Frontlines: Girls Allowed

Feminist, cinephile, events promoter and journalist... there was no better woman than Karla Healion to establish Ireland’s first Feminist Film Festival, running in Dublin August 30-31. She is a former co-director of a women’s collective who has campaigned for reproductive justice and a culture junkie to boot. She says: “I am quite interested in how media and the arts represent women and how inaccessible certain things are for women.”

In July, Dublin’s IFI hosted a month-long Beyond The Bechdel Test Season promoting intelligent, female-centric cinema. It also hosted talks highlighting gender inequality in Hollywood. “The more of these kinds of events the better,” says Healion. “The more women’s films are screened, the more we celebrate decent female characters and directors.”
Recent reports showed that, while audiences are open to female leads or directors, studios are still resisting, and falling back on old tropes.
“Female filmmakers are under-represented and female characteristics are misrepresented,” says Healion. “Especially in bigger grossing films - blockbusters, action or sci-fi, and all things slightly mainstream. Over the past few weeks, there have been new reports from Women in Film LA, Stephen Follows and the San Diego University Centre for Women in TV and Film. They all tell us things like three quarters of the crew of the top films of the last 20 years were men. Only 13 per cent of editors, 10 per cent of writers and 5 per cent of directors were women. As well as the filmmaking, females were just 15 per cent of protagonists and compared to their male counterparts, were much more likely to be younger, partially naked and have their marital status identified. So, we have a way to go and we need to keep fighting until we have equal representation in all spheres of life, politics, corporate and also film and the arts.”
What reports don’t reveal is the more subtle examples of sexism in Hollywood, and studios’ institutionalised reluctance to promote female filmmakers. Only 30% of women entrusted with a studio film go on to produce another. There’s a serious reluctance to trust women with big-budget blockbusters. Career “fast-tracking” is common amongst male directors; debut director Gareth Edwards made Monsters for $500,000 before being handed Godzilla, while Marc Webb had only made (500) Days of Summer before taking over The Amazing Spider-Man franchise. These Boy Wonders of Hollywood have no female peers. Healion believes that this is indicative of wider societal and cultural issues.
“We are not yet equal,” she opines. “Once we are equal socio-culturally and economically...[which] will take a generation or two... and then we will see real change. It’s already happening. But it takes time. We need a few generations. In smaller, more independent, more socially minded circles women are doing a lot better. Films like Fish Tank or Maidentrip, The New Black, Blackfish, etc show the tide is changing. We still have a way to go.”
Profits from the Feminist Film Festival will be donated to Sasane, a Nepal-based charity that Healion has worked with. “The aim of the Feminist Film Festival is, first and foremost, to raise money for Sasane who do incredible work in Nepal with victims of horrific sex trafficking and gender violence. We can celebrate women’s rights and female empowerment trans-nationally and remind ourselves gender equality is still not quite a reality. ”

The Feminist Film Festival is running August 30 and 31, in The New Theatre on Essex St in Dublin 2. See feministfilmfestivaldublin for the full line-up and more information.