Project Count 2019/20
The following data has been collated to show the representation of genders across projects that were granted development and/or production funding from the NZFC during the 2019/20 financial year. Figures and graphs on this page have been calculated using the Project Count Method. This allows the NZFC to answer questions like, ‘what proportion of funded projects had a female creative attached and how many projects were female led?’
In order to fully understand the equality or inequality of genders across projects funded by the NZFC, the Project Count Method needs to be interrogated in isolation as well as in conjunction with the Head Count Method. For more detail about either of these methodologies please refer to the About this Data section of the Data Room.
Data relating to the gender of key creatives attached to projects requesting funding from the NZFC is captured as part of the application process. This allows the NZFC to measure and report on continued efforts towards establishing gender equality within the screen industry.
For development and production initiatives that are measured below, key creative roles are limited to those identified as being a director, producer and/or writer. All references to key creative roles are in relation to these three roles.
Development and Production of Scripts (2019/20)
Application data from the 2019/20 financial year shows that 64% of projects that applied for development or production funding had at least one female creative attached in a key creative role. This figure increases to 83% when focusing on the projects that were then approved funding. It is pleasing to see the voices of female creatives are represented across the majority of projects approved funding under both development and production initiatives. The graph below shows a breakdown of these figures and compares the distribution of projects with at least one female creative across development and production initiatives separately.
If the focus is on production initiatives, it is evident that the voices and contributions of female creatives are represented by at least one female creative in 16 out of 17 projects that received production funding (94%). This compares to 90 of the 110 projects that received development funding that had at least one female creative attached (81%).
Gender Distribution Across Key Creative Roles
Another key consideration that needs to be made to understand the representation of female creatives in the screen industry is to not only consider how many projects had female creatives attached, but to also understand how female creatives are represented across the different creative roles. Historically, female creatives have been well represented across producer roles and therefore the NZFC’s attention is driven towards ensuring equality among the genders of those creatives occupying director and writer roles.
Projects Approved Funding (2019/20 Financial Year)
The following graph shows the representation of each gender across key creative roles. In cases where a creative has not been attached to a key creative role, then that project is excluded from the calculations for that particular role. This allows us to ensure our figures are not skewed (for instance documentary projects typically do not have a writer attached so these projects will be excluded from calculations about writers).
If those projects that were approved funding across either development or production initiatives are considered, it can be seen that 48% of projects had at least one female director attached and 52% of projects had at least one female writer attached. Although this is far from the 71% achieved across producer roles, it is a great sign that the NZFC is working towards achieving gender equality across key creative roles and the organisation is continuing to support female stories and female led projects.
If the focus is on projects approved production funding individually, it is worth highlighting that of the 17 projects, eight had at least one female director attached (47%). Comparatively, 56% of projects had at least one female writer and 15/17 projects had at least one female producer (88%).
The following table is a tabulated version of the graph above but also includes application figures for comparison. When looking across roles attached to projects approved funding above, you will see in the table below that the biggest disparities between female and male is also visible in the wider application pool. This is because the projects approved are dependent on the applications received so this will continue to be a key driver of these figures.
Gender Diverse Creatives
The NZFC welcomes applications from gender diverse creatives and 3% of projects approved development or production funding in the 2019/20 year had at least one gender diverse creative attached. Stats NZ has not released data about the prevalence of people who identify as gender diverse among the general population, so it is difficult to ascertain whether this group is underrepresented in the NZFC’s application pool. However, it is the duty of the NZFC to continue ensuring that people of all demographic backgrounds are encouraged to apply for funding from the NZFC.