96% of Hollywood film directors are men. 81% of European films are directed by men. Only 20% of films shown in Swedish cinemas so far this year have female directors.

Göteborg Film Festival, long having sought to showcase diversity, wants to encourage change. Therefore, at the next annual Göteborg Film Festival, half of the films will be directed by women. We call this initiative 50/50 Vision.

All over the world, filmmakers, crew members, and activists are fighting to achieve equality in the film industry and 2020 has been dubbed the year of gender parity. But the numbers show that we the industry still has a long way to go.

– The film industry still being so plagued by inequality is unacceptable. Not only from a purely financial and structural perspective, but especially in relation to the consequences regarding which films get produced and released. The Göteborg Film Festival would like to start the gender parity year of 2020 by implementing what everyone is talking about: an equal program at a major international film festival. We thereby hope to encourage and challenge our industry colleagues to make strides in their own work to promote equality, says Mirja Wester, CEO, Göteborg Film Festival.

– Film is the number-one media in telling stories and opening up new worlds and perspectives. Film not only creates heroes and role models, it also evokes emotions in the audience. That’s why it’s so important to ensure diversity in filmmakers and in the films that get made. We want to see the entire world reflected in cinema. So for us, promoting equality is also about promoting quality. The festival will include a range of films and international seminars to help us achieve a more layered discussion about quality, cinema, and tools for political change, says Jonas Holmberg, Artistic Director, Göteborg Film Festival.

One initiative that has served as inspiration for the Göteborg Film Festival is the #5050×2020 project initiated by Collectif 50/50.

– We are thrilled that Göteborg Film Festival will launch the year 2020 with such a positive experiment, proving that programming a festival is not just about the curators’ subjective tastes, but is about making strong and unapologetic choices in order to offer to the public an accurate representation of the world we live in. We hope Göteborg’s initiative will inspire other festivals to reflect on and challenge their own programming and work towards greater inclusion, says Delphyne Besse and Berenice Vincent, Co-founders of Collectif 50/50.

Read more about 50/50 Vision
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