22/02/2025 - BERLINALE 2025: With women representing only 26% of the total number of European professionals, the conference touched on pay gaps and work/life balance, among other topics

During the 75th Berlinale, the Federation of European Screen Directors (FERA), in partnership with European Film Agencies (EFAD), organised “Breaking the 26% Glass Ceiling: Advancing Gender Parity for Women Filmmakers in Europe”, a conference that unspooled on 14 February at the Felleshus Auditorium, Berlin’s pan-Nordic cultural centre.

The event was moderated by Pauline Durand-Vialle, CEO of FERA, with opening speeches by Bill Anderson, chair of the board at FERA, and Kjersti Mo, CEO of the Norwegian Film Institute and vice-president of EFAD. The latter talked about her experience in her country: “The way we choose to spend public film funding matters. In Norway, 40% of publicly backed productions are directed by women. This has been achieved by carefully targeted, long-term work. We see that the industry follows money, and with financial encouragement comes more equality.” She went on to explain that Norwegian films making up 20% of the country’s cinema programming may be connected to the fact that the gender gap is not that big. Mo concluded: “Films are not the means to fulfil a political agenda. […] European cinema has always been a solution against the mainstream. Our diversity makes us a creative powerhouse. That’s why European industry players must work to amplify more voices.”

Later, MEP Emma Rafowicz provided an overview of the risks of the gender gap, and how they can affect democracy, artistic freedom and cultural diversity. She also highlighted: “As long as women don’t feel safe in workplaces, we will never break the gender glass ceiling. Creating a secure and respectful work environment is not an option; it’s a necessity. […] Let’s make sure that the future of European cinema is not just brilliant, but truly feminist.

“But how do we achieve a work/life balance? In truth, it’s not fine to sacrifice one’s life. We need to work on quotas, equal pay and budgets, and we must talk about the work/life balance in order to advance the entire sector in Europe, as we are regulation giants. […] We are facing enemies, inside and outside of Europe. The battle needs to be fought now. We need to prove that feminism can work when properly applied,” she cautioned.

Manuel Fioroni, of the European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO), discussed the European data around the topic by highlighting a piece of research titled “Female Professionals in European Film Production” as an example. The starting number for the research is 26%, as of 2023 – this is the total percentage of female film professionals (including directors, screenwriters, producers, cinematographers, composers and editors) active in Europe. Despite the number being low, it still shows an increase since 2015, when it stood at 21%. DoPs and composers are below the average, with 14% and 12%, respectively, while the other four categories are all above average, with directors hitting 27% and producers claiming the top spot, with 32%. Of those, the share of active female directors saw the biggest growth over the years among the six categories (+7.3 percentage points since 2015). One negative correlation related to funding was that women are more likely to direct lower-budget films because female directors have a significant presence in debut films and documentaries. Another element that became apparent is that women are more likely to work with other women. For instance, films directed by women have female editors in 44% of cases.

Katleen Goosens, a member of the European Women’s Audiovisual Network (EWA), mentioned how the female applications for the Flanders Audiovisual Fund went up from 21% in 2018 to 37% in 2023, underscoring how filmmaking is a slow process and how, hopefully, the rise in the number of women filmmakers will also be reflected by upcoming releases.

Daphné Tepper, policy director of the Media, Entertainment & Arts sector of UNI Global Union, noted how one of the few positive elements in this grim scenario is that we do have data, such as those provided by the EAO. These help us navigate the issue, despite progress being slow and frustrating. For example, she brought up a report from the World Economic Forum that stated: “It will take five generations, 134 years, to achieve full parity in our societies and in the world.” According to Tepper, politics can be a field to learn from, considering that there has been positive change over the years, which could be replicated within the film industry.

Iris Zappe-Heller, deputy director of the Austrian Film Institute and chairwoman of the EFAD Gender & Inclusion Working Group, mentioned that a leading example in this sense comes from Spain, where there are investment obligations for audiovisual work directed or created exclusively by women.

Enrico Vannucci, of Eurimages, presented a more positive statistic, highlighting that, within the Council of Europe body, the percentage of supported projects directed by women has risen to 53%. This marks a significant shift from 2015, when 70% of the funds were allocated to films directed by men. In 2024, a total of €13.7 million (61% of total support) was awarded to films by female directors. Vannucci also confirmed that studies indicate that female directors remain underrepresented in fiction films and high-budget projects. The gap is most pronounced in productions exceeding €10 million, where 88% of funded films are directed by men, compared to just 12% by women.