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Lab Femmes de Cinéma: Serbia Remains Among a Few European Countries, Not Having Policies and Statistics of Women Situation in Film Industry

22.03.2024.

According to the French research and training organization Lab Femmes de Cinéma, in 2023, Serbia was among 5 countries in Europe that had not introduced or did not plan to introduce measures to promote better women's situation in their film industry, the other being Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Ukraine. Currently, there are no official statistics, on how many of the Serbian filmmakers are women. The vast majority of the European countries are committed, at various levels, to increasing gender parity in the film industry, the leading country being Iceland with 37% of female feature film directors, followed by Austria, Norway, and Sweden with 34% female film directors, better reflecting the society and improving women conditions artistically.

In 2022, the Film Centre Serbia reported that they covered travel costs (airfare, accommodation, accreditation, training fees) for women filmmakers who wanted to attend women-only events such as the CIRCLE Women Doc Accelerator or the European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs training program to support women filmmakers in the country.

“Women make up around 50% of film school students on average in Europe. After graduating the film school since they face a great number of discrimination, it is harder for them to establish themselves in the industry over the long term. Regarding the Serbian film industry, it is encouraging that they started their first steps in supporting women filmmakers in 2022. Hopefully, the country will soon implement some measures toward parity in the years to come. In Europe, if the figures keep evolving at this pace, parity in the industry won't be achieved before decades”, commented Lise Perottet, General Coordinator of the Lab Femmes de Cinéma.

European Film Festival Palić translated the extensive study into Serbian language and today, March 21, published the study on its website Palicfilmfestival.com to promote gender parity in the film industry in Serbia. Together with other 6 film festivals in Europe, the European Film Festival Palić belongs to the Moving Images – Open Borders (MIOB) network, which initiated wider study’s spread in European countries.

“Working in the network with Western European film festivals revealed that in France many measures are being taken to combat sexual violence and sexist behavior in the film industry, our colleagues in Austria lead in supporting parenthood, and the Spanish film institute has introduced gender quotas for film financing. Therefore, we encourage other film-related organizations in Serbia to use the translations of the study to Serbian language and go through the best European practices and to create a more equal and diverse film culture in our country”, told Ilija Tatić, Executive Producer at the European Film Festival Palić.

MIOB network consists of 7 film festivals dedicated to European cinema with its artistic facets, socio-political upheavals and regional characteristics: Les Arcs Film Festival in France, Trieste Film Festival in Italy, Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz in Austria, Filmfestival Cottbus in Germany, Festival de Sevilla in Spain, European Film Forum Scanorama in Lithuania, Palić European Film Festival in Serbia.

In the sixth year after #metoo, out of 36 European countries researched, 16 countries in Europe have committed to combating violence in the film industry, 15 European countries have implemented or plan to implement measures to integrate parity into broader research on diversity in the audiovisual sector, 13 European countries use funding applications as a tool to promote parity and diversity, collecting data or raising awareness.

The Lab will therefore continue to survey the country annually to monitor some developments in the policies over the coming years.

Since 2016, the Lab Femmes de Cinéma has been releasing an annual study on the place of women directors in cinema in Europe. Initially qualitative and quantitative, since 2020 it relies on statistics from the European Audiovisual Observatory and focuses exclusively on purely qualitative work. This study aims to present a comprehensive overview of existing measures and policies to promote parity in cinema in Europe, drawing up an annual review of the situation in Europe and compiling a collection of existing best practices to promote inclusion in the cinema.

The study covers more than thirty European countries, to which the lab sends questions each year via national film institutes. The information presented in the study is therefore a synthesis of information sent in previous years, new responses received from the institutes, and additional information found on the institutional websites.

About the Lab Femmes de Cinéma

Lab Femmes de Cinéma focuses on parity and diversity in the film and audiovisual industries, and since 2016 presents a qualitative study on existing measures and policies to promote gender parity in Europe. Lab Femmes de Cinéma recently successfully campaigned during the Cesar Awards in France and achieved higher women filmmakers’ visibility in directing and film scoring categories. The annual study is being conducted in collaboration with the European Audiovisual Observatory (OEA), the European Film Agency Directors (EFAD) association, supported by the French Ministry of Culture and the French National Centre of Cinema (CNC).