For every ten male directors in Hollywood, maybe you can think of one female. Kathryn Bigelow, can you hear us?
Well, if Suffragette screenwriter Abi Morgan has her way, she’d even out the disparity by looking to Sweden as an example of how women can successfully infiltrate and conquer the field of directing.
“We may need to go look at quotas,” she explained to the Cut at a Peggy Siegal Company luncheon in Tribeca to promote the film. “Sweden has done something extraordinary.” The new head of the Swedish Film Council took over in 2011 and faced what Morgan called a “woefully low” number of funded female-led projects compared to projects funded for men. Morgan recalled, “She said, ‘We need to bring this up to absolute parity, 50/50.’” And so she did.
Although people may have thought it would have taken at least five or ten years to reach equality, last year, Morgan said equality was fast-tracked. “She had absolutely 50/50 equal on all the projects, on all the funding, so I think maybe we need to tie up to those numbers.”
