First encounter with the celluloid ceiling: female representation at a student film festival in Türkiye

ABSTRACT

Gender inequality in the film industry and the barriers women encounter are referred to as the “celluloid ceiling.” To fully understand the structural and social causes of this phenomenon, comprehensive data collection and analysis are required. The current research aims to explore women’s representation in student projects to examine how women studying in film schools encounter the celluloid ceiling before graduating and entering the workforce. For this purpose, 266 short films submitted over three years to a student film competition in Türkiye were investigated. The gender distribution in leadership positions, such as producing, directing, and screenwriting, as well as technical and acting roles, were examined. The study also looked at how having a woman in a leadership position in a film affected recruiting more women for positions behind the camera. The findings revealed that women are underrepresented behind the camera compared to men, and the proportion of women working behind the camera was higher when a female director or producer was present. A female director’s or screenwriter’s presence in a film also significantly affected passing the Bechdel-Wallace Test, an indicator of on-screen representation.

KEYWORDS:

• Women’s representations
• Bechdel-Wallace Test
• celluloid ceiling
• film students
• female film students

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bahar Kılıç Adilçe

Bahar Kilic Adilce (1976, Izmir) is a director and academician. She graduated from Dokuz Eylül University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Cinema-TV Directing, in 2001. She has been an assistant professor at Okan University-Cinema-TV Department since 2014 and has directed films mainly in the field of documentary. In 2009, she won an Artistic Grant from the European Cultural Foundation for her project Punk Islam _God Is Not Death. The Ministry of Culture also supported the documentary. The 2017 film “Başka Mevzu/Another Matter” was her first short film in fiction. The film was screened in many international festivals and online platforms. She realized his latest project, “Sounds of Corona (2021),” in collaboration with the Goethe Institute.

Isil Coklar Okutkan

Isil Coklar Okutkan (1981, Izmir) is a social psychologist. She completed her Ph.D. at Ankara University and her master’s and undergraduate studies at Ege University. Her research interests are gender, justice sensitivity, interpersonal and intergroup relations. She has worked as a lecturer in various universities in Turkey for eight years. She is currently working as a post-doctoral researcher at Trinity Centre for Practice & Healthcare Innovation, Trinity College Dublin.