Women’s Interventions in the Contemporary German Film Industry Available to Purchase

Although women today graduate from Germany’s film schools in numbers nearly equal to those of men, they remain heavily underrepresented in the nation’s film industry. This essay employs statistical evidence to take stock of the situation for women filmmakers and examines three women-driven initiatives that offer responses to current industrial practices: Women in Film and Television Germany (WIFTG), Pro Quote Film (PQF), and the grassroots organization Into the Wild Mentoring (ITW). Their approaches to dealing with sexism and structural inequalities continue to be multipronged and diverse and therefore can be historically situated within the tradition of feminist film activism in Germany. The essay illustrates the unique paths each organization has pursued within a neoliberal film market to achieve the common goals of gender equality and the revitalization of women’s film authorship, namely: feminist structures (WIFTG), demands for a quota system (PQF), and a grassroots feminist mentoring collective of film school graduates (ITW).