Work Package 3
WP3–Promoting and Valorizing Women Filmmakers
Largely invisibilized in film history (Sellier 1998), female professionals suffer numerous discriminations in the film and television industries, in terms of access to: (1) employment: on a European scale, half of the graduates of film schools are women, but they only direct 23.92% of first and second feature films and only15.41% of third films and more (Le Lab 2022); in France, less than one out of four films is directed by awoman (CNC 2021); (2) funding: in France, the budget of a film directed by a woman is on average 40%lower than that of a film directed by a man (CNC 2021); (3) roles: in France, female actors are one anda half times less likely than male actors to get a film role and half as likely after the age of 50 (AAFA2021). Women are also under-represented in French fiction (INA/PFDM 2021) and female characters are more often negatively portrayed than male characters (Cervulle & Lécossais 2021).
The aim of WP3 is to analyze the social and cultural distribution conditions and contexts of women’s films and series,paying special attention to how gender impacts every aspect of the works’ circulation in France and in the US. Because the places where films and series are distributed and consumed have diversified due to the development of streaming services (Netflix, Disney+, or Amazon Prime), WP3 will evaluate the place of women filmmakers’ works both within the classic theatrical release circuits and on the libraries of streaming services, as well as in the places of consecration and legitimation, such as international festivals and film awards.
Based on the study of the conditions of distribution of a Western corpus of films directed by female filmmakers on the French territory, WP3 will analyze their presence in cinema’s traditional mode of exhibition, the movie theater. Several socio-economic indicators will allow for a statistical treatment (number of copies, combination of release, number of weeks of screening, admissions and box-office, etc.) and more qualitative analyses on the conditions of promotion (study of marketing tools and communication strategies deployed around the release of these films). The collected information will be used to analyze distribution and compare with the outcomes of awards ceremony.
The advent of streaming platforms has disrupted the unstable balance between the historical actors of the film and television industries and transformed film audiences into consumers of video on demand. The analysis of the visibility of films and series made by women must therefore focus on streaming platforms,especially since they regularly boast of being at the forefront of openness to diversity; Netflix in particular claims it offers more opportunities to women filmmakers than the Hollywood studios (Smithet al. 2021). WP3 will also study the place of women’s films and series in the catalogs of Netflix, PrimeVideo, Disney +, which dominate the French market, and analyze the methods of their editorialization(dedicated categories, information provided, presentation on the interface, consideration of gender data by the recommendation algorithms).
Last but not least, women filmmakers suffer from a glaring lack of visibility in the award lists of major international festivals or ceremonies. WP3 will establish a census of the awards obtained by women filmmakers in the main French cinematographic venues: the Cannes Film Festival, the Deauville American Film Festival, the Cinemed Festival, the César Awards, the Louis-Delluc Prize and the Jean-Vigo Prize. WP3 will consider the strategies set up by film professionals aimed at rewarding women filmmakers: the Créteil International Women’s Film Festival (FIFF), the Alice GuyPrize, the Trophies of Pour les femmes dans les médias (PFDM) and the Prix Cléopâtre, created in 2023 to counter the invisibilization of women filmmakers at the César Awards (Collectif 50/50). FEMME members will investigate the role, functioning and stakes of these events through interviews with the organizers, direct ethnographic observation, analysis of awards.
WP3 Chloé Delaporte