WEEK IN WOMEN: BBC Survey Shows Women Are Left Out of Cinema History — Brandy McDonnell reports
If you’re paying any attention to the ongoing issue of gender representation in film, the lack of women filmmakers on BBC Culture’s list of the 100 greatest foreign-language films wont be a surprise.
According to the BBC, 209 critics sent in their 10 greatest foreign-language films for the poll. Of these respondents, 94 were women – that’s 45 percent – yet there are only four female directors with titles in the top 100: Chantal Akerman (Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels), Claire Denis (“Beau Travail), Agnès Varda (Cleo from 5 to 7), and Katia Lund (co-director of City of God).
As Ana Maria Bahiana rightly observes in her BBC report, “This troubling result puts the current conversation about the dearth of women film-makers in a wider context: by being barred from the exercise of their craft in cinema, women run the risk of being excluded from its history.” Continue reading on THE WEEK IN WOMEM.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A similar survey conducted by AFI in 2007 spurred the Alliance of Women Film Journalists to compile and publish AWFJ’s List of Top 100 Films, which includes a significantly larger percentage of women directors.