Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1081203
67 Q1 2019 / CINEMONTAGE BLACK DIRECTORS AT ALL-TIME HIGH USC's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative released a study of 2018's 100 top-grossing films in January. The good news is the higher number of black directors represented, wrote Rebecca Sun in The Hollywood Reporter, with 16 of them. That new high shows the greatest number of black filmmakers during the span of the report's 12-year time frame. The next best turnout was eight — half of 2018's amount — in 2007. However, the less than glowing news: Only one of the 16 black directors is female: Ava DuVernay. The Wrinkle in Time helmer had the year's highest-grossing movie directed by a woman. She is still just one of the seven women of color to direct a top 100 movie since George W. Bush was president. As inclusive hiring practices generally don't happen in a vacuum, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative also studied the gender breakdown among executives, finding a year-over-year increase in female representation on the boards of the seven major media companies (21st Century Fox, AT&T, Comcast, Lionsgate, Sony, Walt Disney Company and Viacom) to 25 percent, with half of Viacom's seats held by women. Sony and Comcast had no women among their top executives. Those seven major media companies collectively employ only five women of color as corporate directors. Below the line, it's easy to list the number of people by position who are not white men. Out of the 300-film sample covering 2016 to 2018, 42 men of color and four white women worked as directors of photography. Out of 375 editors, 53 were white women, 16 were men of color and five were women of color. BRITISH FILMMAKERS BEMOAN BREXIT "In England now, there is only the noise of division," intoned Ralph Fiennes mournfully at the European Film Awards in Seville, Spain in December, wrote Steve Rose in The Guardian. It sounded like a quote from Shakespeare, but everyone knew what Fiennes was talking about. His acceptance speech for his European Achievement in World Cinema Award came on like a poignant adieu to Europe from the British film community. A few days earlier, fellow Brit actor Andy Serkis produced his own form of Brexit commentary in a political video ad, recalling his conflicted Gollum character from The Lord of the Rings trilogy in the guise of British Prime Minister Theresa May, feuding with herself over her Brexit negotiations. "This is it: Our deal. We takes back control. Money, borders, laws, blue passports," Serkis growls as May/Gollum. "No, it hurts the people. Makes them poorer," the conflicted, meek May/Smeagol replied. Business has never been better for British film and television, said Eric Fellner, the co-founder of Working Title films. Since former Prime Minister Gordon Brown's introduction of film tax-relief incentives in 2006, Britain has become one of the world's movie centers. Production spending in the UK has doubled since 2009, to a record £1.72 billion in 2016. Freedom of movement may be the biggest area of concern industry-wide, given the international composition of UK film employees. The industry's continued success depends on having the personnel to drive it — to crew the movies and work in areas like post- production and visual effects, where up to 40 percent of workers are non-British. Visual effects employers will have to pay an additional £1,500 or so per head for visas for its EU employees, estimates William Sargent, the chief executive and co- founder of leading effects house Framestore. "It took 25 years of hard work to build us into a center of excellence," said Sargent. "We're going to throw all that away." f LABOR MAT TERS The Top 10 black directors for 2018, top row, from left: Ryan Coogler (Black Panther), Steven Caple, Jr. (Creed II), Antoine Fuqua (Equalizer 2), Ava DuVernay (A Wrinkle in Time), Malcolm Lee (Night School); second row: Peter Ramsey (Spider- Man: Into the Spider-Verse), Gerard McMurray (The First Purge), Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman), Tyler Perry (Acrimony) and Charles Stone III (Uncle Drew). Courtesy of blackfilm.com