Putting on the Pressure

In March 2005, the UK's first major women's film festival was launched. As the festival pointed out, it's appalling that only 7% of feature film directors are female, yet the festival's bid for inclusion only extended to some women. The venue for the closing night bash was booked into the step-filled Café de Paris and filmmaker and disabled woman Liz Crow, whose film screened as part of the festival earlier the same day, was excluded.

When the festival refused to change venue, a group of disabled filmmakers and artists decided to hold a very public party of our own on the pavement right outside the Café de Paris. In an evening of getting the message out, we set out to protest the festival's error and draw attention to the discrimination ingrained throughout the film sector.

In the run-up to the festival, messages of solidarity poured in from six different countries from individuals and organisations including Channel Four, National Union of Journalists, BECTU and The Writers Guild.

Aftermath

In the week after, we have been contacted by the festival's director asking to find a constructive way forward. We have issued a challenge - in a constructive tone - for the festival to transform itself over the next year into a model of good practice for the inclusion of disabled women filmmakers and audiences. If they take on the challenge, there are disabled filmmakers who will support them in this. Together we can show the rest of the industry just how possible inclusion is.

There is no justification for exclusion or for failing to meet legal obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act, yet the context in which the festival sits cannot be ignored. What came through loud and clear from the many messages of solidarity received from individuals and organisations in over six countries was their immediate recognition that this is not an issue of one filmmaker and one festival, but about the scale of discrimination throughout the film sector. Even for an organisation intending to get it right, there is a distinct shortage of role models for them to turn to.

This is where the major policy and funding bodies come in. They have the most critical role in addressing this. We are therefore following up with primary funders of the festival to ask how this situation could have arisen and to lobby them to set standards for inclusion as a condition of funding, incorporate costs of inclusion in funding levels, and to monitor and evaluate recipients' practice and progress on inclusion (imposing penalties where standards are not met).

Finally, the Disability Film Action Plan is urgently needed - to promote the interests of disabled filmmakers and to lobby and guide the industry as a whole. This document, initiated and facilitated by London Disability Arts Forum, has been through a consultation process and now needs to be formalised and launched.

Watch this space for progress.

For more information or to contribute to the debate, contact Roaring Girl Productions.

This page last modified: 11 Nov 2009