It's no secret that women are underrepresented in film. The statistics are daunting: For every woman working in the industry, there are five men; females directed only 9 percent of the top 500 films from 2007 to 2012. But there's finally a tiny piece of good news for ladies interested in making movies. As part of an initiative by U.K. culture magazine Dazed & Confused, big names in the industry are participating in an effort to encourage the work of female filmmakers.
Dazed & Confused's video arm, Dazed Vision, is requesting that some of the industry's heavy hitters select their favorite fledgling directors to make a narrative short or music video, with £2000-5000 ($3300-$8300) to help each get off the ground. The likes of Helen Mirren, Jane Campion and Sienna Miller have signed on for the project.
"We're not anti-men, but we want to encourage more young women to pick up the camera so we have greater diversity in what we're watching," Jennifer Byrne, the Video Commissioning Editor of Dazed Vision, told The Independent. "Girls lack confidence to pick up a camera because they think they need to be technical but a director is just someone who has a story to tell and can tell it clearly."
Byrne added that she has had enough of the "male, middle-aged, middle-class, white perspective of the world." And she's got a point. In an industry that considers women's films a "niche" market, females writing, directing and producing their own stories is certainly a step in the right direction.
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