Iran’s female filmmakers more than US

Despite in the Iranian cinema industry, there’s a much smaller percentage of female filmmakers in its western counterpart. Here’s excerpts from recent news in the US cinema industry.

1. The US film industry prefers to have (can we now, after all those sexual harassment scandals in Hollywood, say abuse) female actors in front of the camera, rather than behind it.
2. Women in cinema industry have time and again expressed objection over the disproportionate number of men behind the scenes, compared to women.
3. To respond to the negative public opinion on the issue, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, who has been selected as a speaker for the 10th Annual Produced By Conference at Paramount Studios, says Ana Boden, a female director will make their new film.
4. Asked during the Q&A part of the session whether the next 20 Marvel films should be directed by women, Feige replied that he couldn’t promise that all 20 Marvel movies will have female directors but would do his best to ensure a lot of them will.
5. Research results show the ratio of female directors to the males is very small in the US.
6. Figures about crew members also suggest the same, with males found all around in the backstage.
7. The status-quo has remained unchanged over the past 20 years, including in screenwriting, production management, editing and cinematography.
8. The gender discrimination debate has come to the fore amid the consecutive sexual abuse and harassment scandals in the US cinema industry.
9. There’s been widespread criticism to the Golden Globe and BAFTA (The British Academy of Film and Television Arts or BAFTA) Film Awards; this raises eyebrows against what’s happening in the western cinema industry, making it a new case of gender discrimination in major western countries. Both major film prize bodies have for long, failed to award female directors.
10. Meanwhile, a study on the Iranian film industry shows that women have, like in many other fields, been increasingly involved in filmmaking, with so many female directors now involved in the business; the proportion of female workers behind the camera is also eye-catching in the Iranian filmmaking industry.

MF/MF