Happy International Women’s Day! Do you want to support women who work in the UK Film and TV industry? Here is a list of useful links for this International Women’s Day and beyond:
Listen
- Girls on Film is a film review podcast from a female perspective, hosted by critic and broadcaster Anna Smith. She has just started a 365 day campaign with daily recommendations of female-directed movies. Find out more here.
- This Universi-tea podcast from the University of Southampton features Dr Shelley Cobb who campaigns for equality in the film industry. Listen to Shelley on ‘The Feminist Film Fanatic‘ here.
Learn
- The Conversation, while examining television drama, points out that there has been an unfortunate decrease in the contributions from women in senior roles. Read the full article here which features Channel 4 commissioning editor Fozia Khan speaking about hiring biases she faced.
- A report on gender imbalance across theatre, film and TV industries have revealed ‘disgraceful’ gender inequality in the arts. The Women in Theatre Forum Report UK‘s findings range from the unfair burden of care falling on female workers to the lack of female presence in film, where only 16% of working film-makers are female, and 14% of prime-time TV is written by women. Read more here.
- Shades of Noir‘s article point out that while women are underrepresented in key creative and decision making roles, such as screenwriting, directing and technical roles across the film and television workforce, black women and women from minority ethnicities are even less represented. You can hear their take here.
- Read this impassioned Huffington Post article from Tiffany Kozio on why the UK Needs more Black Female Film Directors. In it, she cites research from Directors UK concluding that gender inequality in the UK is due to unconscious bias in the industry and that large scale, industry wide intervention is required to tackle this issue. Read it here.
Join
- Women in Film and TV is the leading membership organisation for women working in creative media in the UK. They host a variety of events throughout the year, present a prestigious annual awards ceremony, run a mid-career mentoring programme for women, run bursary initiatives, collaborate on research projects and lobby for women’s interests. Find out more about them and join here.
- Birds Eye View is a women-led organisation which champions women-led films through their movement “Reclaim The Frame”. They regularly host screenings throughout the UK and virtually. Join them here.