One pattern catches the eye. Festivals that showcase indie and international films, like Locarno and Sundance, tend to do better than those rewarding Hollywood blockbusters. The Oscars, Baftas and Golden Globes all cluster towards the bottom of the table. “It's at the higher levels of the industry, where the money gets big, that I think it is much harder for women to get a fair deal, or even a look in” says Rebecca Wolff, producer at Grasp the Nettle Films. “They are, by and large, not trusted at the helm of multi-million dollar projects and that has a trickle-down effect on the rest of the industry.” But, she adds, “there are glimmers of hope that this is beginning to change”.

Glacial pace of change

Film is becoming more gender-equal, the data suggests, but only for female crew. And the pace of change is glacial. Recent award-winning films do have a higher proportion of women in senior crew positions than those made a generation ago. But not by much. And the share of lead female actors in these films has remained static over the same period, hovering around 35%. This is in line with a recent San Diego University study that found only 37% of speaking roles in the 100 top-grossing US films of 2017 went to women. It was 24% for protagonists, down 5% compared to the year before.

Where are the female directors?

One of the most striking features of the data is the large gender differences that exist between crew roles. Directing (12% female), cinematography (8%), and film-music composition (6%) roles are the most heavily male-dominated. Cinematography, with its stacks of camera equipment, has traditionally been gendered as a masculine activity – which might be why Rachel Morrison’s Oscar nomination took 90 years to arrive. But why are there so few female directors?