Subjects have their time. Some appear suddenly, dominate the public debate for a short moment - and evaporate without much noise and without sustained traces. Others have been on the agenda for ages. They were discussed again and again, sometimes being followed with more attention, sometimes with less, sometimes emphatically and sometimes with boredom. They were there like inevitable companions, being allowed at the table for the sake of (sometimes fake) political correctness and often being considered as an annoying duty.

Hadn’t there been the people engaging themselves restlessly for the good cause some of these core subjects would have lost their impact or have disappeared altogether. Gender equality is such a subject, which is strange because equal chances for men and women should be an obvious and basic condition of us living and working together.

We know this is not the case and also the European Film Academy can, by no means, call itself a glorious exception: Two thirds of the EFA Members are men and only one third are women. Among the directors only 23,07% are women, among the screenwriters 25,62% and among the producers 30,58%.

The first thirty years of the European Film Awards have promoted 504 nominated feature-length films - 423 were directed by men and only 81 by women, this is to say 16,07%. Even worse is the situation when we look at the winners: Since 1988, a total of 126 awards were presented for feature-length films (European Film, Discovery, Documentary, Animation, Comedy) and only 12 (= 9,52%) of these were directed by women. All in all, 113 directors were nominated throughout the history of the Awards, 9 of them female and 104 male. Among the 172 nominated screenwriters, 17 were female and 155 male.

There is, indeed, much room for improvement and we need to develop a strategy to include more female film professionals in the academy and the awards. But the good news is that the EFA Board is composed of 12 women and 7 men!
  
We dedicate this second issue of the EFA Close-up to the subject of gender equality: We are taking stock of the developments resulting from years of engagement of strong and dedicated women, and of a six-month debate that started with the Harvey Weinstein scandal becoming public and finally got the heavy stone (which has always been there) rolling … and rolling … and it still rolls on. We hear young female filmmakers talking about their experiences, and we give the floor to female key players on the political level.

All their contributions make one thing clear: The wheel can’t be turned back. Let’s grab the chances that result from this debate, let’s live solidarity among genders and let us all work closely together to turn our industry into a good example of gender equality. 

Marion Döring
Director European Film Academy