Kristy Matheson, director of the BFI London Film Festival (LFF), has warned that female film-makers continue to face structural barriers across the film industry, even as the share of women directing films selected for festival programmes continues to climb. Speaking ahead of the festival’s opening, Matheson pointed to an internal breakdown of this year’s lineup showing that more than 40% of the films featured across the full programme are directed by women, but only two of the 21 gala titles in the main programme are helmed by female directors. That gap, she argued, is evidence that women are embraced at the entry level of the industry and then pushed aside as their careers advance.
“The dial does not seem to be moving,” Matheson said, framing the disparity as a continuation of a “leaky pipeline” in which female directors struggle to secure financing, distribution deals and high-profile slots for subsequent projects after an early breakthrough.
The LFF, organised annually by the British Film Institute, is one of the major film events on the UK cultural calendar and a recognised launchpad for awards-season contenders. Matheson’s remarks come amid a broader international debate about gender representation in film, in which female directors remain a minority on big-budget productions and at major festivals worldwide. Industry trackers, including the Celluloid Ceiling report and analyses from the European Audiovisual Observatory, have documented similar shortfalls across major festivals for several years, with women typically directing between 20% and 30% of competition and gala selections.
Analysis: The gap between the share of female-directed films in the full LFF programme and the share of gala slots is consistent with longstanding patterns identified in industry studies. Initiatives such as gender parity pledges, targeted funding schemes and mentorship programmes have lifted entry-level representation in shorts, debuts and lower-budget features. But researchers and advocacy groups have repeatedly pointed to mid-career bottlenecks, including difficulty accessing production finance, limited opportunities to direct studio-scale projects and a lack of repeat commissions, as persistent obstacles. The fact that the gala tier remains heavily male-directed, even where overall programme figures suggest progress, suggests that festival curation may itself reflect the same financing and distribution constraints that shape the wider industry. Matheson’s remarks add weight to calls from bodies such as the European Women’s Audiovisual Network and Time’s Up for deeper structural reforms, including transparent commissioning data and accountability mechanisms, rather than programme-level quotas alone.
Matheson did not name specific studios, financiers or individuals in her remarks. The LFF has not publicly published a full section-by-section breakdown of directors’ gender identities beyond the gala figure cited.
Background and Context
Concerns about the representation of women behind the camera in film have been documented for more than a decade. Studies in the UK, US and Europe have repeatedly shown that women direct a minority of feature films released theatrically each year, with the gap widening sharply at higher budget tiers. The British Film Institute’s own data and ScreenSkills reports have tracked slow but uneven progress in the UK, particularly in below-the-line roles and short-film production, while noting persistent under-representation in directing and cinematography for feature-length work.
Major international festivals have faced similar scrutiny. Cannes, Berlin and Venice have each introduced initiatives aimed at broadening their lineups, including parity pledges at the selection-committee level and dedicated sections for women-directed work. The 2024 Cannes Film Festival drew attention when it named a female-directed jury for the first time in years, while the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival reported a record share of women in competition but continued to face questions about the gender balance of its main prize contenders.
In the UK, public funding bodies including the BFI itself have introduced targeted development schemes for women directors, and broadcasters such as the BBC and Channel 4 have published commissioning data on gender. Industry campaigners have argued that commissioning decisions, rather than festival selection, are the primary driver of the gap, since festivals largely curate from a pool shaped by what is financed and produced in the first place.
Matheson’s intervention is notable because the LFF is closely watched by the UK industry as a barometer of awards-season momentum. The festival’s gala strand in particular has historically showcased films positioned for major awards campaigns, and the gender split of that section is therefore read as a proxy for which films are being treated as prestige releases by distributors and awards strategists.
What to Watch Next
– Full programme data: Whether the BFI publishes a more detailed breakdown of director demographics across all LFF sections, including features, shorts, episodic and immersive strands, allowing comparison with prior years.
– Industry response: Whether UK distributors, sales agents and public funders respond to Matheson’s remarks with commissioning or financing commitments targeting mid-career women directors.
– Awards-season tracking: How female-directed titles in this year’s LFF perform on the international festival circuit and in awards-season positioning, particularly at the Oscars, BAFTAs and the major European prizes.
– Policy follow-through: Whether the BFI’s next funding round, expected in early 2026, includes specific measures aimed at addressing the mid-career bottleneck Matheson identified, and whether ScreenSkills or the Department for Culture, Media and Sport reference the issue in upcoming statements on the creative industries.
– Comparable festivals: Whether other major autumn festivals, including Zurich, San Sebastián and the New York Film Festival, publish similar demographic data for their 2026 editions, enabling a cross-festival comparison.
Conclusion
Matheson’s comments crystallise a tension that has dogged gender-equality efforts in film for years: visible gains at the entry level coexisting with stubborn gaps in the most prestigious and best-resourced tiers. By choosing to flag the gala-slots disparity publicly, the LFF director has underlined that representation in festival programmes is not, on its own, a measure of structural change. The next test will be whether her remarks translate into measurable shifts in commissioning and financing, or whether the “leaky pipeline” she describes continues to drain female directors out of the upper tiers of the industry.
Sources
The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/sep/02/female-film-makers-squeezed-out-of-industry-bfi-london-film-festival
Source: The Guardian World
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Story synopsis gathered from: The Guardian World — source
