The number of female directors working in Hollywood has fallen, according to a new study.
In 2016, just 7 per cent of the top 250 films were directed by women, a fall of 2 per cent from the year before. The annual report from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film found that the number was also behind the figure achieved in 1998.
“I would say I’m dumbfounded,” Martha Lauzen, executive director of the centre, told Variety. “It is remarkable that with all of the attention and talk over the last couple of years in the business and the film industry, the numbers actually declined. Clearly the current remedies aren’t working.”
The study also found that 35 per cent of films employed no women in key roles behind the camera, such as writer, producer, executive producer, editor or cinematographer. Women also accounted for just 3 per cent of composers.
Documentaries and dramas were more likely to employ women while action films and horrors were almost exclusively male.
Films with female directors at the helm employed a greater percentage of women in other positions.
Films released in 2016 from female directors included Jodie Foster’s Money Monster, Sharon Maguire’s Bridget Jones’s Baby, Mira Nair’s Queen of Katwe and Andrea Arnold’s American Honey.
The year before saw two big hits from female directors: Sam Taylor Johnson’s Fifty Shades of Grey and Elizabeth Banks’s Pitch Perfect 2.
The next 12 months promise to be a better year for women behind the camera with new films from Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman), Niki Caro (The Zookeeper’s Wife), Sofia Coppola (The Beguiled) and Lucia Aniello (Rock That Body).
