The Carol star has started this venture with Coco Francini and Dr Stacy L. Smith
BY SCARLETT COUGHLAN, IMAGE BY DREAMSTIME
When Cate Blanchett – DIVA-favourite, Oscar-winner and star of LGBTQIA dramas Carol and Tár – walked onto set to learn she was the only woman there, she knew she had to do something.
In an interview with People, Blanchett revealed: “I was not only the only woman in front of the camera, I was the only woman on set. My shoulders sank. I wasn’t angry, I was disappointed.”
In response to the incident at the unnamed movie set, Blanchett decided to launch the Proof Of Concept Accelerator Programme at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles to help women, trans and non-binary individuals break into the film industry.
Joining Blanchett on her venture are Emmy-nominated producer Coco Francini – co-founder of Blanchett’s production company, Dirty Films – and Dr Stacy L. Smith, a leading academic in issues of inequality in entertainment and a professor at the university where the programme will take place.
The programme will help individuals in three key areas: funding, mentorship and exposure.
Supported by Netflix’s Fund For Creative Equity, eight filmmakers will receive $50,000 to create a short film which will serve as a “proof of concept” for a television series or a feature-length film.
Programme participants will also be entitled to one-to-one mentorship from leaders in the film industry.
Finally, the filmmakers will have the opportunity to showcase their projects, giving them the exposure that is ever-lacking in the Hollywood-dominated industry.
The Proof Of Concept Accelerator Programme follows the latest annual report from Dr Smith, which concluded that as little as six directors across 1,600 top-grossing movies from 2007 to 2022 were women.
The report also determined that less than a third of speaking characters in these movies were women, girls, trans or non-binary people.
“We’ve had so many moments where the achievements and the endeavours of women have been highlighted, that it makes me think we’ve moved, we’ve shifted,” Blanchett said. “Then you look at the data that Dr. Stacy has compiled with the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, and go, ‘Things are not moving quickly enough.’”
When trying to make change, “you cannot be complacent”, Blanchett observed.
And complacent she is not – applications to the programme open as soon as 3 January 2024.
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