Advancing Gender Equality in European Audiovisual Production: Insights and Strategies from 5th Annual Webinar

10 December 2024

FERA partnered with the European Women’s Audiovisual Network (EWA), UNI Europa – Media, Entertainment & Arts (EURO-MEI), and the European Film Agency Directors Association (EFAD), the International Federation of Actors (FIA), the Lab Femmes de Cinema, the European Audiovisual Observatory, and Cineuropa for a webinar on gender equality statistics and strategies in audiovisual production. The fifth edition of this annual event took place on 10 December.

Emma Rafowicz, French Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from the S&D Group, Vice-Chair of the Committee on Culture and Education and Member of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, opened the webinar. She reaffirmed her commitment to ensure that the European audiovisual industry is safe for women and sets an example for gender equality.

Moving forward, Gilles Fontaine, Head of the Department for Market Information at the European Audiovisual Observatory gave a presentation on the most recent statistics on female professionals in European Film, TV and SVOD Production.

Fabienne Silvestre, Co-founder and Director and Lise Perottet, General Coordinator of the Lab Femmes de Cinéma then presented the 2024 edition of the qualitative study on the existing measures and policies to promote parity in European cinema.

Iris Zappe-Heller, Deputy Director of the Austrian Film Institute and Chair of EFAD Gender & Inclusion working group, and Nataša Bučar, Director of Slovenian Film Center provided insights on successful equality strategies in place in their respective countries, followed by EFAD secretary general Julie-Jeanne Régnault’s reference to Spain’s specific approach.

The event concluded with short interventions about the status of gender equality in the European audiovisual sector and key takeaways for guiding future actions.

Alexia Muiños Ruiz, Director at EWA network, stressed the necessity of collecting data on gender equality over time. Pauline Durand-Vialle, CEO at FERA, offered a hopeful perspective on the limited yet tangible and possibly transformative effects of policies so far, and delved into the next challenges to tackle, including how to address the “risk-averse nature of the industry and its perception of women in leadership positions, such as directors”. Simon Norrthon, FIA/Scen&Film, spoke about the importance of organizing and collective action in developing education and social policies that allowed the evolution of the perception of women in the Swedish audiovisual sector. Daphné Tepper, Policy Director at EURO-MEI, finally reflected on the importance of public policy and funding in closing the gender pay gap.

FERA will delve further into this crucial issue during an upcoming event set to take place during the Berlinale in February 2025. Stay tuned!

To go further:

European Audiovisual Observatory: Female professionals in European film production – 2024 edition

Cineuropa article & webinar replay: https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/471442