Screen Australia Has Pledged $3 Million To Female Filmmakers To Address That Gender Gap

This morning Screen Australia announced that as part of their Gender Matters: Brilliant Stories and Brilliant Careers initiative, 58 female creatives will share in $3 million of funding towards correcting the gender imbalance in the film industry. In Australia, just 32 percent of women work as film producers, 23 percent as writers and only 16 percent as directors.

Screen Australia’s aim for this funding is to ensure that the TV and film industry is at least a 50 percent female by the end of 2018. It’s the largest number of projects funded in a single day in Screen Australia’s history.

Today we announce more than 50 teams funded in our #GenderMatters Brilliant Stories and Brilliant Careers programs! https://t.co/yZZn0dMyoO

— Screen Australia (@ScreenAustralia) July 12, 2016

The Gender Matters program is $5 million plan that aims to give women more visibility and autonomy in a field in which they’re still vastly underrepresented. The most exciting thing about this funding is that nearly 20 percent of the successful candidates wouldn’t ordinarily be eligible for Screen Australia funding because they don’t have an existing professional credit. There are so many barriers of entry into the Australian film and TV industry, and this announcement means that we’ll hopefully see some new, diverse talent on our screens.

“Gender Matters is unashamedly providing express-lane access to female business ideas and stories,” says Screen Australia CEO, Fiona Cameron. “The funding boost provided by Screen Australia has been a game-changer, providing the industry with an opportunity to get behind some very commercial and creative prospects. It’s now time for action.”

One of the successful candidates was Black Comedy‘s Nakkiah Lui, who will write and act in her first feature film called Kill The Messenger, a “post-colonial inter-racial love story”. This is great already!