Top figures in the cinematography world took on what they described as “a really critical issue that we all know about in our industry” on Tuesday, sharing war stories from the ongoing fight for greater diversity and inclusion.
The broader film industry and cinematography in particular are still woefully out of step with diverse filmmaking talent, said the group during a panel held at the 32nd edition of the EnergaCamerimage film festival in Torun, Poland.
“The idea that inclusion dilutes excellence is not up for debate,” said producer and columnist Anna Higgs as she introduced the hastily assembled talk, called “Widening the Lens: Inclusion and Excellence in our Industry,” which organizers put together this week in the wake of a controversy that saw some top filmmakers boycotting Camerimage.
Industry organizations have decried published remarks made by fest president Marek Zydowicz that seemed to imply that a focus on inclusion can lead to “mediocre film productions,” which also led to director Steve McQueen skipping Camerimage and Coralie Fargeat pulling her film “The Substance” from competition.
On Tuesday, the largest audience yet seen for a diversity and inclusion panel at the fest packed a cinema hall to hear insights from a group that included cinematographers Mandy Walker and Rodrigo Prieto, director Maura Delpero, costume designer Sandy Powell and actor/producer Cate Blanchett.
Describing a profession that’s estimated to employ about 7% women and 93% men globally, Higgs pointed out that representation “has indisputably been historically lacking” from cinematography’s earliest days, “not just in terms of gender, but for parent carers, for people with disabilities, for people of color” and those facing socioeconomic barriers.
“Representation matters,” said Higgs, “because the stories that we get to tell as filmmakers shape who we are as a society. Now more than ever we need to come together and share stories and understand other perspectives and lived experience that connect us in our humanity.”
Film fests like Camerimage play a critical role in the process, said Delpero, adding that “we accept in a very natural way” that these events must diversify their programs. Festivals normally accept they must be diverse to avoid showing favor to established players, Delpero said, “but when it comes to gender, to white people and Black people, to rich people and poor people,” things get more challenging.
And that’s especially if the privileged feel they must give up ground and “share a space,” Higgs said.
Prieto, whose cinematography has conveyed powerful women’s stories in work including “The Glorias” and “Barbie,” said he’s felt “very privileged to participate in movies directed by females with female subject matter.” What’s more, he added, stories sharing the female perspective have been for him “very, very illustrative to me, wonderful, beautiful.”
Filmmakers who have found success have a responsibility to continue widening the conversation, he said, and casting is one opportunity for that, Prieto said. “The key is to open your eyes and look around.”
The “pipeline” of film projects in development – what film stories are being made and “which filmmakers are allowed to tell them” – does currently feel “like it’s starting to change,” according to Higgs, even if there’s still vast need for improvement.
Women filmmakers are beginning to make Marvel films, accessing vast marketing budgets that help establish careers, she noted, but cinematographers like Walker, who shot “Elvis” and upcoming Disney musical “Snow White,” are “still the exception.”
Walker confessed she was told at a young age that women can’t be cinematographers “and I totally ignored it” – but added that she “did experience a lot of bullying,” along with encountering “a lot of conscious and unconscious bias.”
She, like many women, felt she had to give “always felt that I had to be 110 percent. I had to be brilliant to be doing that job.” Otherwise, “people would say, ‘women can’t do that.’”
In fact, Walker said, she’s still often the only woman department head on films. “I do find I’m being judged still – because it’s still a bit of a novelty.”
The issue has motivated her to take an active role in helping underrepresented talent to get opportunities, said Walker. “I actively search that out.”
Blanchett — who is jury chair of this year’s Camerimage main competition — noted that after stepping away from the film industry for a decade to focus on producing theater, she was struck by the way the “natural organic pathway” for men did not apply to women.
Those few she had seen on sets years ago were gone while the men remained and their careers advanced steadily. “That’s when I thought, ‘Wow – this is startling.’”
Blanchett, who is the co-founder of film and television production company Dirty Films, alongside her partners Andrew Upton and Coco Francini, recently launched Proof of Concept, a program offering financial support, mentorship and exhibition opportunities to emerging filmmakers. For the company, in 2023 Blanchett produced and appeared in Warwick Thornton’s “The New Boy,” which won the Camerimage Golden Frog in 2023.
“We’re all part of the conversation,” Blanchett said. “We can’t walk away from it. We have to be part of the change.”
