Screen Australia has released updated data on their Gender Matters initiative. The data suggests that no drastic changes have been made to improve gender equality in the Australian film industry.
In 2019, there were 95 successful male director applications compared to 83 female. The slight increase in female directors from 83 compared to 68 in 2016 can be attributed to the Gender Matters initiative.
Luqman Aly, a freelance director, and editor has been working in the Australian film industry for 3 years and has witnessed the shift in representation.
“In my recent experience working in the independent/low budget sector, I would say I have worked with about an equal spread of male and female directors,” he said.
Although this is the case, Mr Aly is aware there is still a significant imbalance.
“I think that industry-wide, there are still key creative roles that are male dominated, particularly in the commercial sector,” he said.
According to data collected by Screen Australia over a three-year period (2016-2019), successful female director applications increased by 22% while producers decreased by 9%.
The first phase of the initiative did inspire some hope of a shift, with a 41% increase in female writers.
In 2020, Screen Australia released their final round of data.
The final round of data did see an overall increase in approved female applications compared to males, specifically in female producers who had 984 approved applications compared to 605 male.
Mr Aly acknowledged that the industry is slowly moving in the right direction.
“I would say that there has been an increase in female representation within emerging talent, fostered by public funding initiatives, female-led production companies and the introduction of representation-focussed practices within the industry,” he said.
Despite female directors having a significant increase in approved applications compared to 2016, there were more declined applications in 2020 then approved. There were 713 declined female applications compared to 492 approved.
After releasing the data, Screen Australia renewed their KPI’s and acknowledged that industry-wide data shows women are still underrepresented, highlighting that there is still more work that needs to be done.
Screen Australia launched their Gender Matters initiative back in 2015 with the intention of increasing the number of women in key creative roles in the Australian screen industry. $5 million was allocated to the program to help foster change with the intention of renewing KPI’s and adjusting funding to help meet targets.
