Women Filmmakers Well Represented At Festival
Even though women filmmakers are the minority in Hollywood, they are well represented in this week’s American Film Institute’s Festival. Oscar-winner Angelina Jolie’s By the Sea will open AFI Fest on Nov. 5.
Festival Programmer Jenn Murphy said this year’s fest will feature many other films directed by women.
“This year we have an all-time high of female filmmakers,” Murphy said. “We have seven of 11 films which were directed by women which we’re excited about and these are filmmakers from all over the world.”
This, however, is not the norm.
Women still make up a fraction of the total number of directors in the entertainment industry. According a USC Annenberg study, 1.9 percent of directors across the top 100 films were female. In another words, there were only two female directors in 2014. Also, from 2007 to 2014, there were only 28 females out of a total 779 directors.
The lack of females in the industry can be attributed to a number of factors including the negative stigma of women in power. USC film student Eileen Wong said she is afraid of being perceived in a negative light as a female director.
“I feel insecure about bossing people around and I feel like I have to be nice, but I know male directors have an easier time,” Wong said. “They would just tell people what to do out right, but for women, just for me personally, I think that is harder.
Another factor is the lack of opportunities that are afforded to women.
“More women should feel empowered and want to join the industry,” USC film student Hartley Nicholson said. “Sometimes I feel like women don’t have the confidence just because it is such a male-centered industry and sometimes there aren't enough opportunities.”
Nicholson is right. A federal investigation has started looking into the issue of gender discrimination in the entertainment industry. Although this is looking at gender discrimination within the realm of directors, the issue affects all women employed in the industry. A Writers’ Guild Association Report states 15.1 percent of women held executive producer positions last season. It also shows that there were 136 women executive producer positions out of a total of 457 positions.
Kathryn Bigelow was and still is the only woman to win the Academy Award for directing The Hurt Locker in 2010, which also won best motion picture. Although “Selma” was nominated for best motion picture this year, director Ava DuVernay was not. No female directors were nominated for an Oscar in 2015.
Another issue may be that “big-budget action or superhero films are the genres least likely to be helmed by a woman,” according to The Los Angeles Times.
Murphy said that females are making more genres of films that “what gets sidelined as films for women.”
“One of our films, Disorder is an action film which I feel most people don’t anticipate a woman making that kind of film and so I like that is happening and I want to see that happen more,” Murphy said.
