Female directors were responsible for just seven per cent of the top 250 films during 2016, according to a new study.
The annual report, released by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, also discovered that the number of female directors has fallen by two per cent since last year. Shockingly, the number of women was also below that achieved in 1998.
The findings also showed that within the top 250 films, only two per cent employed ten or more women, while 76 per cent employed ten or more men. 77 per cent of these films had no female writers and the number of female executive producers declined by three per cent.
Martha Lauzen, executive director at the center, told Variety, “I would say I’m dumbfounded.”
“It is remarkable that with all of the attention and talk over the last couple of years in the business and the film industry, the numbers actually declined.”
“Clearly the current remedies aren’t working.”
The study also found that within the top 500 films, those that had at least one female director hired greater numbers of women in roles such as writers, editors and composers.
