Meryl Streep (Photo : Getty Images)
Film festivals should go beyond entertaining moviegoers. It could also be a way to push some agenda of the organizers such as ending gender inequality in films.
That is the objective of the ongoing nine-day China Women's Film Festival which runs until Sunday in Beijing. The festival targets to change the distorted views of women and the world made by the movie industry – dominated by men – and the mistakes repeated habitually.
As a result, most of film actresses strip naked ahead of their male counterparts, or wear minimal clothing. Beyond the display of skin, when it comes to lines, female characters have a third less speaking parts in a movie compared to male characters, pointed out Associated Press.
Over 30 Chinese and foreign movies are participating in the film festival with topics centering on women’s rights, achievements and gay women. The movies are exhibited in 10 Chinese cities, with “Suffragette” as the festival opening movie. It is the fourth consecutive year that the film festival is being held. According to the Beijinger, the screening of the movies would be held at UCCA, the French Cultural Center, the Beijing American Centre, the Goethe-Institut, Beijing Ju Space Theater and Crossroads Center.
The film is about the fight of British women to vote in the early 20th century. It stars Meryl Streep, an Academy Award Hollywood actress who have spoken in the past against gender pay gap and the insufficient number of good roles for women.
Li Dan, chairman of the festival, wants to hike female representation in movies even if Chinese movie fans have accepted gender inequality. Li lamented the lack of movies where there are strong female characters and roles. Instead, producers make films with pretty actresses who seek a good marriage or a rich man to be her future husband. Movies using that formula often have good box-office receipts, Li observed.
Li plans to challenge major Chinese film producers and cinema companies, through the submission of an open letter inked by at least 50 celebrities, to use the Bechdel Wallace test for films they would produce. The test, which began as a joke in a 1986 comic book, specifies a movie must have two female characters with names who talk to each other in the movie about other things than men.
