Australian film's gender parity numbers improved and the mid-budget gap stayed the same

Screen Australia’s gender data for the 2020-2021 financial year showed that women directed 37 per cent of Australian features that received agency funding, up from 16 per cent in 2011-2012. That is a significant increase. It is also a number that requires context before it means what it appears to mean.

The headline figure measures the proportion of funded features with at least one female director. It does not measure the budgets of those features, the scale of their releases, or their position in the industry’s informal hierarchy of projects. When those variables are included, the picture shifts. Women are directing more films. They are not yet directing the same films.

Where the numbers moved

The gains have been concentrated in specific categories. In short films funded through Screen Australia’s development programs, women have reached or exceeded parity. In documentary features, the numbers are strong and have been for several years. In television drama, women directed 43 per cent of funded hours in the 2020-2021 period, a figure that reflects both Screen Australia’s targets and the commissioning practices of the ABC and SBS, which have made gender equity a stated priority.

The feature film category is where the gap remains most visible. The 37 per cent figure is real, but the average budget for female-directed features was lower than the average budget for male-directed features across the same period. The data does not reveal a single cause for this. Several factors overlap: genre (women are underrepresented in action and science fiction, which tend to carry higher budgets), experience (first-time directors receive smaller budgets, and the pipeline of first-time female directors is newer), and the financing market (private investors and international pre-sales tend to favour established names, and the established names are disproportionately male).

The mid-budget problem

Australian cinema has a well-documented gap in the middle of its budget range. There are low-budget features (under $2 million, often first or second films, frequently supported by state agencies and Screen Australia’s development programs) and there are large-budget features (over $10 million, often genre films or projects with international co-financing). The space between, the $3 million to $8 million range where the majority of career-sustaining Australian drama sits, is thin and competitive.

This is the range where the gender gap is most consequential. A director’s second or third feature, the one that determines whether a career is viable, typically falls in this budget bracket. If women are reaching that stage with smaller budgets, fewer pre-sales, and less institutional support, the progression from debut feature to sustained career is harder. The pipeline produces first films. The question is whether it produces second and third films at the same rate for women as for men.

Screen Australia’s data does not yet answer that question directly. The agency tracks gender at the point of funding approval, not across a director’s career trajectory. Longitudinal data, tracking individual directors from first funded project through subsequent work, would reveal whether the pipeline is retaining women at the same rate it is admitting them. That data does not currently exist in published form.

What the numbers measure

The 37 per cent figure measures Screen Australia’s funded slate. It does not measure the total Australian feature output, which includes privately financed films that receive no agency support. It does not measure the proportion of projects submitted for funding that have female directors, which would indicate whether the applicant pool is shifting or whether the agency is selecting differently from the same pool. It does not measure crew composition below the director level, where gender disparity is also present and in some departments more pronounced.

These are not criticisms of Screen Australia’s reporting. The agency publishes more gender data than most international equivalents, and it has implemented specific policies (including gender targets for funded projects) that have contributed to the improvement. The point is that a single percentage, however encouraging, describes one dimension of a problem that operates across several.

Progress and its limits

The trajectory is positive. Sixteen per cent to 37 per cent in a decade is meaningful change, and it reflects deliberate policy choices by Screen Australia, the state agencies, and the public broadcasters. The question that the numbers raise but do not answer is whether the change is structural or whether it is contingent on the policies that produced it. If the targets were removed, if the funding criteria were adjusted, if the political priority shifted, would the numbers hold?

The international evidence is not encouraging. Industries that have achieved similar gains through policy intervention have seen those gains plateau or reverse when the intervention is reduced. The numbers improve when someone is counting. When the counting stops, the numbers tend to drift.