‘Long way to go’ on gender parity in film and TV industry, Bafta chair says | Baftas

There is still a “long way to go” to achieve gender parity in the film and television industry, Sara Putt, the chair of Bafta has said, before the nominees’ announcement this week.

The talent agent and producer, who took over as chair of Bafta in 2023, said the low representation of women in the awards’ most prestigious categories was reflective of a lack of access to and retention in an industry that has become increasingly precarious.

“It’s lovely to work with an amazing group of women,” Putt said when asked about the prevalence of women in leadership roles at Bafta, including its CEO.

“But there’s still a long way to go to achieve gender parity in all sorts of ways in this industry. At Bafta we care passionately about creating as level a playing field as possible. That’s why we created the interventions that we did after the film review.”

In 2024, just one female director was nominated for best film and best director (Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall) at the Baftas. This year, just one film by a female made the best film longlist of 10 (Coralie Fargeat for The Substance), while none of the female film-makers longlisted for best director are from the UK.

This was despite an overhaul by Bafta of its system in 2020, following a huge outcry in a year when nominations included no actors of colour and another all-male best director shortlist.

Bafta added 1,000 new members to its committee and announced that half of the nominees in the longlist for best director must be women. The voting system was also changed, with a list of 15 films that committee members must watch, to avoid a smaller selection dominating the list.

“I think our job is to try to get people to watch as wide a variety of films as possible,” Putt said. “We cannot dictate what is being made. Of the 189 films that were entered into the best director category this year, fewer than 25% were by women. We’re not there creating the content, we’re at the end of that talent pipeline.”

But, she added, Bafta had made massive efforts to modernise its membership. “In the last few years, over 50% of our new membership have been female, and 28% have been from ethnic minority backgrounds,” she said.

When the issue of diversity arose again in 2023, the performing arts union Equity said no matter the changes by Bafta, the pool of individuals from which nominees could be selected is still not diverse enough.

According to a report from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg inclusion initiative, of the 112 directors of 2024’s 100 highest grossing releases, 13.4% were women and 24.1% were from an underrepresented racial and ethnic group.

Putt, who has worked as an agent to off-screen talent through her talent agency, Sara Putt Associates, said progress had been made but there was a long way to go.

She said: “We represent far more female technicians in craft roles, female camera operators, female editors. There is now much more concern in terms of intimacy coordinators and access coordinators.

“But still, to this day, it is way more likely that a woman will be asked in an interview about childcare. There is still a gender and class pay gap.”

She referenced the speech made by Samantha Morton while accepting her Bafta fellowship at last year’s ceremony, about the importance of representation.

Putt said: “It’s a real dichotomy, because it’s a wonderful industry that a lot of people want to come into. As Samantha Morton said, stories have the power to change lives, therefore it’s really important that there’s a huge range of people creating and telling those stories. But it’s also an incredibly precarious career.”

Putt, who sits on the advisory board of the British Film Commission and the Film and TV Charity board, pointed to Covid, the Hollywood strikes, and a downturn in commissioning and advertising revenue. A recent survey found that mental health struggles across the industry were increasing, with 64% of respondents saying they considered leaving.

She said: “It’s been a very difficult couple of years for the community. The challenge is not only about how you enter the industry, but how you sustain a career within it.

“Until more recently, people have had pretty linear careers. You started off as a trainee and you worked your way up. When I started as an agent 35 years ago there were probably 2,000 freelancers in film and TV, rather than today’s 200,000.”

At Bafta, she added, the focus was on engendering social mobility through scholarships, bursaries, and talent accelerator programmes. “One in two young people are interested in a career in the screen arts, but fewer than one in five think it’s something that they could achieve. That’s a loss of talent before you’ve even started.”

Another challenge the industry is facing comes in the form of AI, she said. “AI is here to stay. We cannot, like King Canute, sit on the beach and tell the tide not to come in.

“AI isn’t going to take your job, but somebody who knows how to work with AI might. How do we work with it so it can benefit us and present opportunity?”

Meanwhile, new provisions allow Bafta to strip future winners of honorary awards in cases of “proven dishonesty” or if they are convicted of a serious criminal offence. Putt said: “It seemed a right time to ask: ‘Is this fit for purpose?’”

Is she worried about accusations of cancel culture? “I think if somebody has been found guilty of a serious crime, that is a very specific circumstance. We care about upholding good behaviour and best practice in the industry.”

This year’s Bafta film awards will be broadcast on BBC One and iPlayer on 16 February. As in previous years, it will not be aired live, because “that creates more excitement, and gives the best experience for audiences”, Putt said.