women-helmed: Alicja Jasina’s “Once upon a Line” and Marie-Christine Courtès’ “Sous Tes Doigts (Under Your Fingers).” The former was named Gold Winner at the 2016 Student Academy Awards.
A total of 69 pictures qualified in the animated category, and 137 in live action.
On the festival circuit, shorts programs are often closest to achieving gender parity. But this is The Academy, and as we’re all too aware, the Academy often lags behind the times. It’s also bears mentioning that, “Females were more likely to be directors of documentary shorts than narrative or animated shorts. 37 percent of documentary directors were women versus 31 percent of animated directors and 28 percent of narrative directors,” a comprehensive 2015 study from Dr. Stacy L. Smith of USC’s Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative revealed.
“Making a short film might be both the launch and the pinnacle of [many female filmmakers’] careers,” Dr. Smith concluded. The research project looked at how often women start on unequal terrain in their professional paths. And the numbers just get worse from there. For example, women have directed 28 percent of the narrative shorts in the top 10 festivals worldwide, but only 18 percent of the narrative features at Sundance from 2002–2012.
The study found that females fill almost a third of the directing pipeline. “Of the 3,933 short film directors at 10 top worldwide festivals, a full 68 percent were males and 32 percent were females.” This percentage of women is considerably higher than any nearly any other field in the film industry. But “female film directors face a fiscal cliff in their careers soon after making a short film,” Smith observed. “Male and female directors are put on opposite paths as their careers progress. For males, opportunities grow, while for females, they vanish.” Big-budget, high-profile gigs are generally offered to male directors, while women directors are typically given smaller budgets and restricted to working in certain genres.
LUNAFEST, one of the key sponsors of that study, is a year-long traveling film festival of award-winning short films by, for, and about women. The fest has appeared in over 175 cities, and all of its proceeds go towards nonprofit women’s organizations: LUNAFEST has raised more than $3 million dollars since it was established in 2000. Dr. Smith’s study explored how the shorts in LUNAFEST’s program differ from more mainstream films. For instance, LUNAfest shorts feature more girls and women on screen, more inclusive characters, and more variety of age. The next LUNAFEST will kick off in Chicago November 30.
Nominations for the 89th Oscars will be announced on Tuesday, January 24, 2017, and the event will take place Sunday, February 26, 2017.
