As Screen Australia works towards gender equity in projects receiving production funding, the agency has taken stock on the progress of its Gender Matters initiative. The update comes in the same week that actor and gender equality advocate Geena Davis addressed a gathering of the Australian screen industry with a sobering look at the representation of women on screens, highlighting how the issue of unconscious gender bias begins in children’s television and film.

“Gender Matters is the biggest initiative Screen Australia has ever taken on,” said Screen Australia’s Chief Operating Officer Fiona Cameron. “It has permeated every corner of our agency, from Program Operations who process every incoming application, to the Development Unit who assess every project and assist talent to develop stories and their careers, to Business & Audience who look after distribution funding for female-led projects under Better Deals.”

“Eight months since the Brilliant Stories and Brilliant Careers funding was announced, we’re seeing some clear trends emerge including an increase in applications from female led creative teams from 56% to 64% across all our programs. So we are heading in the right direction and we need a couple of years under our belt to influence production outcomes, particularly in the feature film sector where there is a much longer lead time.”

“Although I’m confident Gender Matters will reach its target agency wide, the biggest problem area is in feature film production. To that end, we are urging the industry to think about the makeup of their creative team early. If you come in for development or production funding with a project with an all-male team, you will struggle to convince us why that is appropriate in 2017.”

An interim update on all five elements of Gender Matters is included below, and a three year rolling statistic tracking gender parity in Screen Australia production funding will be released in the second half of 2017.