A recent dip in female-led theatrical releases in the UK - back to 2018 levels of 26% reminds us that our work is far from over; that we cannot be complacent.
Below you can read about the research we conduct into gender representation in film and the wider industry, tracking the release landscape to present an accurate picture of investment in films by filmmakers of marginalised genders.
Here you can also find out about news and opportunities at Reclaim The Frame, along with curated film recommendations, filmmaker interviews, and creative responses.
By Matilda Neill
Watching Julie Hart, the budding director and protagonist of Hogg’s autobiographical film The Souvenir Part II, sit across from her conservative parents in their beautiful Norfolk home, biting her tongue as they scoff at ‘art-school’ and exclaim that it sounds like ‘an awful lot of fun’, I concluded that this film is about a young woman’s attempt to make herself important. Parents, stuffy professors, and outspoken classmates must be proved wrong, her life and her story will be shared with the world, no matter what the cost. Hogg’s much anticipated sequel grapples with this ambition, both in the content of the story and its existence within the cinematic world, which in turn become interchangeable concepts as the film tells the story of its own making.
The Souvenir Part II opens where the first leaves off, the latter part of the 80s, with Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) grieving the death of her addict boyfriend, Anthony (Tom Burke). The first film follows their tumultuous relationship and shows Julie becoming passive and mute at the hands of a man who took up the space she could not. Julie is blinded by his commanding nature and wittingly oblivious to his red flags. She stops attending film school, borrows money relentlessly and loses herself along the way.
In Part II, Julie resolves to take that space up herself. Anthony’s death is both the catalyst for her return to school and the inspiration for her graduation film, titled ‘The Souvenir’, a reference to a painting by Jean-Honore Fragonard, which she and Anthony had both loved, and, of course, the name of Hogg’s prequel. Part II is the story of the making of Part I; neither could exist without the other. Equally, Julie’s success in the second film cannot exist without the tragedies of the first, a remark on the necessity of lived experience and, an insinuation that female desire does not correspond with female success.
Julie is, primarily, a collector, an observer; not a participant. This is signified by her frustratingly quiet nature and speaks to a broader understanding of what it means to be an artist, and what it means to be a woman, existing on the sidelines as others speak for you. Her wealth and privilege also feed this, she can experience the world as a voyeur, needing little from it in return, with the time and resources to mess up and start again. The sex scene early on, with the student actor (Charlie Heaton), is a perfect example of her passive but observant existence. He arrives, late at night at her door and she offers no rebuttal as he goes down on her before kissing her, covering them both in her menstrual blood. She is dazed and blank, perhaps an appropriate response to the first sexual encounter following the loss of a loved one, or maybe she is gathering stories for her next project.
Watching Part II is like experiencing someone else’s memory; a delicately curated memory complete with nostalgic 80s alt-pop, excitable peers on the cusp of self-discovery or self-destruction, and punctuated with images of English flora. A combination of digital shots, shots on 60 mm film, black and white snippets from the graduates’ portfolios, footage from Hogg’s own time at university, and scenes of Julie crying at the Berlin Wall coming down or running through an open field, work together to create a textural sense of recollection that imitates the real way we piece together seemingly disparate moments of our past.
Julie’s mourning echoes this duplicity; her grief is the source of inspiration for her film but her retrospective reflection on her loss makes her grief film-like. Anthony is elevated in her memory and her acute attachment to the story makes it difficult for her to take criticism or explain her choices to her creative team. Needing to mine your life for creative output encourages you to live a life worthy of being mined and, when your story is being cut apart and rearranged for mass consumption, you cannot untangle yourself from external measurements of worth. Julie’s self and her work are inextricable and therefore the battle to create her film is a battle to become the person she wants to be.
Julie takes this idea of life as art to the absolute extreme, even her bed in her thesis film is the bed she shared with Anthony. However, there is still a sense of hesitation, an unwillingness to be completely exposed or to have to explain herself. Julie shares little of her inner thoughts and is closed and disconnected from those around her. Similarly, Part I was characterised by static shots where action moves either side of the camera, conversations take place off-screen and we are left outside as doors close in front of us. Part II shows a deliberate discussion around this choice, Julie says ‘the camera cannot see what she does not’. She is not only excluding the audience, she is excluding herself and what appears to be a stylistic device is actually a recreation of reality, or rather, the version of reality Julie remembers. She is torn between wanting to be invisible and wanting to be seen, wanting to express and wanting to forget, wanting to be loved, and wanting to be powerful.
Julie is aware of this contradiction, she talks to her therapist about loneliness and admits, exceptionally candidly for a character who keeps her cards close to her chest, that she doesn’t just miss Anthony for who he was but for who he was to her. She misses having a companion, which curiously, she describes as someone to make decisions for her. Her personal desires to be somewhat manipulated conflicts with her creative passions to be a director, in charge of her story, a dichotomy reflected again and again in women led narratives battling between choice and expectation, desire and duty. Even Julie’s mother (Tilda Swinton, Swinton Byrne’s mother in real life) battles with this. When Julie stays with her, recovering from her trauma she ‘hope[s] she can stay for a really long time’, an innocent enough wish for an empty nester but one that is riddled with implications of wishing for her daughter to rely on her.
The apex of these contradictions, and indeed the climax of the movie, is the film within a film scene at Julie’s graduation screening. We’ve seen a version of this film, Hogg’s prequel and now we see a second version, the dreamscape surrealist whirlwind version, where metaphor and symbolism reign supreme and that Julie would never be able to make in real life, bound as she is by worry and other people’s perceptions of her. Most notable is the image of Anthony being “shot” by Julie’s camera, a visual representation of what his death enabled her to do or perhaps, how she killed him with her projected version of his character. After the film screening, she is liberated, more confident, more able to explain her choices, able to pay her mum back, essentially able to right her wrongs. The film and Anthony become one, in her release of the first, she is able to finally let go of the latter.
The metatextual elements are overriding and inescapable, but in an exciting way that reels you in as an observer and leaves you tangled in the multiple strands that tie together actors and directors, real and imagined stories, Hogg to her younger self and the audience to a complex and beautiful recreation. The last image we are left with is Hogg herself calling cut on the final scene of the film, a compelling ending that reminds the audience whose story this is. Hogg has been there the whole time and we are privileged to be witnessing this snippet of her world just as she has been privileged enough to share it. I think this is a powerful message to be left on, and one I am retaining in light of the pressures to be exposed and exposing in our work. With the right level of determination, help from those who came before us and maybe some shoulder pads, we can control our own narratives.
Matilda Neill
Matilda is a writer and performer from Newcastle, though currently based in Manchester. She is a founding member of Your Aunt Fanny, an all womxn comedy collective from the North East, who are currently creating their third show, ‘Muff Said’, and whose podcast, ‘Match Made in 7’ is currently available across all main streaming services. Matilda wrote her debut play ‘Red is the New Blue’ for Live Theatre in 2014 and has since been commissioned to write a Christmas Show and comedy shorts for Channel 4. Matilda runs a blog on Substack, ‘Don’t Forget to Brush Your Teeth and Wash Your Face’, an intimate look at seasonal change, and has written essays for The Gallyry Magazine, Mslexia and Antigone Journal.
PREVIOUS WORK FROM MATILDA NEILL
SOCIAL MEDIA Personal Instagram: @matmaisyface
Company Instagram: @yourauntfanny
By Tom Symmons
♥
We are thrilled that Jane Campion is an Oscar frontrunner for the superb slow burn gothic western, The Power of the Dog. Campion is also making history as the first female to be nominated twice for the Best Director award. This milestone has been a very long time coming and is a timely reminder of the glaring historic disparity for this most prestigious of film awards: twenty-six male directors have been nominated four or more times and nineteen have two or more Best Director Oscar wins.
♥
Only seven women have ever been nominated for best director in Oscars history, and as of last year, two have won: Kathryn Bigelow took home the award in 2010 for The Hurt Locker and Chloé Zhao won in 2021 for Nomadland. Jane Campion was first nominated for The Piano in 1994, the year Steven Spielberg collected the award for Schindler’s List. In 2022, Campion is once again the sole female nominee going up against Spielberg; who has been nominated for West Side Story. Spielberg has been nominated eight times with two wins.
♥
We are also delighted that Ari Wegner has been nominated for Best Cinematography for The Power of the Dog. Wegner is only the second woman to be nominated for the award following Rachel Morrison (Mudbound) in 2018.
♥
Both nominations are welcome symbols of success but obscure what has otherwise been a very mixed year for women in film, and a poor one for female directors in particular. After reaching historic highs in 2020, the number of women directing top 250 and 100 US film releases regressed in 2021. Women accounted for 17% of directors working on the top 250 grossing films, down one percent from the previous year. The picture becomes more alarming when we look at the top 100 films where the percentage of women directors fell from 16% in 2020 to 12% in 2021. At Birds’ Eye View we track all UK film releases directed by women and our data tells a similar story: following an all time high of 18% in 2020 – 3% up from the previous year – this figure dipped by half a percent in 2021.
♥
The US data is from The Celluloid Ceiling, an annual report produced by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film. Executive director Martha Lauzen cautions against letting the perception of progress override the reality: while there have been recent high profile critical and commercial successes – Chloe Zhao (Nomadland, The Eternals), Nia DaCosta (Candyman) and Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog), the percentage of films by women is actually in decline. ‘Basing our perceptions of how women are faring on the well-deserved fortunes of just a few high-profile women can lead us to inaccurate conclusions about the state of women’s employment,’ states Lauzen, ‘Once again this year, more than 80% of films do not have a woman at the helm.’
♥
However, there are some signs of progress. According to the report, women accounted for 25% of key behind-the-scenes roles such as directors, writers, executive producers, producers, editors, and cinematographers on the top 250 grossing films in 2021. That was an increase from 23% in 2020. But by breaking this data down further we see significant gains in some positions and no movement in others: women accounted for 26% of executive producers on the top grossing movies, which was up from 21% in 2020, and 32% of producers, an increase from 30% in 2020. There was no change from the previous year on the most popular films, by contrast, for writers (17%), editors (22%) and cinematographers (6%).
♥
There has long been a faster rate of progress for women making documentary films, including for Global majority directors. This diversity is reflected in the nominations for the 2022 Best Documentary Oscar: Writing with Fire (co-dir. by Rintu Thomas), Attica (co-dir. Traci Curry) and Ascension (dir. Jessica Kingdon).
♥
Female underrepresentation in narrative cinema remains a pressing issue and there is a long way to go yet. But we should take heart from recent successes: like Chloe Zhao’s Oscar win last year, a deserved victory for Jane Campion will undoubtedly have an impact, shaking-up perceptions and cementing the status of women directors in the eyes of more people who, consciously or unconsciously, believe filmmaking is the preserve of men. Here’s to a third nomination!
Women in Science: The Heroes of “Science Fair”
By Betsy Sheil
Science Fair (2018) directors Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster follow nine high school students from around the globe as they compete at the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). Facing off against 1,700 of the smartest teens from 78 countries, only one will be named Best in Fair.
♥
♥
Science Fair introduces us to the extremely talented science students of Jericho High School (Jericho, New York), who claim that they would have nothing without the encouragement and determination of their teacher, Dr McCalla. The sacrifices she makes as a teacher grow from her own experiences as a daughter of immigrants. She comments on how many of the greatest inventors and scientists weren’t American, “You wouldn’t have the simple things in life if it wasn’t for people who have migrated to this country and become these people who are changing our way of life”. She prioritises her students needs above her own – working upwards of 10 hours a day to ensure they are given every opportunity possible for advancement and success. Pouring every ounce of her energy, and hours of her time, into her student’s and their projects, she exhibited the values we admire in our educators and mentors and reminded me of how fortunate I have been to have similar female role models – teachers, friends, my own mother, help shape my life.
♥
♥
However, as wonderful as Dr McCalla is, the true standout character of Science Fair, is Kashfia (not her first time at ISEF in fact she had already placed 3rd as a freshman), whose school fails to properly fund their science department – focusing instead on their struggling sports programs. Despite the absence of support from her school, Kashfia, quiet, but not timid, showed what an amazingly resilient character she is as she focused all her time and energy on her science studies. My heart sank when her fellow students were unable to identify her, let alone comment on her positive contribution to the school’s reputation, because, despite her talents and successes, she was invisible to them. Kashfia became a role model for me in this film and I hope she is an inspiration for many young women who believe that they are not good enough – thanks, in part, to a lack of support and recognition from their peers and short-sighted head educators.
♥
♥
As smart and inspiring as these high school science prodigies are, the ones that really shine are not the brilliant German student, Ivo Zell, who goes on to win, or the smart and funny trio of boys who listen exclusively to trap music – it’s the girls. The film showcases so many strong women. One such young woman, Anjali Chadha, a smart and confident student, determined to make it to ISEF, takes a moment to reflect on the sexist double standards that see confident women, herself included, criticised as arrogant for possessing the same confidence for which men are admired. These double standards no doubt contribute to women being woefully underrepresented in the world of science. Figures show that female researchers tend to have shorter, less well-paid careers. Their work is underrepresented in high-profile journals and they are often passed over for promotion. Women are typically given smaller research grants than their male colleagues and, while they represent 33.3% of all researchers, only 12% of members of national science academies are women. In cutting edge fields such as artificial intelligence, only one in five professionals (22%) is a woman. Despite a shortage of skills in most of the technological fields driving the Fourth Industrial Revolution, women still account for only 28% of engineering graduates and 40% of graduates in computer science and informatics (Source: United Nations), while female researchers make up only 28% of the STEM workforce (source: American Association of University Women – AAUW).
Science Fair not only introduced me to the excitement and disappointment of international competition, but highlighted the importance of levelling the playing field for women across the globe within the scientific world. When creating life-changing work as many of these girls will go on to do, they deserve to have as much of a chance as their male counterparts.
♥
♥
Anjali has since gone on to create a non-profit Empowered, Inc to empower minority high school girls with opportunities in STEM and grow connections to female entrepreneurs. I hope that other girls feel as encouraged as I did by girls like Kashfia and Anjali.
♥
♥
Science Fair is a truly charming and inspirational film.
Click HERE for where to watch Science Fair
Betsy Sheil is an Arts student from Nottingham. From a young age, she has been an avid lover of filmmaking and the local cinema (Broadway in Nottingham). Although a lover of all film, Betsy has a particular interest in the promotion of female and non-binary filmmakers, and how the presentation of women on screen is evolving and changing. She also has a soft spot for the comedy genre and is a dedicated fan of Olivia Wilde’s ‘Booksmart’. Currently studying for her A levels, Betsy hopes to go on to work in filmmaking/film journalism.
Other Female-led scientific films to check out:
Hidden Figures (2016)
“Three female African-American mathematicians play a pivotal role in astronaut John Glenn’s launch into orbit. Meanwhile, they also have to deal with racial and gender discrimination at work.”
Picture A Scientist (2020)
“Leading female scientists discuss the inequalities they’ve faced as they write a new chapter in STEM for women.”
The International Day of Women and Girls in Science is the 11th day of February, by resolution of the United Nations General Assembly on 22 December 2015. The day recognizes the critical role women and girls play in science and technology.
