#Metoo panel during Stockholm Film festival

I was invited to participate in an extremely important panel about the #metoo movement during the Stockholm International Film Festival. We had a lot to say during the hour we talked. I think enough men has spoken, I rather see men listen then speaking up to be honest. I write and talk about the subject quite a lot and I believe more men need to step up their game and think before they speak. How would it be to see men joining the conversations by just being in the audience. Of course, men are also affected and are most definitely being abused on set as well but if you ask me, that is a discussion for another day. Let's focus on Women in film, music, stores, fashion, medicine and all the other millions of women working and being constantly pushed around. I also talked about this earlier in the year, find more about that here.

 
Anna Serner (CEO Swedish Film Institute), Josefine Tengblad (Head of Drama, TV4), Zoë Que (Director of Photography), Anna Velander Gisslén (WIFT), Daniel Bramme (Executive Producer, Investor), Emely Crona Stenberg (Heja Livet) och Jan Blom…

Anna Serner (CEO Swedish Film Institute), Josefine Tengblad (Head of Drama, TV4), Zoë Que (Director of Photography), Anna Velander Gisslén (WIFT), Daniel Bramme (Executive Producer, Investor), Emely Crona Stenberg (Heja Livet) och Jan Blomgren (Bob Film/Art89).

 

You can find the original picture here on Instagram. Also, the panel was mentioned in Aftonbladet. Don't forget to visit the Swedish Film Institute's website while you're at it. Thanks for stopping by and keep talk about #metoo.

Interview: Hollywood politics after "Weinstein"

On October 18th I was invited to talk with Jakob Stenberg on Kongressen Podcast about hollywood politics. We discuss how and why the Weinstein scandal and the #metoo movement could affect the next election in the U.S. Interesting because we see that the #metoo movement has grown stronger for each week and hopefully it will not stop.

 
Daniel Bramme and Jakob Stenberg
 

If you want to listen to the podcast, you can find it here or listen directly on the link below. It is in Swedish, just so you know.

 

Feel free to comment or contact me directly if you would like to talk about issues in the industry or have questions about anything else. As always, thanks for reading (and or listening).

Interview: about sexism in the film industry

I was asked to be interviewed for a finnish magazine about the Weinstein scandal and also about the sexism and culture in the film industry in Hollywood. Both interviews are in Swedish, however the problem is world wide and no industry is immune. More around this subject is definitely coming.

Hur är det med jämställdheten i Hollywood? Radio intervju

Filmmogulen Harvey Weinstein fick sparken men sexismen i filmbranschen forsvinner inte

Thanks for reading and don't forget to comment or visit once in a while.

Women in Film - first half of 2017

Three years since my first post about women in film and gender equality in film. What is new and is anything changing? We have seen the rise of questions regarding equality in general in film, the Oscars got a wake up call and much seem to be happening. However, many things are the same as yesterday and it raises the question if things are actually changing and if so, how and how fast is it going?

Susan Sheldman - Desperately Seeking Susan

Susan Sheldman - Desperately Seeking Susan

On a positive note

We all know that blockbusters and big budget films are given to men much more often than to women, when men fail they usually get the chance to redeem themselves, many times with an equally prestigious project. A failure for a female director usually means the end of her career, not even a successful film is a ticket for the next one for women working in film. Hopefully, in a couple of years this has changed and finding a director for the next massive franchise is not about gender, where you are from or how you look but rather who is best for the project. From a financial standpoint, this is always best and as we all knows, money talks.

So, how has the first half of 2017 been? Well, this year we've seen articles like this one Women working in film aren´t much better off then they were in 1998. Deadline gives us a quite negative picture of the industry for women and that bring us down a notch before I even started. I will not go through the numbers in the article but I can say that from the number of women active in film making it doesn't look very good. However, there are many variables to this that we are not taking into account.

No matter how it looks today, things are getting better and will be better even if it takes time. That is not to say that we do not need to work hard and keep working to make people aware. In a way, it is a positive sign even to see articles like the one above from Deadline. People are recognizing that there are inequality in not only the film industry but many other industries and that is positive, I will touch on this later, in another post.

Gal Gadot - Wonder Woman

Gal Gadot - Wonder Woman

The news

So far this year there has been many different articles around the subject, women working with film. While some articles are lists of the best female directors like this one from Vanity Fair and this one from Harpers Bazaar others focus on the sexism that is infecting productions and the studio system.

There are many great examples this year of different ways of making people aware of the issues facing women in film. The movie, Wonder Woman with Gal Gadot has been on news several times for different reasons. Fox News talked about Gal Gadot's (Wonder Woman) earnings compared to Henry Cavill (Superman) and other news has been around Wonder Woman and how it's earnings saved the 2017 summer box office.

Here is a list of other articles that are worth mention and reading:

Fortune about Women public boards

Huffington's article in 2016 by Martha T.S. Laham

Wired posted a positive article about female directors

Scott Mendelson wrote a great article in Forbes about women in film

There were of course other articles written on the subject but many more today are positive and talk about the steps that are being made to move forward rather than the ones that pushes us a step back. I believe we need to show success stories more often than failures in order to mentally push aspiring film makers to be a part of the industry. Much more is happening today than ever before and I'm positive we will see a change in a couple of years.

If you are interested in learning more or support the work, please visit Alliance of Women Directors or if you are interested in the work that are being made in Scandinavia, check out Nordic Women in Film or read the blog of Anna Serner. Another great organization is Center for the study of Women in Television and Film they are an important piece of the puzzle and does a good job trying to navigate the issues we face.

As always, thank you for your time. If you find this interesting, please see the update I wrote in 2016 or the articles, interviews and panels I was involved with later on.

Quick trip to Sundance

This year I was invited to the Sundance Film Festival to hold a couple of meetings and talk about the new types of financing that are increasingly common in the industry. It was a great trip and I had the opportunity to meet great people and squeeze in some friends and colleagues from Sweden.

 
sundance film festival
 

This year I didn't have time to watch any screenings but next year will be a ski and film festival, Park City is a perfect spot to both ski and work. Highly recommended film festival as well, just make sure to book in everything advance! The demand is extremely high before, during and after the festival.

Take a look at the films that were shown this year. 2018 will probably be much more around VR and AR, this year had a lot of new tech companies present, I haven't seen that before so it was a welcomed addition and I believe it will stay like that in the future. However, it is and should still be a film festival so as long as it won't be another tech festival or gathering I will be fine.

swedish snus store Fika.jpg
 
 

Thanks for visiting.