07
26
LAB OF CULTURAL, CREATIVE AND FESTIVAL JOURNALISM
"HER LENS": A SIDEBAR PROGRAMME PLUS PANEL ON FEMALE FILMMAKERS
Even though half of graduates from European film-schools are women, by the time it comes to working on a third feature only 15.41% of filmmakers are female. As analysed by Le Lab Femmes de Cinéma, a French institution interested in mapping gender-parity in Europe, women are gradually being driven out of the film industry — due to a lack of policies and regulations, especially when it comes to matters such as supporting parenthood and the gender pay-gap. by Costanza Rossi
This July, European Film Festival Palić (in northern Serbia) hosted the head of Le Lab, Fabienne Silvestre, on a panel with four other women in the industry, including Palić programmer Julia Sinkevych. The panel addressed gender equality by providing data on several European countries in the last ten years, and also discussed useful strategies to implement parity among production-companies and film-festivals. One of these, paying attention to female representation in festival selections, was perfectly aligned with the six short films which preceded the discussion.
The ‘Her Lens’ selection comprised works by female directors, of whom only Gabriele Neudecker (born 1965, the oldest filmmaker represented) has also directed a feature- length production. Neudecker’s wedLOCK tradWIFE (2025), addresses a phenomenon directly connected to gender equality: online "tradewives". Tradwives are part of an internet subculture that promotes traditional gender roles and is often associated with far- right politics. By combining audio-recordings from dozens of TikToks with archival images of rural life in the past, Neudecker masterfully questions the evolution of social policies in relation to females.
Two ‘Her Lens’ shorts stood out for their compelling storytelling: Stiina (2025) by Elisabeth Kužovnik and Wish You Were Ear (2025) by Hungarian animator Mirjana Balogh. The first follows a young kid and her imaginary friend while the child (single) mother is at work, and is so engrossing that it feels much longer than it really is (in a good way!). Kužovnik"s film has a mature, coherent visual identity that culminates in a goosepimple-inducing ending. Similar praise could be bestowed on Balogh, whose Wish You Were Ear won the Crystal Bear for Best Short at the 2025 Berlinale. It takes place in an imaginary world where every relationship breakup involves an exchange of the lovers’ body-parts. Through a fascinatingly fluent, often dazzling animation style it tells a sensitive love story without using a single spoken word.
By giving space to primarily young directors, ‘Her Lens’ provided a meaningful example of how curatorial practice can efficiently work in times of gender imbalance by giving space to female voices. By showing different visual languages the shorts demonstrated the panel's conclusion: investing in women means implementing the stories cinema tells about the world, multiplying perspectives and deepening our understanding of the times in which we live.
5th Lab of Cultural, Creative and Festival Journalism
European Film Festival Palić 2026
