Black Directors Found To Be Highly Underrepresented In Major Film Festival Competitions

(Clockwise from top left) Tyler Perry, Ava DuVernay, Ryan Coogler, Spike Lee, and Kenya Barris

Black Directors Found To Be Highly Underrepresented In Major Film Festival Competitions

An industry rife with Black talent is still being severely underrepresented, according to a new study.

Recently, a survey was conducted regarding the racial makeup of directors at major film festivals, such as the Cannes Film Festival. Specifically, competition fests from 2018, 2019, and 2021 were looked into (2020 was skipped due to many festivals getting cancelled due to COVID), and the surveyors were particularly interested in seeing how many Black directors were involved each year.

Across the 3 years in question, a total of 670 movies were screened at major film competitions. However, of these 670 films, only 8 were made by Black directors–a mere 1.19%.

For individual years, the figures are similarly grim–though it’s worth noting that there appears to be a slow-moving upward trend in the number of Black-made competition films. In 2018, 2 of 226 films were made by Black directors (0.88%). In 2019, this figure moved to 0.9% (2 of 223), and it later jumped to 1.81% in 2021 (4 of 221).

However, the numbers are still staggeringly low in comparison to the number of white filmmakers. Additionally, when it comes to other underrepresented groups in the industry (specifically women, Asian, and Middle Eastern directors), Black filmmakers still come out with the lowest amount of representation.

It’s worth noting that perhaps the most high-profile Black director who was included in the study was Spike Lee, who screened BlacKkKlansman at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.

What do you think about the situation? Share your thoughts by commenting down below to let us know.

[VIA]