Author: Iman Nadeem Zoqi
Abstract
This paper focuses on gender disparity behind the camera, as seen in film industries worldwide, with a focus on contemporary Pakistani cinema. Not only is there an obvious lack of gender parity in on-screen film representations, but this disproportionality increases when one looks at the gender of individuals behind the lens. Directors, writers, producers, editors, cinematographers, and composers are just a few of the people who must work behind the scenes to bring a story to life on the big screen. As in many other industries, women are underrepresented in filmmaking while systemic biases in the film industry inhibit the inclusion of women within all technological departments. This study addresses this inequality by exploring local socioeconomic factors and questions the repercussions of this imbalance on the final screen texts. There has been no previous in-depth analysis of this issue within the Pakistani film industry, hence statistical models are presented using data from mainstream digital films released from 2013 to 2018. This analysis also relies on interviews of individuals currently working in the industry with the goal of including first-hand details of the industry’s gender dynamics.
Keywords
Gender Disparity in Cinema, Pakistani Cinema, Pakistani Digital Cinema, Female Directors
