Celluloid ceiling still intact

Has Hollywood tired of gender equality already? When Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the Oscar for best director last year, she described her triumph as "a moment of a lifetime" and her colleagues hailed it as a breakthrough for women in film. Only a year later, it appears the film industry is back to business as usual: not one woman has been nominated in the director's category. But they're not going to take it any more.
Not without a fight, at least.

Experts believe a "celluloid ceiling" is still holding women back, with men still dominating the movie business according to a new report. Only 7 per cent of major film directors in 2010 were women, research by San Diego State University's Centre for the Study of Women in Television and Film found.

With men largely holding the purse strings, women are struggling to get funding - or even, in some cases, job interviews. Catherine Hardwicke, whose hit vampire film Twilight made US$400 million ($520 million), would have liked to direct The Fighter but was told the movie had to be directed by a man. "I couldn't even get an interview," she said.

The difference between last year's Academy Awards and this year's is stark: no female directors are up for the directing accolade although two of the 10 films nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars later this month had women at the helm - Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right and Debra Granik's Winter's Bone.

Lucy Walker, the British director whose film Waste Land is up for best documentary, said yesterday: "It's rough out there. It's tough in every way. It's tough to be funded. It's tough to be respected.

"It's tough to be confident in yourself. It's tough to be ambitious. And it's tough to even choose this career if you want a family. I don't see a way in which it's easier [to be a woman], except that I enjoy the challenge of bringing a different perspective."

- Independent