Screen Australia’s gender data makes for uncomfortable reading if you care about the Australian screen industry being genuinely representative. Despite over a decade of policy attention, investment in gender equity programs, and plenty of industry rhetoric, the numbers in key creative roles remain skewed.

Let me be specific about what I mean.

The Numbers

In the most recent data available, women directed approximately 30% of Australian feature films, wrote around 35% of Australian feature screenplays, and produced around 40%. Those percentages have improved from where they were ten years ago, but the rate of change has been slow, and in some categories the progress has plateaued.

The numbers are worse in some technical roles. Women remain significantly underrepresented in cinematography, editing, and sound design for Australian features. These aren’t roles where there’s a talent shortage. There are qualified women in every one of these disciplines. They’re just not getting hired at the same rate.

Television has somewhat better numbers than film, partly because television production is more industrialised and responds more directly to policy pressure. But even in television, the representation in above-the-line creative roles isn’t where it should be.

What’s Been Done

Screen Australia introduced gender targets in 2016, aiming for 50% of projects in its development, production, and enterprise programs to have women in key creative roles. The agency has also run targeted programs for women in leadership positions in the screen industry.

Several state agencies have similar targets. Film Victoria, Screen NSW, and others have implemented programs designed to increase women’s participation across the industry.

These initiatives have had an effect. The percentage of women directing and writing Australian features has increased since the targets were introduced. But the increase has been gradual, and the targets haven’t been consistently met.

Why Progress Is Slow

Several factors contribute to the slow pace of change. The Australian film industry operates on long production cycles. A feature film funded today might not be released for three to five years. Policy changes take time to flow through the system.

Network effects are powerful. People hire people they’ve worked with before, and if the existing networks are predominantly male, those networks tend to reproduce themselves. Breaking into established crews and financing networks remains harder for women, despite the policy environment.

The financing structure itself creates barriers. Private investors and commercial distributors may be less familiar with women filmmakers’ work and less inclined to take perceived risks on films by directors without extensive track records. Since women have historically had fewer opportunities to build track records, this creates a circular problem.

And there’s the uncomfortable reality that some parts of the industry simply don’t take gender equity seriously. They comply with the minimum requirements of funding body targets without making genuine changes to hiring practices and creative culture.

The Intersectional Dimension

The gender discussion needs to be intersectional. The numbers for women of colour, Indigenous women, and women with disability in key creative roles are even more concerning than the overall gender statistics. Programs that address gender equity without considering these intersections risk benefiting only a narrow demographic of women while leaving others behind.

Screen Australia and some state agencies have begun to address intersectionality in their programs, but the data collection and target-setting in this area is less developed than for gender alone.

What Would Actually Help

More of the same won’t be enough. Here’s what I think would make a genuine difference.

Financing incentives that reward gender equity outcomes. If productions that employ women in key creative roles received a small additional offset or funding premium, the economic incentive would drive behaviour change faster than targets alone.

Mandatory reporting of gender data by production companies receiving public funding. Transparency creates accountability, and detailed reporting would reveal where the bottlenecks are.

Investment in mid-career women who have the skills and experience to direct features but haven’t been given the opportunity. The pipeline of emerging talent is improving, but there’s a cohort of experienced women who’ve been passed over for years and need targeted support.

Changes to the private financing landscape. This is harder to influence through policy, but industry bodies could facilitate connections between women filmmakers and investors, and investors could be educated about the commercial success of women-directed films.

Why It Matters

Gender equity in the Australian screen industry isn’t just about fairness, though fairness alone is a sufficient argument. It’s about the quality and diversity of the stories we tell. When half the population is underrepresented behind the camera, the films we make are narrower, less interesting, and less reflective of the world as it actually is.

Australian cinema is better when more voices are involved in its creation. The data shows we haven’t achieved that yet. The work continues.