Power of women lost on Hollywood bosses despite Jane Campion, Maggie Gyllenhaal example

Female directors accounted for 12 per cent of the 100 most popular films at the box office, a fall from 16 per cent in 2020.

Jane Campion, centre, with Power of The Dog stars Kirsten Dunst and Benedict Cumberbatch. Picture: AFP

The number of women filmmakers who directed a big Hollywood movie declined last year, with the lack of progress in the industry described as “truly mind-boggling”.

Women directors accounted for 12 per cent of the 100 most popular films at the box office, a fall from 16 per cent in 2020, a study by San Diego State University showed. In the top 250 grossing projects they accounted for 17 per cent, a percentage point lower than the previous year.

The report, Celluloid Ceiling, comes after notable critical successes achieved by female filmmakers, with New Zealander Jane Campion being lauded for the western The Power of the Dog and Maggie Gyllenhaal earning praise for The Lost Daughter.

Maggie Gyllenhaal attends a Netflix screening of The Lost Daughter in New York. Picture: Getty Images

Women also enjoyed commercial success. Chloe Zhao, the most recent winner of the best ­director Oscar, for Nomadland, was in the director’s chair for the superhero movie Eternals, and Nia DaCosta topped the box ­office with Candyman.

However, Martha Lauzen, the report’s author, said that high-profile examples of women doing well in Hollywood could distort the broader picture.

“Appearances can be deceiving,” she said. “Basing our perceptions of how women are faring on the well-deserved fortunes of just a few high-profile women can lead us to inaccurate conclusions about the state of women’s employment.”

Nomadland director Chloe Zhao.

Campion, 67, would be only the third woman to win best director if she picked up the Oscar this year. Kathryn Bigelow won for The Hurt Locker in 2008.

The report also found that of 2021’s top films, 94 per cent did not have a female cinematographer, 92 per cent had no women composers, 73 per cent had no women editors and 72 per cent had no women writers.

Lauzen, who began releasing the study 24 years ago, said the lack of progress in behind-the-scenes roles was mind-boggling.

The Celluloid Ceiling report does not fully capture the landscape for women in Hollywood, however. Campion and Gyllenhaal released their films through Netflix, which gave the movies only limited theatre releases alongside their streaming debuts. As such they did not appear on the list of the highest grossing films, which was also the case for other high-profile female-directed projects, including Rebecca Hall’s Passing and Halle Berry’s Bruised.

The Times