Indie Film Slowly Moves Toward Gender Parity, Study Finds
A new report from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film notes that the ratio of narrative features directed by women and men, respectively, at major American film festivals is now seven to 10.
![Susanna Fogel](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/MCDLIPA_EC009.jpg?w=1296&h=730&crop=1)
Independent cinema has always been seen as faster in giving opportunities to people who are excluded.
A new report from San Diego State’s Center for the Study of Women in TV and Film indicates that continues to be the case.
In Indie Women, the center surveyed 754 features screened at 20 major American film festivals this year and found that the ratio of narrative films directed exclusively by women and men, respectively, is now 7 to 10, up from 6 to 10 a year ago.
Documentaries reached gender parity in the director’s chair for the first time since the center began tracking women’s festival representation in 2008.
Across crew positions (directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors and cinematographers), women worked more in docus (44 percent) than in narrative features (35 percent).
Movies directed by women were more likely also to have women in behind-the-scenes roles (30 percent of cinematographers and 48 percent of editors on woman-helmed films, as opposed to 12 percent and 22 percent, respectively, on pictures directed by men).
Indie Women also analyzed gender representation among film composers.
Documentaries again had a higher share of women (26 percent) than narrative film did (16 percent), but the indie system overall employed more women as composers (20 percent) than the sample of 100 popular films (9 percent).
Overall, the center has examined more than 116,400 credits on more than 10,900 films from 2008 to 2023, including 11,094 credits and 754 films this year.