British Screen Forum International Business Seminar on Gender Inclusion Initiatives

On: Wednesday 28 September 2022 from 1.00pm – 3.00pm

Speakers:
Madeline Di Nonno (President & CEO, Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media) – Keynote Address
Tsitsi Dangarembga (Founder Member, Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe/ICAPA)
Lara Joannides (Creative Diversity Lead for News and 50:50 The Equality Project, BBC)
Doris Saba (Artistic Director, Beirut International Women Film Festival/Projects Manager, Beirut Film Society)
Ritula Shah (Journalist & Presenter, BBC) – Session Chair

Via: Video Conference

For: Members, Associate Members, Future Leaders, and Guests

The next event in our British Screen Forum Business Seminar series will explore international initiatives currently being undertaken to address gender representation and disparities in the screen sectors. Delegates will be specially invited policy makers and industry stakeholders from across the screen sectors in those nations.

British Screen Forum Members, Associate Members, and Future Leaders can register here.

For further information or to register your place please contact [email protected]

Confirmed Speakers
Madeline Di Nonno (President & CEO, Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media)
Madeline Di Nonno is the President and CEO of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, the leading research driven non-profit working within the entertainment and media industries to foster diversity, equity and inclusion, create gender balance, and reduce negative stereotyping in family entertainment media.

Tsitsi Dangarembga (Founder Member, Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe/ICAPA)
Tsitsi Dangarembga is a world renowned novelist and pioneering filmmaker in the Zimbabwean film industry. She is also one of the most vocal feminists and a passionate activist. Women Filmmakers of Zimbabwe (WFOZ), Zimbabwe’s leading women filmmakers’ organisation, and the oldest functioning film institution in the country, is an arts organization that aims to increase the participation and production capacity of women locally and regionally in the audiovisual industry. It also aims to bring women’s issues to the attention of the cinema viewing and television watching public.

Lara Joannides(Creative Diversity Lead for News and 50:50 The Equality Project, BBC)
Lara is the BBC’s Creative Diversity Lead for News and the award-winning 50:50 The Equality Project and has supported hundreds of BBC teams to reach gender balance. 50:50 The Equality Project, born in the BBC’s London newsroom, uses a methodology that is rooted in data, creativity, practicality and passion to fundamentally shift representation within the media. Lara features in the Global Diversity List 2021’s Top 20 Diversity Professionals.

Doris Saba (Artistic Director, Beirut International Women Film Festival/Projects Manager, Beirut Film Society)
Beirut Film Society works on introducing cinema culture as an educative tool to human rights and ethics; and on spreading the Lebanese culture though cinema when and where possible. This work includes the Girls for Change initiative (in partnership with UNESCO) and the Women to the Film and TV Set Training Program.

This Business Seminar will provide an opportunity to hear first hand about the different ways that other nations are approaching issues of gender representation and disparity, and how the screen sectors in those territories have changed practices in order to create gender balance, foster inclusion and reduce negative stereotyping. In particular, it will explore such questions as: what programs or approaches have been taken; what outcomes are desired or have been achieved; what does gender representation mean in each specific context; how can these approaches and outcomes help inform each other; is there scope for international cooperation or initiatives; and to what extent can representation on camera be divorced from behind the camera inclusion?

British Screen Forum has previously explored various UK responses within the screen sectors to issues of representation and access faced by people with historically marginalised identities, and we hope to expand the conversation through hearing about different international approaches and sharing best practice.