Eight European audiovisual associations and research centres gathered to take stock, share best practices and discuss future opportunities related to inclusion and gender parity in the AV sector

(© Erlend Štaub)

On Tuesday 10 December, the fifth "European webinar on gender equality statistics and strategies in audiovisual production” was organised by UNI Europa – Media, Entertainment & Arts (EUROMEI), EWA - the European Women’s Audiovisual Network, and the European Film Agency Directors Association (EFAD), in collaboration with the International Federation of Actors (FIA), the Federation of European Screen Directors (FERA), the Lab Femmes de Cinéma, the European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO) and Cineuropa (find the previous events here: 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023). The hybrid meeting was moderated by Daphne Tepper, policy director at UNI Europa. You can watch the webinar in full at the bottom of this article.

After the opening remarks by the newly elected Member of the European Parliament Emma Rafowicz (France, S&D), who underlined the important role of film schools in promoting gender equality, for example through the introduction of targeted scholarships, the event continued with presentations of the most recent gender equality statistics. 

Fresh numbers

The European Audiovisual Observatory’s Gilles Fontaine shared slightly hopeful insights from the 2024 report on “Female Professionals in European Film Production”. The share of assignments to women has grown by 5% since 2015, the year of the first report, standing at 24.4% in 2023. All professions that were looked at (directors, screenwriters, producers, cinematographers, composers and editors) are recording a 2-4% increase each for the period of 2019-2023, as compared to the years 2015-2018. However, this positive trend has been slowing since 2021.
When it comes to women directors, it is alarming that their share is much higher in debut films (35%) than in all European films combined (26%). This can be explained by the fact that women are proportionally more present (33%) in documentary films, where the average film budget is much lower than in fiction and animation.

Fabienne Silvestre and Lise Perottet from The Lab Femmes de Cinéma presented the updated “Qualitative Study: Measures to Promote Gender Parity in European Cinema” (here). This annual survey of film institutes is carried out in collaboration with the EAO and EFAD and also contains a collection of best practices. It shows that the awareness for gender questions has been rising amongst film institutes: in 2024, 36 institutes answered the study, an increase of 157% compared to 2020. Moreover, 21 institutes implemented measures to fight gender-based violence, up from five in 2020 (+320%). In addition to that, by 2024 seven institutes had implemented or were working on measures to support parenthood in the sector, such as on-set childcare.

Best Practices

In the second part of the discussion, Iris Zappe-Heller from the Austrian Film Institute and Nataša Bučar from the Slovenian Film Centre talked about the gender equality action plans of their respective institutions, giving practical examples.

Iris Zappe-Heller remarked that in 2013 in Austria, 25% of directors were women, but films directed by female filmmakers only received 12% of the funding distributed by the film institute and women were missing in head of department roles. Upon this realisation, the institute implemented a Gender Incentive: if a production company hires women in the key positions of a production, the company receives an additional € 35,000 to develop another project with women in key positions. Since the start of the incentive in 2017, 110 projects have been developed with this assistance. As Zappe-Heller highlighted, it is easy to change guidelines, but not easy to change society.

The Slovenian Film Centre’s Nataša Bučar explained that the first-ever Slovenian fiction feature directed by a woman was released only in 2002. In 2020, the Slovenian Film Centre put forward a strategic plan for 2020-24, with the main goal of achieving a higher percentage of female-directed films. The strategy was based mostly on awareness-raising measures, implementing gender balance in film commissions, educating film committees on overcoming unconscious bias, and data collection. As a result of this policy, since 2018, almost 100% of women-directed debut features have been supported by the institute and the majority of the 2024 Vesna Awards went to films directed by women.

Look into the future

The last panel, titled “Shall we be happy with the direction of travel?”, brought together stakeholders from European AV associations to share their hopes and concerns for the future.

Spanish filmmaker and EWA Network executive director Alexia Muiños Ruiz emphasised that, while progress has been made, it was crucial to continue data collection and to work with the media, so that the positive achievements would not be short-lived.

Pauline Durand-Vialle, the CEO of FERA, echoed this sentiment: while the positive evolution can be considered a victory in itself, she highlighted the need to ensure that gender equality policies can withstand the current challenges of the sector, such as the rise of Artificial Intelligence and the “conservative revolution in Europe”. 

Swedish actor and FIA vice-president Simon Norrthon stressed the need of working with employers to achieve collective agreements. Sweden has made progress in recent years, including guidelines for Intimacy Coordinators and a guaranteed 480 days of parental leave for industry workers to share between parents. However, there are also negative developments: for the first time in years, the gender pay gap in Sweden has been increasing, so it is important to keep working to improve conditions for women in the industry.

Watch the full webinar below: