Encouraged by initiatives taken in some of its member states including Finland and Sweden, the Council of Europe’s Eurimages Fund has decided to examine the question of gender equality in the film projects applying for support.
Analysis of figures for 2012 shows a strong disparity both in the average representation of women behind the 5 key functions (production, directing, script, editing and photo) and in grants allocated to projects written and directed by women. As a result, Eurimages has started to collect data to report on the situation and has developed for this year an analytical grid relating to the gender of a project. In 2015, the European co-production funding body will then evaluate if concrete actions should be taken to encourage the presence of women in European film.
During the last Gothenburg Film Festival, a new study called ‘Gender Balance in the Nordic Film Industry’ compiled by Nordicom, University of Gothenburg also pointed out the male dominance in film. For instance 100% of films that premiered in Iceland in 2012 were directed by men, compared to 98% for Sweden, 82% for Finland (with Finnish stats including documentaries) and 78% for Norway.
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