52 Films By Women Mid-Year Report

Last January I took the 52 Films By Women Pledge brought to you by the nice folks at Women in Film. At week 19 I am a little bit ahead, thanks in large part to short subject offerings from the wave of experimental feminist filmmakers in the 1960s. Unfortunately, my Letterboxd only has me at 28, since the selection of short, avant-garde and experimental films are really meager there. So there’s a couple I’ve not been able to log.

That’s the least interesting thing about my experience, the stats. I thought I would say a thing or two about women making film and just how difficult it is to watch films by female directors even when you’re being intentional about it.

First of all, American film sucks really badly at letting women direct. Not only that, there is a definite bias in terms of screenplay quality and budget. For every Katherine Bigalow, there are fifty Mary Lambert’s who perhaps have made a film you’ve heard of (in this case, Pet Sematary) only to fall into obscurity after a middling effort due to institutional circumstances that set them up for failure (0r at least not incredible success). There is a real bias to make sure women remain at the level of journey(wo)man filmmaker and prevent them from rising to auteur status. That’s not to say that there are no brilliant, entertaining, cutting edge, or commercially successful films directed by women. I am suggesting that it is the exception rather than the rule and it’s more than just poor parity in representation; the system itself sets women up to underperform.

Frankly, the movies are hard to find also. There are a couple of handy lists on the web, the most comprehensive is here, and the most helpful for Netflix subscribers is here. But that said, once you enter the browsing space that belongs to your streaming platform, you realize very quickly that there are a lot of dudes on the dance floor. Even with the handy lists it ends up taking quite a bit of effort to find female directed film in general and those tailored to the viewer’s tastes in particular. I say this under the assumption that the good folks behind 52 Films by Women want you to watch stuff you like, just under female direction.

So that’s a lot of the bad news, which means that the project to watch 52 films by women is really worthwhile. It helps because it makes the viewer intentional about seeking out films with female directors. It helps because streaming and theatrical revenues will give executives more reasons to give women a chance. It helps because gender matters in filmmaking and though the perspectives of women are by no means monolithic, they certainly present significant differences from their male counterparts and that diversity is immensely valuable.

Here’s some good news: There are some places that I have found that have exceptional representation of women. One of those places is in avant-garde and experimental film. Some of the most interesting films I have ever seen have been directed by women who decided not to a play a game with the deck stacked against them and abandoned commercial film altogether. A case could be made that when it comes to avant-garde film in America, it’s not a godfather but a godMOTHER named Maya Deren who delivered American avant-garde film to the world. Sure there are lots of male names in the conversation here and there are in fact more of them than there are women. However, I find this to be location in which American film is best at even making gesture toward gender parity.

Another bit of good news I found so far in my adventure in the 52 films by women challenge, is that American film is not necessarily normative for the rest of the world. Now, to be fair, the patriarchy is alive and well in places most of the world over and that it is represented in the various national cinemas. However, France stands apart as a place in which you are almost as likely to be watching a film directed by a man as you are one with a female director. Almost, to be clear, but that’s still really impressive. Some of my favorite directors are Clair Denis, Pascal Ferran, and Catherine Breillat and there are many more to be discovered. I point this out, because in French film there is near definitely a movie out there that fits your tastes and is directed by a women. In fact if your want to get back to stats, fully a third of the films directed by women in the first list I linked to you are French films. So, stick that in your croissant and smoke it.

I am so glad I took the 52 Films by Women pledge, if for no other reason than it is forcing me to see more films for the first time and it is also helping me to see most of the films that get produced with new eyes. I fully realize that we are not quite halfway through the year, and that’s intentional on my part. It’s not too late to make the challenge impossible for you. Making the number 52 is not the most important thing and the intentionality is vital. Some of you may want to commit to two films directed by a woman a week, or perhaps just one a week from this point forward. This is important for two reasons: 1) you can still be an influence on the revenue these films are making and help provide women with more opportunities and 2) you will get the opportunity to see some really interesting films that you might not have caught otherwise.