Despite pledge, most film festivals fall far short of parity

As the film industry slowly begins to move toward gender parity in opportunities for directors, the world’s major film festivals have made varying degrees of progress. Among the goals of the 5050x2020 campaign, an initiative launched at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, is for film festivals to have about 50 percent female-directed films by the year 2020. In 2018, the 5050x2020 campaign invited film festivals to sign a pledge promising that the festivals will give full transparency on gender and race statistics for the directors whose movies are at the festivals, as well as for the festivals’ juries and selection committees. Earlier this year, Women’s Media Center did a progress report on the major film festivals that took place from January to June 2019. Here is a progress report on the major film festivals that took place from July to December 2019.

Venice International Film Festival 

When and where: Late August to early September in Venice, Italy 

Background and track record: Launched in 1932 and presented by arts organization Venice Biennale, the Venice International Film Festival is the world’s oldest film festival, and is considered one of the most important launching pads for movies that go on to win Academy Awards. Most of Venice’s movies are from outside the United States. Of the festival’s 68 winners of the top prize, the Golden Lion, only four (or 6 percent) have been women: Margarethe von Trotta for Marianne and Juliane in 1981; Agnès Varda for Vagabond in 1985; Mira Nair for Monsoon Wedding in 2001; and Sofia Coppola for Somewhere in 2010.

Representation in 2019: Even though the festival signed the 5050x2020 pledge in 2018, female directors had only 24 percent of the new feature-length films at Venice this year — a notable increase from 12 percent in 2018, but still falling far short of gender parity. Of the 21 films chosen for the main competition, only two were directed by women: Shannon Murphy’s Babyteeth and Haifaa al-Mansour’s The Perfect Candidate. The festival made the controversial decision to select convicted rapist Roman Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy for its competition. Polanski has lived in France since fleeing the U.S. in 1978, to avoid prison time, and he did not attend the festival. 

Venice International Film Festival chief Alberto Barbera, who’s said that he’s against director gender quotas for the festival’s film selections, defended the decision to choose a Polanski film, by saying at the event’s opening press conference that it was necessary to separate “the artist and the man.” Meanwhile, filmmaker Lucrecia Martel, who was the festival’s 2019 main-competition jury president, expressed the opposite opinion at the same press conference. She said that Polanski’s status as a fugitive sex offender should have been factored into the festival’s decision making, and gender quotas for talented and deserving directors are the only way to ensure gender parity. 

An Officer and a Spy won the festival’s Grand Jury Prize (the jury consisted of four men and three women), but protesters have been lobbying for a boycott of the film, which was released in France but does not have a U.S. distributor. As for the festival’s awards this year, all of the director prizes for films went to men. The only female director to win an award at the festival was Céline Tricart, whose virtual-reality project The Key received the grand jury prize for Best VR Immersive Work. 

Telluride Film Festival

When and where: Late August to early September in Telluride, Colorado

Background and track record: The four-day Telluride Film Festival, which launched in 1974 and is produced by the National Film Preserve, overlaps with and has fewer selections than the Venice International Film Festival, but Telluride still carries clout for movies seeking major awards outside of the festival. World-premiere films at Telluride often get nominations and wins at the Academy Awards. Telluride, which tends to choose mostly U.S. and European films, doesn’t have awards competitions. Instead, the festival has the Silver Medallion Awards, which are given to filmmakers and actors for their career achievements. As of this writing, the Telluride Film Festival has not committed to the 5050x2020 pledge. 

Representation in 2019: Female-directed films have had a tougher time getting into Telluride than they did last year. In 2019, female directors had only 14 percent of Telluride’s new feature-length films, a significant decline from 22 percent in 2018. And most of those films were leftovers from other festivals where they had their world premieres. Kelly Reichardt’s The Cow and Kitty Green’s The Assistant had their world premieres at Telluride, but Agnès Varda’s Varda by Agnès debuted at the Berlin International Film Festival; Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire screened first at the Cannes Film Festival; and Lauren Greenfield’s The Kingmaker had its world premiere at Venice.

Toronto International Film Festival

When and where: September in Toronto, Canada

Background and track record: The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), which launched in 1976, gives separate awards voted for by juries and audiences. The festival’s program is an eclectic mix, from high-profile studio offerings to obscure independent films. TIFF’s top prize is the People's Choice Award, which debuted in 1978 and is an excellent predictor of which movies will be leading Oscar contenders. Several movies that have won the TIFF People’s Choice Award have gone on to be nominated for or win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. From 1978 to 2019, only five of 42 (or 11.9 percent) TIFF People’s Choice Award winners have been female directors: Claudia Weill for Girlfriend in 1978; Antonia Bird for Priest in 1994; Marleen Gorris for Antonia in 1995; Niki Caro for Whale Rider in 2002; and Nadine Labaki for Where Do We Go Now? in 2011. In 2019, the festival launched the TIFF Tribute Gala, a noncompetitive awards ceremony that announces in advance which filmmakers and actors will get the awards. Atlantics director Mati Diop, who won the 2019 Cannes Film Festival’s Grand Prix (second place) for the movie, received the TIFF Tribute Gala’s first Mary Pickford Award, which is given to female talent.

Representation in 2019: TIFF signed the 5050x2020 pledge in 2018, but its 2019 director lineup for new feature-length films shows that TIFF still has a long way to go to reach gender parity. Only 29 percent of the new feature-length films at TIFF 2019 were directed or co-directed by women, compared to 24.5 percent in 2018. The female-directed movies that had their world premieres at TIFF 2019 included Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Kasi Lemmons’ Harriet, Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers, Jill Culton’s Abominable, Shonali Bose’s The Sky Is Pink, and Marjane Satrapi’s Radioactive. Female-directed films won 36 percent (four out of 11) of the competition awards at TIFF in 2019: In the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) Jury Award categories, Heather Young’s Murmur took the prize in the Discovery program, and Coky Giedroyc’s How to Build a Girl won in the Special Presentations program. Meanwhile, Sophie Deraspe’s Antigone received the Canada Goose Award for Best Canadian Feature Film. Chloé Robichaud’s Delphine got the IWC Short Cuts Award for Best Canadian Short Film. 

New York Film Festival

When and where: Late September to mid-October in New York City

Background and track record: Launched in 1963 and presented by the member-supported Film at Lincoln Center, the New York Film Festival (NYFF) prefers a worldwide variety of independent films that are made for arthouse audiences. NYFF doesn’t have competition awards, but the festival does special tributes to filmmakers and actors. NYFF 2019 was dedicated to the trailblazing filmmaker Agnès Varda, who died this year at the age of 90. As of this writing, NYFF has not committed to the 5050x2020 pledge.

Representation in 2019: NYFF has improved its numbers for female-directed movies, but the percentages are still pretty low. In 2019, 25.5 percent of NYFF’s new feature-length films were directed or co-directed by women, an increase from 14.5 percent in 2018. Among the female-directed movies that had world premieres at NYFF 2019 were Tania Cypriano’s Born to Be, Lynn Novick’s College Behind Bars, and Ivy Meeropol’s Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn. 

BFI London Film Festival

When and where: October in London, England

Background and track record: The British Film Institute presents the BFI London Film Festival (which debuted in 1957), whose programming consists mainly of feature films that have had their world premieres at other film festivals. The feature-film selections are primarily mainstream, with a good mix of offerings from around the world. The jury-voted London Film Festival Awards launched in 2004, but didn’t start giving out a prize for Best Film until 2009. From 2009 to 2019, female directors helmed four of the 11 movies (or 36 percent) that won the Best Film award: Lynne Ramsay for We Need to Talk About Kevin in 2011; Athina Rachel Tsangari for Chevalier in 2015; Kelly Reichardt for Certain Women in 2016; and Sudabeh Mortezai for Joy in 2018.

Representation in 2019: The BFI London Film Festival signed the 5050x2020 pledge, but only slightly increased the number of its female-directed new feature films to 18 percent in 2019, up from 16.5 percent in 2018. Headed by Tricia Tuttle, the BFI London Film Festival is also one of the few major international film festivals that has a woman as its leader. Female-directed movies that had their world premieres at the festival in 2019 included Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian’s I Am (Not) a Monster and the Christine Molloy co-directed Rose Plays Julie. Female directors were half of the four competition winners of the 2019 BFI London Film Festival Awards, which are voted for by separate juries for each category: Mati Diop’s Atlantics took the Sutherland Prize for first feature films, while Rubikah Shah’s White Riot won the Grierson Award for documentaries.

AFI Fest (American Film Institute Festival)

When and where: October or November in Los Angeles, California

Background and track record: Presented by the American Film Institute, AFI Fest has a mixture of offerings from corporate studios and independent filmmakers from all over the world. AFI Fest launched in 1987 as a successor to the Los Angeles International Film Exposition (also known as Filmex). AFI Fest’s current top prize is the Audience Award – Feature, which used to have several subcategories, but was changed back in 2018 to include all eligible films. AFI’s top prize used to be a Grand Jury Prize for the best narrative feature film. From 1997 to 2011 (the last year that AFI Fest gave the award), there were 16 winning films in that category, and six of them (37.5 percent) were from female directors: Pirjo Honkasalo for Fire-Eater in 1998; Samira Makhmalbaf for Blackboards in 2000; Natasha Arthy for Old, New, Borrowed, and Blue in 2003; Sara Johnsen for Kissed by Winter in 2005; Jasmila Zbanic for Esma's Secret – Grbavica in 2006; and Julia Loktev for The Loneliest Planet in 2011. 

The #MeToo movement has had a significant impact on AFI Fest, resulting in the cancellation of two AFI Fest closing-night world premieres: In 2017, Sony Pictures’ All the Money in the World was pulled for reshoots after star Kevin Spacey’s #MeToo scandal led to him being replaced in the film by Christopher Plummer. In 2019, Apple TV+ cancelled its AFI Fest premiere of The Banker, after former TV host Cynthia Garrett publicly accused The Banker co-producer Bernard Garrett Jr. (her half-brother) of sexually abusing her and her sister Sheila. He has denied the allegations, but Apple TV+ removed his name from the film’s credits. It is unknown at this point if The Banker will be released. 

Representation in 2019: Although AFI Fest has not signed the 5050x2020 pledge, the festival was closer to gender parity in 2019 than some of the festivals that have signed the pledge. At AFI Fest in 2019, 38 percent of the new feature-length films were directed or co-directed by women, a slight dip from 40 percent in 2018. Of the eight AFI Fest awards handed out at the end of the festival in 2019, five of the winners (or 62.5 percent) were female directors: Faren Humes for Liberty (Special Jury Prize – Live Action); Sonia K. Hadad for Exam (Grand Jury Award – Live-Action Short); Niki Lindroth von Bahr for Something to Remember (Grand Jury Prize – Animation); and a tie for Grand Jury Prize – Documentary went to Sophia Nahli Allison for A Love Song for Latasha and Elivia Shaw for The Clinic.

Final Analysis

Whether or not they have signed the 5050x2020 pledge, the major international film festivals, for the most part, seem to be making incremental progress toward gender parity for directors. Four of the major U.S. film festivals — Sundance, Tribeca, South by Southwest (SXSW), and AFI — are the most progressive in trying to reach gender parity in directors of new feature-length films, which are the types of films that are most likely to lead to other opportunities for directors. In 2019, the female-directed new feature-length films at Sundance and Tribeca totaled 40 percent for each festival, while SXSW and AFI each had 38 percent, compared to other major film festivals that have not reached 35 percent. Those numbers were similar to the four festivals’ selections of female-directed new feature-length films in 2018, which ranged from 36 percent for Sundance and SXSW, to 40 percent for AFI, to 46 percent for Tribeca. 

Programmers at film festivals with low female representation often say they don’t get enough films from female directors to have gender parity. That’s a bogus excuse, according to Debra Zimmerman, executive director of Women Make Movies, a New York City–based nonprofit that empowers female filmmakers in various aspects of the industry. “It is a system that favors relationships, star power, and larger budgets,” Zimmerman says of the festival submission process. In a clique-oriented industry dominated by white men, Zimmerman observes that “women and people of color are already [at a disadvantage].” She also says that the vast majority of directors get their movies into festivals because they have an advocate who can personally recommend their movies to festival programmers. 

That’s what happened with Clemency director Chinonye Chukwu, who made Sundance Film Festival history in 2019 by being the first black female director to win the festival’s top prize. Clemency, starring Alfre Woodard as a prison warden who begins to doubt her belief in the death penalty, is Chukwu’s second feature-length film. Chukwu tells Women’s Media Center how Clemency got into Sundance: “I was really fortunate enough to be working through Paradigm, my agency at the time, which was instrumental in submitting the film … and making sure that people at Sundance watched it.” 

After her Sundance victory, independent film company Neon picked up Clemency for distribution; the movie’s U.S. release date is Dec. 27. Clemency also garnered nominations at the IFP Gotham Awards and Film Independent Spirit Awards. Chukwu is now signed to Creative Artists Agency, and she is directing a feature-film adaptation of A Taste of Power, the 1992 memoir by Elaine Brown, the first and only female leader of the Black Panther Party. Chukwu says this filmmaking opportunity is a direct result of her Sundance win. “It’s given me more access, in some ways,” she comments on her Sundance acclaim. “The whole trajectory of my career changed. I’m being offered projects that I’ve wanted to do for years.” 

The statistics in this article are for new feature-length releases at film festivals, and do not include short films, VR films, music videos, TV episodes, or previously released movies that get retrospective screenings at festivals.