This International Women’s Day, Women in Film Television Ireland and the Irish Film Institute will be presenting a programme of shorts, to highlight and celebrate some of the brightest women directors working in film and television in Ireland today. ‘Brief Encounters: Women in Film and TV Short Film Showcase’ takes place in the IFI this week.
This Friday 8th March is International Women’s Day, a day which has celebrated the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women for over a century. The theme of this year’s IWD is #BalanceforBetter, a call for gender balance across the world, an essential goal for economies and communities to thrive as well as a challenge which without doubt applies to the film industry. As identified by Women in Film & Television Ireland, despite what may seem like greater visibility for the issue of gender balance, in fact there are fewer women working as film and television directors and screenwriters today than there were two decades ago. Our closest neighbours in Directors UK report that only 8% of all working drama directors are female. This represents a significant year on year decline. In the US, of the top 250 grossing American feature films, only 7% were directed by women, marking a drop of two percentage points in twenty years. In Ireland, despite the skill and inspiration available behind the camera, statistics are thin on the ground to understand the depth of the challenge here. Without active engagement with this problem, traditional gender misconceptions and unconscious bias are hampering the industry.
The IFI will be providing a space on Wednesday, 6.30pm to screen and engage with the work of a number of Irish women directors through a showcase of their short films. These films will be introduced on the night by filmmakers involved and a prize for best film (selected by a WFT jury) will be announced at the end. The names gathered for this programme are a true who’s-who of Irish talent, including Anne Marie Kelly, who’s short film Ma is set to screen at the Toronto International Film Festival soon, as well as Megan K. Fox, Kate Dolan and more.
The films that will screen on the evening include: Ma (dir. Anne Marie Kelly, 9 mins); The Girl at the End of the Garden (dir. Bonnie Dempsey, 15 mins); No Place (dir. Laura Kavanagh, 7 mins); Catcalls (dir. Kate Dolan, 9 mins); The Shift (dir. Megan K. Fox, 12 mins); Siobhan (dir. Maeve Murphy, 10 mins); Her Name Is… (dir. Lydia McGuinness, 10 mins); Sea for Yourself(dir. Gráinne Gavigan, 8 mins).
Tickets for this programme cost €11.40 and are available from the IFI now.
If you are a woman working in film and television who is interested in being interviewed about their work, Film In Dublin would love to hear from you. Please contact us at filmindublin@gmail.com.