Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat used her platform at the Tokyo International Film Festival to hit back at the systems she says keep women at an inherent disadvantage in cinema. Speaking on a panel about the future of women’s cinema, Sadat said the discrimination “did not start at the festival, but it started at the development level,” pointing to a lack of funding and ignorance in the institutions that control it.
Shahrbanoo Sadat (Credits: Variety)
Tokyo Film Festival Talk: Shahrbanoo Sadat on Why Women Filmmakers Are Held Back
Sadat, who sat on this year’s Venice competition jury, reflected on the lackluster ratio of films by women selected for competition and argued that the problem runs deeper than festival programming. When the gatekeepers of development money don’t back women-led projects, she said, those films never even reach the selection stage.
Joining her on the panel was filmmaker Jelena Maksimovic, and together the two directors painted a frank picture of an industry where bias operates quietly at the earliest stages — long before any red carpet. The talk is part of a growing conversation at major festivals about who gets to make films and whose stories get funded.
Why Film Funding Discrimination Matters
Festivals like Tokyo and Venice have faced growing scrutiny over representation in their competition slates, but Sadat’s argument shifts the spotlight upstream: without access to development funding, female filmmakers can’t compete for those slots in the first place. It is a systemic issue, she argued, not a matter of individual festivals.
Her comments are likely to resonate far beyond Tokyo, adding momentum to calls for transparency and reform in how film institutions allocate money at the development level.
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Source: Variety — read the full story there.
