“The stairs of our industry MUST be accessible to all. Let’s climb. “

(Cate Blanchett and Agnès Varda at Cannes Film Festival, May 2018)

On January 1, 2019, the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival joined the Cannes, Venice, Lucerne, **Sarbio, IDFA, Toronto, Annecy and San Sebastian film festivals in their commitment to work toward gender equality in the film industry and enable a new generation of creators to establish and realize their vision.

The festival undertook the following goals:

  •         To gather data on the gender of staff members behind the films submitted to the festival.
  •         Present the list of program directors and film selectors of the festival.
  •         To ensure at least an equal number of women on the festival’s senior staff.
  •         To aim toward the screening of 50% of films made by men and 50% of films made by women (directed by, written by, or that the majority of the senior production staff are women) in TISFF’s 2020 festival edition.

Today, at the opening of the 2020 Tel Aviv International Student Film Edition, we are proud to say that we have been able to proceed toward the goals we have set . The festival’s senior staff, producers and managers of the artistic programs and competitions, is made up of at least 50% women this year. In the official competitions of the festival, we managed to reach a state where 50% of the films were directed by women this year (54 films directed by women and 52 by men). Also, 50% of the judges of the competitions are women.

The festival works to promote the formation of a new generation of female filmmakers. This year the festival, in collaboration with The New Foundation for Cinema and Television Foundation, initiated the Women Short Film Lab, a framework in which nine young female filmmakers will develop a short, independent film. We believe that more platforms are needed to promote women in cinema so that we can reach 50-50 in the field of full-length feature films.

During the festival there will be an online panel with key figures in the Israeli film industry regarding the advantages and disadvantages of the 50-50 initiative, who will also discuss the festival’s future goals.