The film industry is “nowhere near [gender] parity” because it produces an “alarmingly” low number of mid-career female directors, according to the head of the London film festival, which unveiled its full lineup on Wednesday.
Kristy Matheson, who is directing her second edition of the festival, which opens with the premiere of Steve McQueen’s Blitz on 9 October, told the Guardian that reaching gender parity at festivals was difficult because there were few established female directors.
“I think people think it’s all fine, but actually, when you really dig into the films, you do not see as many by women and non-binary directors. You just don’t,” she said.
“Once you get to third films, fourth films, fifth films, that’s where you really see a drop-off. We have a few directors such as Andrea Arnold coming back with Bird, and Athina Rachel Tsangari is coming with Harvest. These are two film-makers who are well into being mid-career directors but it’s alarmingly not as many as you would think.”
A study released in January by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University found that women comprised only 16% of directors on the 250 top-grossing films in 2023, while the University of Southern California found only 6% of the top-grossing films between 2007 and 2023 were directed by women.
Matheson said including female directing talent was not the LFF’s “decision-making North Star” but she felt “it would be remiss of us to not highlight that it’s not anywhere near parity yet”.
This year, the London film festival is showing 254 films, of which 44% are made by female and non-binary directors, an increase on last year’s festival in which 39% of films shown were by non-male directors.
The event’s opening film, Blitz, is also its biggest, with Steve McQueen once again bringing a project to London after previously screening Hunger, Shame, 12 Years a Slave, Lovers Rock and Occupied City at his hometown film festival.
Matheson called the film, which follows the travails of a young boy separated from his mother during the second world war and features a cast including Kathy Burke, Saoirse Ronan and Paul Weller, an “extraordinary” film.
She said: “It’s visually spectacular, but it’s a really incredible portrait of London at a very particular time. But what’s so incredible about the film is that he could be talking about London today. It’s very layered.”
Other highlights from the programme include the closing film, Morgan Neville’s Lego animation, Piece by Piece, Ben Taylor’s highly rated IVF drama, Joy and The Extraordinary Miss Flower, which is made by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, who directed the Nick Cave documentary, 20,000 Days on Earth.
“It’s part performance, it’s part documentary. It’s a really unclassifiable film,” said Matheson of the Extraordinary Miss Flower.
There is also a screening of the silent Sherlock Holmes film The Golden Pince-Nez, which is to be screened for the first time since its release in 1922, after a restoration by the BFI national archive.
This year’s talks feature Daniel Kaluuya, whose directorial debut, The Kitchen, closed last year’s festival, while Sean Baker, Mike Leigh, Steve McQueen, Lupita Nyong’o and Denis Villeneuve also feature.
There is also a video game offering this year, with a gaming lounge set up at Bargehouse on the South Bank.
The US director Harmony Korine told a press conference at the Venice film festival that Hollywood was losing talent to the burgeoning gaming industry, but Matheson said gaming and film-making went hand in hand.
“I don’t think people are snobbish about the form,” said Matheson. “I think they just need you to deliver them a great experience, a great story, something that touches you in some way or energises you.”
