Vimeo to Fund Female Filmmakers Under Brand New Initiative

In a bid to try to change the current disappointing state of affairs for women in Hollywood, Vimeo has announced that they’ve launched a brand new initiative called Share the Screen. This initiative will seek out female filmmakers in order to help them with funding, promoting, and selling their films. The hope is that by doing so, they’ll be able to widen the platform upon which women can tell their stories without having their voices drowned out by money woes or lack of recognition.

It’s no big secret that things are pretty bad for women working in the film industry right now. Even though women who work both in front of and behind the camera are doing their best to shed light on the problems, there isn’t enough actually being done to change the way things are right now.

Vimeo’s initiative falls in line with Vimeo’s overall mission, which continues to be the democratization of film production. They want to give everybody the permission and the ability to share their stories through film–especially those who might not have the chance to do so through conventional means. As Vimeo CEO Kerry Trainor said at Sundance today:

When we see all of the information from the past couple years about just how wide the gender equality gap is in the entertainment industry, lending our support identifying and celebrating female voices made all the sense in the world.

They’re aiming to bankroll a minimum of five films by the end of the year. This might not sound like a large number, but I think if the right projects get funded, then Share the Screen has a strong chance at garnering more attention–and thus, more funding–for female filmmakers. Here’s hoping that they can also do more.

The first Share the Screen film they’re funding comes from a source you might actually be familiar with already: Saturday Night Live‘s Aidy Bryant. She’s created a film called Darby Forever, which you can check out through the trailer below.

(via WIRED)

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