As part of the Venice Production Bridge, the eighth edition of the Annual Seminar on Gender Equality and Inclusivity in the Film Industry was held on Tuesday, 8 September, organised by La Biennale di Venezia together with Eurimages and, for the Italian segment, by Women in Film, Television & Media Italia.
The most discussed figure concerns the Mostra’s main Competition, where only one woman director features among this year’s titles in the running. Six industry associations, including WIFTMI, had already described the figure as a setback, calling on the Biennale to take a more active role in addressing the imbalance. Andrea Del Mercato, general manager of the Biennale, offered a reading based on a wider time frame: aggregate data from 2020 to 2026, across all sections of the Mostra, point to an overall picture that remains substantially stable.
Turning to the other areas of the selection, the share of titles directed by women rises to around 40% in the Orizzonti section and among short films submitted, reaching an even split among the shorts actually selected. Del Mercato dwelt on this gap between formats, noting that female participation tends to decline as projects become more financially demanding.
Widening the view to the European landscape, Eurimages deputy executive director Enrico Vannucci reported that, against an industry benchmark of roughly 26% female presence, projects eligible for support from the fund have moved from a ratio of around 70:30 in favour of men to one closer to 60:40. In directing, the share of women among funded projects has risen over the past decade from around 25% to 40%, a level the fund considers close to statistical gender balance. Among the figures cited by Vannucci, 2024 stands out as the only year in which the number of female-directed projects exceeded that of male-directed ones among funded titles — an exception that, in his view, should not be mistaken for a definitive solution to the underlying imbalance. On the budget front, Eurimages data also show an inverse relationship between a project’s financial size and female presence: the latter declines as the funding threshold rises, from smaller projects (under half a million euros) to higher-budget productions (over 10 million euros).
The seminar also featured contributions from Rossella Gaudio, representing the Ministry of Culture, and Mariagrazia Fanchi, of the Università Cattolica in Milan, while the section curated by Women in Film, Television & Media Italia was titled “2016-2026: Gender Equality in the Screen Industries. Looking Back to Look Forward.”
Photo Credits: Foto di Mason Kimbarovsky su Unsplash
