Tribeca Film Festival Shows Surge of Female Directors

This year’s Tribeca film festival is all about girl power! Twenty-six of the feature films in this year’s two-week festival have been directed by women, including one by a female Saudi filmmaker shot entirely in her country.

Although the number of female directors is still relatively small, festival organizers said women’s participation has been growing annually. “Women have always played prominent roles and creative roles in the film industry,” Genna Terranova, the vice president of programming at the festival, told Reuters. “As far as directing, it seems more women are taking on that role.”

According to a 2012 study conducted by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, only nine percent of Hollywood directors are women. “It is harder for female filmmakers and it always has been,” said documentary filmmaker Marina Zenovich. “It is a fight that a lot of women in the industry are perking up to. We are half the population.”