Screen NSW sets out to even gender imbalance

State agency Screen NSW has bitten the bullet and become the first Australian screen institution to introduce a target for gender equity.

Indian Bollywood actors Sonam Kapoor and Salman Khan (R) attend a promotional event for the Hindi film 'Prem Ratan Dhan Payo' in Mumbai on November 16, 2015. AFP PHOTO

State agency Screen NSW has bitten the bullet and become the first Australian screen institution to introduce a target for gender equity in its funded programs. The announcement that the body aims to achieve an average 50-50 gender equity in its development and production funding programs by 2020 follows the Australian Directors Guild Women in Film Action Committee’s call for federal body Screen Australia to introduce a 50 per cent quota for women in their film funding programs to right a gender imbalance for female directors. It says only 17 per cent of films funded by Screen Australia in the past five years have been directed by women. Screen Australia responded to the ADG’s call by saying a quota might be unworkable but that it was exploring other initiatives. New Screen NSW chief executive Courtney Gibson says while this is “an equity issue … it’s principally about supporting and enabling the very best work. And if females are so poorly represented, it means that we, as an industry, aren’t exploiting all we have to offer. The long game of this target is, for us, about levelling the playing field to ensure that women get the same opportunities as men and that the strongest work gets supported. And it can’t be achieved unless we just decide that we’re going to do something about it.” The moves follow the introduction of a 50 per cent target on a proportion of funded projects by the Swedish national film body. Screen NSW says funded features for production during the period 2012-13 to 2014-15 shows 75 per cent had female producers, 28 per cent female directors and 16 per cent female writers.

And, as it happens, Jungleboys, the Sydney production company behind the hit Stan series No Activity, ABC comedy The Moodys and upcoming Nine comedy Here Come the Habibs, is dropping the “boys” from its name. Jungle managing director Jason Burrows says the timing is coincidental to the current gender equity push in Hollywood and here “but the name Jungle is more representative of who we are now, and with our film and TV business incorporating in the US, we should, at the very least, try and pretend to be grown ups”. He says the company now has more than 15 full-time staff, half of whom do not identify with the original name, including Chloe Rickard,who has been promoted to a partnership and as head of production, film and television. Jungle also has launched Operation Sheena with Screen NSW, a 10-week director attachment and writer in residence program.

A Bollywood film, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (I Received a Treasure Called Love), has opened in fourth place at the Australian box office with $615,000. The result replicates its global release, where this week it became the biggest Bollywood opening of all time in its homeland, India, according to its distributor Fox Star (although it had a four-day release, not the normal three days). And it’s not the biggest Indian opening, after the Telugu film Baahubali set the record in July. Even so, it broke the Bollywood record in Britain and also flew into the top 10 in
North America. Reel Time believes it is the biggest opening for an Indian film here. The
Fox International Productions film stars Indian hero Salman Khan,Sonam Kapoor and Neil Nitin Mukesh, and is directed by Sooraj Barjatya.

It was a big weekend at the Australian box office overall with the new James Bond film opening with $11.3 million on 618 screens, making it the fourth biggest opening weekend of the year. That’s no small feat given the three films ahead of it — Jurassic World ($16m); The Avengers: Age of Ultron ($15.7m); and Fast and Furious 7 ($14.6m) — are among the seven best opening weekends in this country. One would anticipate the record will be broken before Christmas when Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens. It has to top Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, which earned $18.3m in its first weekend way back in July 2011.

And while we’re at it, Jocelyn Moorhouse’s The Dressmaker, starring Judy Davis and Kate Winslet, rushed to second spot among all Australian films this year with another $2m on the weekend lifting its total box office to $11.6m. Mad Max: Fury Road is at the top with $21.6m. Family film Oddball is still chugging along, adding another $124,000 on the weekend to bring its total to $10.745m and multicultural comedy Alex & Eve is hanging in there after four weeks with another $51,000 lifting it to $400,000.