New F-Rated Films at BFF2014

We are launching a new category in the 24th Bath Film Festival, the F-Rated Strand.

Festival Producer Holly Tarquini explains: “Everyone knows how male-heavy the film industry is, both on and off camera – in the last 5 years, for example, fewer than 5% of feature films released by major US studios were directed by women. That is a shocking statistic. As Oscar Nominated Director, Lexi Alexander says, ‘There is no lack of female directors. But there is a huge lack of people willing to give female directors opportunities.’ Bath Film Festival’s F-Rating is a fun way to high light films which pass some simple tests such as having a female lead who is not simply there to support the male lead, being specifically about women or being directed by a woman. It won’t change what we programme; we always programme the most interesting and engaging new and old films, regardless of the filmmakers, plot or cast. But we hope this will focus attention on the discrepancy in the industry as well adding a fun edge to the choices audiences make and extra spark to their after-show chatting.”

Taken from the BBC website: “UN Women, a United Nations group looking at gender equality, also suggested that the global film industry doesn’t do enough to represent women in films.  It said there had not been enough speaking roles for women, sexualisation is common and women have been under-represented in action and adventure movies.  It found 23% of speaking characters in that genre were female.  The study looked at films made in 11 countries, including South Korea, the US and India.  The UK was singled out for doing a better job than some other countries by creating more speaking roles for women.”

Look out for the symbol in the brochure, and follow the link on the website.

The programme for 2014 will be released on 10 Oct, digitally and 17 Oct on paper.