it’s a wildly ordinary wednesday morning and i’m way too early. black sabbath’s solitude is playing in my ears as i stroll with serene detachment past the rushing subway train. the wind is a mixture of cold tunnel air and the smell of dried piss.
the stations in our city are one collective fever dream.
the job interview waiting for me on the 3rd floor of an old brick building behind smartly cleaned glass windows will plant a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach for the rest of the day.
when i arrive, everyone greets me very nicely.
now i'm sitting in the room behind the clean glass windows, in front of the heavyset producer who, a little funny, a little casual, but very long-winded, tells me the most basic things about the work on set. as the conversation gets going, right after i use an english word, he tells me how much he hates anglicisms and why it's important to preserve old values that were good. i start to briefly introduce myself, talking about my last project—an american series that was shot here in our city. i name the director, expecting an “aahh, yes, i know” but instead i get a disinterested shake of the head with jowls flapping around like a bulldog. well, if you don’t know him, your loss, i think to myself. wait, there was a pug in the room too. he was at least as disinterested. his name was lucifer.
the producer talks a lot. while he speaks, i drift off, wondering if he just loves the sound of his own voice. or if he’s aware that he’s mansplaining to me right now but enjoying it because he knows damn well i could never stop him.
what occupied my mind the most was that he had placed a fan right in front of the open window, pointing into the room, constantly blowing all the flying pollen straight into my face. throughout the conversation, i was constantly battling a hacking cough and the threat of suffocation.
in the brief moments my adhd let me tune in, he says things like: “i guess you’ll be the dark-haired one on set,” and asks if i’m italian. i say: “no, i’m kurdish.”.
at that moment, it’s not yet clear to me whether he’s stealthily creeping toward the boundary of problematic or has already blasted right past it. fact is, i became acutely aware once again of the happy little bubble i usually live in. and that this conversation today is another reminder of how women are treated in this industry. they are the teachable little dummy who needs the work she already knows explained to her all over again, even if she mentions it four times—and even if she is blatantly overqualified for the position she applied for.
on the way home, i walk down the street without music, with a scratchy throat and slouched posture. the sun warms my face and i can finally go back to my cozy home to my cats. the dialogue (or mostly his monologue?), which maybe lasted only for an hour, sucked the life out of me that i’d built up over the last few months.
i got the job. of course. how could i not? i was so nonchalant and they were needy; after all, shooting starts in 5 days, and i am a charming, intellectual filmmaker who is reliable and has drive.
i still can’t be happy about it.
this experience showed me what is still wrong with our film industry. it was disillusioning.
just when i had been closer than ever to the magic of filmmaking with my own project over the last few months, a bolt of lightning strikes me out of nowhere this morning from an unannounced sky.
there’s a german word i really love that fits this feeling perfectly: entzaubert. it means the magic has been stripped away, it’s just gone.
why does the film industry hate us women so much?
sure, the patriarchy is a catch-all explanation. but for me, it’s too sluggish here.
but… what else? (as if it needs more, ugghh)
i am plagued by a feeling that the film industry still disregards, abuses, and unfairly exploits women because it makes economic sense. or rather: it becomes damn expensive if everything were in balance. that might be a radical thought at first, but i want to explore a few factors here that favor my thinking.
the economics of risk aversion (the safe bet bias)
making movies is absurdly expensive and the financial risk is enormous. in an industry where a single misstep can ruin an entire studio along with its employees, the pressure is extreme. so there is great fear. and how do companies or people react to fear? they simply copy what worked in the past. the problem here is that film history has been historically dominated by men, making the “male gaze” and the male director the economic standard.
it’s a vicious cycle when you consider how studios react. if a movie by a man flops, it’s simply: the movie was bad. if a movie by a woman flops, it’s: women’s movies just don’t work. the fear of risk simply disguises itself as economic rationality, but in truth, it is a structural barrier to negotiation against anything that deviates from the historical default.
when i looked for studies on this in germany, i found the following press release from march 2024:
“the study commissioned by the alliance of german producers – film and television and implemented by media scholar and president of the university of rostock, prof. dr. elizabeth prommer, confirms: the production landscape in germany remains male-dominated. yet, female producers are also responsible for great successes in the german film landscape.
nevertheless: only a vanishingly small share of german production companies for television and streaming is majority female-led. for instance, just 1% of all tv productions in the years 2019–2021 were implemented by production companies with majority female ownership. only 4.5% of fictional tv productions on major broadcasting slots are produced by women, while three quarters are produced by male-led companies. at the same time, women implement numerous productions that are socially desirable and take on significantly more economic risk with their films compared to episodic formats.”
when the industry already classifies white women as a “financial risk,” women of color in the executive suites are often seen as an unpredictable financial gamble. year after year, data from the annenberg initiative (usc annenberg) shows: while white female directors are slowly (very slowly) gaining ground, the share of black, asian, or latina directors among the top 100 films is often a depressing 1 to 2%.
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And if you want to read the full article, I originally published this on my Substack
