Women in the Italian Film Industry: Against All Odds

Abstract

In conclusion to our 2013 book, Reframing Italy, in which we considered new trends in Italian women’s filmmaking, we broach the topic of the marginalisation and stereotyping of women in a highly patriarchal film industry and the problems involved in articulating an aesthetics that speaks directly to female audiences. While our book highlights the exceptional, often invisible, production by Italian women filmmakers, for most women filmmakers in Italy their opportunities in the film industry are still limited and their films appear against all odds. In our contribution to this volume, we expand on our previous work and focus more directly on the ongoing struggle for gender equality in the Italian film industry. A recent 2017 report by DEA (Donne e audiovisivo) confirmed our own findings that Italian women directors find themselves less likely to attract funding or to gain the confidence of producers. In fact, the study shows that only 12% of public financing for films goes to women, 21% of the films produced by the state agency RAI are directed by women, and only 9.2% of the films directed by women reach mainstream movie houses.

While the situation for women in other film industries is not dissimilar, we argue that the situation in Italy is more extreme and the reasons for this are deeply embedded in Italian society and politics. One need only look at the 2016 Global Gender Gap Report that situates Italy at place 127/144 for equality in the workplace. In our chapter, we analyse the current gender landscape in terms of both the broader cultural context and specific events within the film industry itself. We will consider recent events like the lack of support and indeed hostility around Asia Argento’s announcement of the sexual assault by Harvey Weinstein, the relative limited response to #unavoltache, the Italian equivalent of the #metoo movement, and the debate around the problematic nature of the collective letter “Dissenso commune”, a letter signed by 124 women in the film industry that defines the problems and disparities in the Italian film industry as systemic but is hesitant to name men who have abused their professional power.