Women In Film (WIF), Los Angeles, is launching an India chapter, as announced at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday. Guneet Monga Kapoor, the Oscar-winning producer of “The Elephant Whisperers,” will lead WIF: India. The announcement was made at a Cannes event hosted by Film Paris Region and WIF. This initiative, part of the global WIFTI (Women In Film & Television International) network, is committed to advancing gender equity in Indian screen industries.
WIF: India aims to bring parity and opportunities for women seeking careers in the screen industries. An advisory council of industry leaders will be assembled with representation from across India to support the programming and advocacy of WIF: India, including research, mentorship, and creative labs for women film makers. While WIF: India is an independent chapter, it will collaborate with the Los Angeles-based WIF, which is the founding chapter of the WIFTI network.
The Cannes announcement is timely, as 2024 is a landmark year for India at the Cannes Film Festival, with nine films from the country across the festival’s various strands, with the majority of them being by or about women. This includes Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light,” the first Indian film in competition in three decades.
Kirsten Schaffer, CEO of WIF, said: “With an ever-expanding global market and deeper connections between the film industries in India and the U.S., this is a natural next step in the evolution of our gender parity work. We realize the immense value in creating community and resources for women film makers in India and we’re looking forward to collaborating with Guneet in this initiative.”
Monga Kapoor added: “From being in rooms where male colleagues have had to communicate on my behalf so I’d be taken seriously, to leading international co-productions and studio-scale projects, I’ve seen and been actively involved in the progress over two decades. Yet comprehensive studies like the ‘O Womaniya! 2023 Report’ still suggest a lack of gender diversities across key film making departments. The study of 156 films reported only 12% of head-of-department positions were occupied by women.”
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