For the fourth consecutive year, Women In Film has released its awards season ballot, recognizing the women whose work behind the camera made this year’s biggest films possible.
As critics and guilds start voting and handing out awards, the WIF #VoteForWomen ballot seeks to remind voters and shine a light on the women and nonbinary film professionals up for consideration. The WIF #VoteForWomen ballot serves to encourage voters to pay closer attention to the screeners they choose to watch and whose work to look out for.
But, each year, as conversations about contenders take place, and reminders of the talent in front of and behind the camera are discussed, more often than not, women filmmakers and artisans often end up being overlooked.
In a statement to Variety, Kirsten Schaffer, CEO, of WomenInFilm said, “The inspiration behind WIF’s #VoteForWomen ballot for the past four years has been “abundance.” Throughout the year we see so many incredible films being made by hundreds of women at the top of their fields, and then by the time awards season comes around, you end up with relatively few of them being nominated. It’s especially scarce in certain fields — take for example there only being two women composers on the shortlist for the Best Original Score Oscar.”
She went on to say, “We’re excited to recognize more women than ever this year, keeping a regularly-updated spreadsheet on our website that’s easily searchable.”
The ballot is also a useful resource for hiring women in key positions. Said Schaeffer, “Even if the women on the ballot didn’t win a trophy, they were part of films that were in the conversation.” She added, “Award shows are an indicator of the overall diversity of the industry. If awards shows were more transparent about what percentage of nominees come from underrepresented backgrounds, they’d help raise awareness of how much further we have to go to achieve parity in the highest-profile moments our industry has each year.”
Andria Wilson Mirza, director of ReFrame added, “Films with the ReFrame Stamp for gender-balanced hiring generally show up in several categories. As we’ve seen, when women are involved in the leadership of a film, such as its producer or director, they often hire women to lead other departments, yielding more representative hiring across the board.”
The WomenInFilm ballot for this awards season can be found here.
