The number of female directors hit a historic (but insufficient) milestone in 2022, according to the CNC

Rebecca Zlotowski, Alice Diop, Alice Winocour, Claire Denis… in 2022, these directors made a film. And they weren’t the only ones : In the last year, the representation of women in the world of French cinema has reached an historic milestone, with more than a third of films directed by a female director.

A symbolic step, but insufficient

This is the finding of the CNC (National Center for Cinematography and the Moving Image), which published a study of the CNC this Wednesday, March 29, 2023. In 2022, more than a third (33.2%) of films made in France were directed by women. This represents a significant advance over the 23.6% of films made by female directors in 2018.

In particular, the CNC recorded a total of 69 French films done by women during the past year. This increase is particularly evident in fiction filmrepresenting 34% of results achieved by women, compared to only 28% in 2021.

Three films worth over 10 million euros directed by women

If we can rejoice in this symbolic progress, the road is still long and tiring before achieving parity on the big screen. The 50/50 Collectivewho fights to make the industry more equitable, inclusive and diverse (and whom we met on March 8 for a lengthy interview) believes that female filmmakers are still largely confronted with financial barriers.

“The data are encouraging, but there is still a long way to go”, reacted Quentin Deleau Latournerie, member of the collective close toAFP extension. Indeed, the CNC observed that male directors were more likely to finance a fourth or fifth film compared to women.

Also, cheap movies are overwhelmingly monopolized by men. In 2022, only three films directed by women had a budget exceeding €10 million.

Figures that make you want to galvanize yourself by discovering film festivals with exclusively female programmingsuch as the International Women’s Film Festival of Créteil.