The Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University has released their annual "The Celluloid Ceiling" report that looks at women in film. The study examined women working behind-the-scenes on the 250 top-grossing films of 2009. In 2008 women made up 16% of all directors, producers, executive producers, writers, cinematographers, and editors on these top films. This year's study found that overall women made no gains in employment behind-the-scenes from 2008 to 2009; the overall number is unchanged. However, the overall number of women in film is down 3% from 2001.
The study found that in 2009 only 7% of directors on those films were female. This is a drop of 2% since last year. Martha M. Lauzen, who is the executive director of the Center and the study, said the percentage of female directors this year is the same as it was in 1987.
Women were most represented among producers, where they make up 23%. This number is unchanged from 2008. However, 35% of these top films had no female producers at all. Women made up 17% of executive producers in 2009 (up from 16% in 2008). However, two-thirds of the movies had no female executive producers.
Women were the least represented in cinematography. Only 2% of the top films had female cinematographers. That's the same number from 2007; but it's a drop from 2008 when the number was 4%.
Women accounted for 18% of all editors in 2009 (up from 17% in 2008). However, 78% of films had no female editors.
Only 8% of writers were female, and 86% of the films had no female writers. In 2008, 12% of writers were female and 82% of films had no female writers. Writing is the area where employment of women dropped the most since 2008.
Martha Lauzen said that women were better represented behind-the-scenes on "festival films" than studio films (based on another study she conducted). With festival films, women make up 24% of the behind-the-scene jobs, compared to 16% for the top studio films. However, she says the number still doesn't come close to being representative of the general population. (Full Story)
The EU has stated that they will (potentially) suspend Sri Lanka's preferential trade benefits due to the country's human rights record. The EU's decision came after a year-longer investigation by the European Commission identified that Sri Lanka had "significant shortcomings" in adhering to UN human rights conventions. The Sri Lankan government is facing increasing international calls for an independent investigation into alleged war crimes committed during the civil war between Sri Lankan security forces and the Tamil Tigers rebel group.
The EU decision will take effect in six months in order to give Sri Lanka time to address the "shortcomings". If the EU's concerns are not addressed, trade benefits worth $135 million will be withdrawn. Sri Lanka's garment and fisheries industries will be hit the hardest. The garment industry currently enjoys tax breaks to sell to retailers in Europe, and fisheries products are one of the largest Sri Lankan exports to the EU. The EU foreign ministry indicated that they will not be setting "unattainable targets" and that "the shifting of goals posts" will only hinder the efforts of both sides (aka, 'the goals will be easy to reach because we don't want to harm our trade relation in any significant way...'). The Sri Lankan government has criticized the decision and said they would intensify their efforts to engage in negotiations with Brussels to reverse the decision. (Full Story)
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