Calls for women’s equality in the film industry have been at the forefront of the media recently, with campaigns and movements rising up on the red carpet and making headline news.
A Southampton research team lead by Dr Shelley Cobb, Associate Professor in Film, is highlighting the role of women in the UK film industry and the obstacles they face. During the four-year project, entitled Calling the Shots: Women and Contemporary Film Culture in the UK, the team collected data from British films made between the years 2000 and 2015. For each film, they recorded the number of women in six key ‘behind the scenes’ roles: director, writer, cinematographer, editor, producer and executive producer.
They found that across 3,452 films in production in the UK between 2003 and 2015, only 14 per cent of all directors and seven per cent of all cinematographers were women. Furthermore, just one per cent of all directors and 0.3 per cent of cinematographers were women of colour.
Shelley says:
“There is an entrenched system of power in the film industry, in which the people who get power tend to support people who are just like them. There are well-trained, experienced, and talented women filmmakers working now who should be at the top of their careers, but they have been left aside by the gatekeepers, tastemakers, and financiers who need to change and learn how to make equality a reality.”
This story is one of many of our University’s Research Highlights, all of which demonstrate how work that goes on right here at Southampton is impacting and improving the world around us.
Read the full article to find out more about this research.
