Strong appeal issued to Irish Film Board and funders to support women in the industry

“GENDER equality will lead to the enhancement of the Irish film industry – not negatively impact on the quality of its output”.

That’s according to Anna Serner, director of the Swedish Film Institute, who made her first Irish appearance to speak at the recent colloquium at Mary Immaculate College, exploring the power imbalance between the sexes in all aspects of cinema making.

Hers was the keynote speech, Sweden being the first country to have 50/50 gender funding policy in place.

The event, ‘Women in the Irish Film Industry: Moving from the Margins to the Centre’, was organised by the college’s Dr Susan Liddy.

Advertisement

According to Stephanie Comey from Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, less than 20 per cent of directors who have received funding from Sound and Vision were females.

Catherine Tiernan, Screen Producers Ireland, informed the audience that outside of ‘Fair City’ the last RTE drama written by a female writer was 2013’s ‘RAW’ From David Kavangh, CEO of Writers Guild of Ireland, statistics show women tend to go straight to publishing as opposed to applying for IFB funding.

A series of prominent film makers, series makers, writers and women’s activists contributed to the exploration.

Concluding,  Dr Liddy stated the colloquium “sent out a strong signal that for solid and lasting change to occur broadcasters and other organisations need to take the Film Board’s lead and seriously consider their gender policies.

“Decisive action needs to be taken to target, support and facilitate women carving out their rightful place in the industry.”