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Kyiv talks

Alexia Muiños Ruiz
Alexia Muiños Ruiz

Kyiv talks: Why we need women creators in the business

Kyiv, 26 and 27 March 2017

A panel discussion with Mette Carla Albrechtsen, one of the directors of the film Venus, Salome Jashi, director of The Dazzling Light of Sunset and Yulia Serdyukova, producer of All Things Ablaze and Euromaidan. Rough Cut, was moderated by Alexia Muíños Ruiz, filmmaker and Deputy Director of EWA Network.

Women have incarnated the most iconic female characters throughout film history, but these films have been mainly directed by men. We have grown up with models of women drawn by men. Why then do we need the female gaze if it already exists?

The filmmakers discussed why there are not as many women filmmakers as men, concluding that lack of trust on the part of decision-makers (mostly men), lack of confidence in themselvesand women’s family commitments where among the reasons. These answers coincided perfectly with results of EWA Network’s research on the causes of discouragement amongst female directors:

The discussion went on debating what it means to be a female filmmaker in terms of finding a new approach to stories, new subjects and finding women’s way through technical obstacles of patriarchal society.

Representations of women on screen was also another topic discussed.

On the 27th of March, Alexia Muiños introduced the work EWA Network has been doing to improve the visibility of women in film and presented the key findings of the European research on women directors (revealing not only the numbers, but how women perceive problems and barriers to access and work in the film industry), and discuss how new filmmakers can survive by using technology and networking.