There was Viola Davis, the Oscar, Emmy and Tony award-winning actress of The Help, How to Get Away with Murder and The Woman King, who brought tears to the eyes of everyone at the Women in Film honours gala at the Beverly Hills’ Hilton hotel with a speech acknowledging the incredible power of female directors enabling all women, especially black women, to finally “be seen” on screen.

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Jane Fonda, film and television legend, enthusiastically told the enraptured crowd that the eponymous humanitarian award she was giving out honouring British actress and screenwriter Michaela Coel should be renamed the “Jane Fonda ruckus-raising award” because that was a more apt description of her decades-long work as a political, feminist and environmental activist.

Don’t Worry Darling director and actress Olivia Wilde spoke passionately about the role of films in challenging gender stereotypes, and up and coming producer and performer Lili Reinhart talked about why she loudly calls out negative body image and toxicity around the representation of women.

And then there was Emmy award-winning actress Sheryl Lee Ralph from the US television comedy Abbott Elementary. She came on stage and brought the house down, singing lyrics from a jazz song written by Diana Reeves in 1994. “I am an endangered species,” she belted out to an audience that immediately got to its feet, spellbound by such a powerful performance and message. “But I sing no victim’s song. I am a woman, I am an artist and I know where my voice belongs.”

The lyrics were a perfect fit for the evening and the honours being handed out by advocacy group Women in Film. Founded almost 50 years ago, WIF started as a way for females in Hollywood to meet and network for jobs, and is now a significant organisation that advances women in front of and behind the camera. Its annual awards, which began in 1977, celebrate individuals who have broken ground, excelled in their chosen fields and helped to expand the role of women in the industry.

“We work for our members and against the system that exists, to achieve gender parity,” WIF board president Amy Baer explains, sitting in the lobby of the legendary Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood the day before the gala. “We seek to transform culture across the world, because our industry has the capacity to change culture by virtue of what we do and what we put on screen.”

Baer says WIF does this through mentorships, research, media campaigns and education programs, as well as its annual awards. And she believes that while the industry has had a reckoning in the wake of the #MeToo movement (this year’s gala also honoured the journalists who broke the Harvey Weinstein story, The New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey and their film She Said), there was still a long way to go to achieve gender equality in the influential entertainment industry.

“I think that with any kind of oppression, there is an initial explosion of energy and emotion and then it tends to subside,” she tells me. “I think that is the challenge we are in right now, and that is to continue to have momentum, to continue to talk about it and continue to hold people to account.”

One of the key partners of WIF since 2004 has been Max Mara. The Italian fashion house, founded by Archille Maramotti in 1951, has been synonymous with powerful women since Maramotti pioneered ready-to-wear fashion in Italy and sent the now iconic camel coat down the runway. “My grandfather Archille was raised by my great-grandmother and she was his role model,” says Maria Giulia Maramotti Germanetti, third-generation Max Mara and director of omnichannel retail. “She was widowed very young so she raised four children by herself, as well running a tailoring and sewing school. She was a powerhouse and quite the personality in our city.

“He took after her, that sense of strength, and was raised to respect women. He was exceptional because he was raised by an exceptional woman. He was incredible because he founded Max Mara, but I think the concept of female power definitely came from my great-grandmother.”

Maramotti Germanetti says partnering with WIF was a logical extension to help support and elevate women in Hollywood, which in turn has a significant impact on how women are portrayed in television and film around the world.

“As a brand we always support women’s empowerment because it is part of who we are and what we do,” she tells WISH. “I think it is very good to support WIF, especially in an industry that historically has been very tough for women.”

Max Mara has sponsored an award for an up and coming female in the industry – the Max Mara Face of the Future – since 2006. It has recognised Emily Blunt, Gemma Chan, Elizabeth Debicki and Rose Byrne in the past, and this year it honoured American actress and producer Lili Reinhart.

The 26 year old got her big break on the Netflix show Riverdale (a modern take on the Archie comics) and the 2019 movie Hustlers with Jennifer Lopez, before starting her own production company to create, produce and star in the films Chemical Hearts and Look Both Ways.

“Lili is an interesting mix of an artist and a businesswoman,” says Maramotti Germanetti. “She is very knowledgeable about her business, and that is something I really appreciate. She knows what she wants in terms of her career and she is not afraid to raise her voice.;Lili is vocal about what she cares about. For me, it was very inspiring to see a woman much younger than me so determined and strong. It was also an energy injection that made me very happy and proud.”

Baer echoes this praise of Reinhart, saying the success the actress/producer has achieved at such a young age is incredible and she was an ideal recipient of the Max Mara Face of the Future award.

“Lili has her own production company and she is also vocal and outspoken on issues that matter to her and women, like body positivity and mental health,” Baer explains, referring to Reinhart’s very open commentary on her own personal battles with anxiety and depression. “The more you are able to share these things with a community of other women, the stronger the community becomes.”

For Reinhart, being named the WIF Max Mara Face of the Future has been very encouraging. “It’s very validating getting this award,” she tells me. “All the hard work I have put into my career has been seen. I sometimes suffer from a bit of an imposter syndrome because of my age. I am very much a producer, but because of my age and because I am a woman I have to really step out onto the plate. I think women inherently feel like that have to constantly prove themselves, unlike men.”

She says she was born a performer, the kid who was always trying to make friends and family laugh. She did singing, acting and theatre in school, loved them all, and by 18 she had moved to Los Angeles to get into the industry. Reinhart was cast as Betty Cooper in Netflix’s Riverdale in 2016 and by 2019 she was executive producing and starring in the Amazon film Chemical Hearts.

“Someone floated the question to me early on about whether I wanted to produce and I didn’t really answer as I didn’t really know what it would entail. I thought it was a matter of actors putting their name on something and bossing people about,” she laughs. “But I was given the opportunity to executive produce on Chemical Hearts and I quickly realised I really loved it.”

Reinhart has now created her own company – Small Victory Productions – with her producing partner Catherine Hagedorn and signed an exclusive first look content deal with Amazon. They are creating films and television series that focus on what the world looks like for young people today.

“It is really fulfilling to be part of something from the very beginning to the very end,” she says, “to not just be an actor on set and say your lines and go home. You are in development, you are finessing the script, you are finding the right director, you give the edits of the film, you are working on the poster art – you are involved in everything and I absolutely love it.”

The actress is also very aware that she is benefiting from the way the industry has changed positively for women and she hopes to use her success to continue to hire women in front of and behind the camera.

“Seven or eight years ago, I don’t think I would have ever been given this opportunity to have my own production company,” she says. “I think women have had to fight a lot harder to be seen and end up in the same room as men. Women are inherently fighters because we have to be, and so now it is about women supporting other women as much as they can.

“I feel it is my responsibility now to give opportunities to other young women, whether it involves finding a writer, finding a cinematographer, finding a director – trying in every way to put women first. While on screen things are evolving slowly, behind the scenes it is a different story. I don’t think I have worked with a female director of photography, and that is pretty shocking. I think a lot of women have not been given the chance and so I would love to give women those chances.”

Baer says the changes we have seen on screen are due to high-profile and successful actresses such as Reese Witherspoon, Olivia Wilde and Australia’s Margot Robbie seeking more creative control and opportunities over the past few years – women forging their own path where there was none.

“I think Reese Witherspoon is very open about it when she says she was just sick of being told to do another romantic comedy. She could not find the opportunities, so she decided to generate them herself,” Baer says. “I think Margot Robbie also has ambitions going beyond being a very talented and beautiful actresses and decided she has a point of view as a filmmaker and creator.

“Rather than being resigned and having to settle with what the system creates, women have become empowered to create their own destiny and the more they do that, the more the mainstream system that wants to work with them has to participate.”

Empowering women to change showbusiness and the impact that has on culture was very much the theme at the WIF honours on October 27, one that was aptly summed up by the words emblazoned on the screens in the Beverly Hill’s Hilton hotel ballroom: “Society is going backwards but Hollywood is forging forward. What we put on screen revolutionises the world.”