Durban film festival shows it s still tougher for women to be seen

DLast months Durban International Film Festival once again showcased some impressive films and newbies, but the countrys biggest film festival also failed on one key aspect. by Andile Ndlovu

Of the specifically South African feature films screened over the ten days, only two were directed by women : Carey McKenzie with her debut crime drama Cold Harbour, and Jenna Cato Bass Love The One You Love.

It is a little healthier on the documentary front, where 10 women were involved in making the 18 documentaries either produced or co-produced in South Africa.

What is clear, is that the 35th DIFF followed an all too familiar pattern in the global film industry - women found it easier making documentaries (where it can some times be just one person and a camera, sans a bourgening film crew) than feature films.

I think thats for a few reasons - for one the financial stakes are lower and theres not this notion of having to be the leader of some sort of army, like a crew, said McKenzie, who didnt get a chance to make her first feature until the age of 42.

Another issue, brought to the fore during the festival, is that there is no culture of girl geniuses, whereas at the tender age of just 25, Zee Ntulis feature film debut Hard to Get opened the festival.

Ive always had this notion that I was going to be a filmmaker and I was going to be a director, added McKenzie. Thank God I had such a clear conviction, otherwise I would have given up.

She called it frustrating and disappointing that I have been effectively robbed of 15 years of my career.

Not that she was moping about.

But her story is not unique: the recent survey titled Independent Women: Behind-the-Scenes employment on festival films in 2013-14 from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, reported paltry numbers.

Women accounted for 26% of directors, writers and producers of feature-length American independent films that screened at festivals in the last year, but women comprised just 16% of the key behind-the-scenes roles in top-grossing films in 2013.

The report said women made up 28% of doccie directors and 18% directors working on indie narrative features, compared to just 6% of 2013s top-grossing films.

The Sundance Institute, too, released a similar report at last years Sundance Festival. It found that of the American films selected for the Sundance Film Festival between 2002 and 2012, only 29.8% of filmmakers (directors, writers, producers, cinematographers and editors) were female.

It is no wonder the fanfare -perhaps relief- when Kathryn Bigelow became the first female to win an Oscar for Best Director for The Hurt Locker, in 2010. She became also only the fourth woman to be nominated in that category (the others are Sofia Coppola Lost in Translation, Jane Champion The Piano, and Lina Wertmuller Seven Beauties).

Layla Swart got her Film and Media Production honours degree from the University of Cape Town, but she estimated that of the 20 students in her class, only three were female (and four were of colour).

Shes since edited features including Man on Ground and Vrou Soek Boer. She is now working on her directorial debut. She said: Its been ridiculously hard, and harder being a black woman. I couldnt make short films like my contemporaries.

Its just inherent that people dont necessarily trust females initially, to carry the weight of R6 million, for instance. Thats probably an instinct because theres not a long history of it.

DIFF manager Peter Machen admitted that female filmmakers were marginalised, but assured things were slowly changing.

He told The Times: I think its a battle that we need to keep confronting, he said. We cant be complacent. As a festival, we are committed to presenting as diverse a selection of films as possible, and that also applies to the diversity of voices. He said DIFF fared far better than other film festivals abroad.

http://www.timeslive.co.za

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