SchspIN

An Actress's Thoughts

Age: A Picture is worth a Thousand Words

14. March 2014 by SchspIN

Age: A Picture is worth a Thousand Words – Alter: Ein Bild sagt mehr als 1000 Worte

8 Pictures for 4 intevestigated groups – 8 Bilder zu 4 untersuchten Gruppen

ZDF Fernsehfilme der Woche / ZDF TV Movies of the Week
180 F : 289 M = 1 : 1,6
25,6 % F & 42,6 % M > 50 Jahre / Years

ARD Tatorte / ARD Cop Drama Tatort
164 F : 248 M = 1 : 1,5
18,3 % F & 39,9 % M > 50 Jahre / Years

Top 100 dt. Kinofilme, erstgenannte Rollen / 100 Top Grossing Films, First Roles
37 F : 53 M = 1 : 1,4
18,9 % F & 20,8 % M > 50 Jahre / Years

Datenbank Filmmakers / German Acting Database „Filmmakers“
9780 F : 9636 M = 1 : 0,99
15,8 % F & 27,3 % M > 50 Jahre / Years

This gallery contains 0 photos

8. March 2014
by SchspIN
Comments Off on Audio: Wer spielt im dt. Fernsehen eine Rolle? – International Women’s Day

Audio: Wer spielt im dt. Fernsehen eine Rolle? – International Women’s Day

English Version follows German.

Podcasts: Wer spielt im dt. Fernsehen eine Rolle? Frauenbild zwischen Fernsehrealität und Wirklichkeit

Am 22. Januar 2014 fand im Grünen Salon der Berlin Volksbühne die Podiumsdiskussion “Wer spielt im deutschen Fernsehen eine Rolle?” statt, veranstaltet von WIFT Germany.

Das Panel:
Dr. Christine Otto, Drehbuchautorin, Dozentin. VDD Verband Dt.  Drehbuchautor/innen
Käthe Niemeyer, Regisseurin
Winka Wulff, Film- und Fernsehproduzentin. Polyphon Film- und Fernsehgesellschaft mbH
Anja Dihrberg, Casting Director, BVC Bundesverband Casting

Moderation:
Dr. Sylvia Nagel, Regisseurin, Produzentin, ProQuote Medien und WIFT Germany [Weiterlesen – Read On]

2. March 2014
by SchspIN
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The German Top Crime Series “Tatort” in 2013

The German Top Crime Series “Tatort” in 2013

A Look at Directors, Script Writers, Age Distribution of Casts and more

In 2013 The Cop Drama 90 min series TATORT (Crime Scene) has once again been the fictional programme with the allegedly largest audience, with an average of 9,3 Mio. per film. In just a few minutes (sunday evening, 8.15 pm) it’s time for the latest Tatort, directed by Harald Sicheritz which follows the trend of TATORTS being a men’s show:Tatorte11b13_RegBu_enIn 2013 the share of female directors went down to 5,6 % and that of the female writers down to 8,7 %, how come? Who is making the decisions? Don’t women want to work for TATORTs, or are they not being asked? It certainly can’t be for of female filmmakers, the shares of women in the professional associations is way above these low values. So it is about time the TV channels start discussing this issue in public.
By the way, last week Cooky Ziesche (producer) and Claudia Nothelle (head of programming) introduced the latest new TATORT duo for Berlin, Meret Becker and Mark Waschke are going to replace Dominic Raacke and Boris Aljinovic. And once again an opportunity for an all-female cop duo was missed? Why? The TATORT is a fictional programme, so what is there to prevent two female police detectives in the centre? CAGNEY AND LACEY was first broadcast in 1981 (CBS / USA), and since 2011 SCOTT AND BAILEY haven been solving crimes in the UK (ITV), so why did the rbb (that’s the regional broadcaster for Berlin and Brandenburg) not invent the two new cops Rubin and Karow as two women, one from the west, one from the east, one married with children, one a single, one younger, one older? (these are roughly the characteristics for the woman/man cops, oh, no, not the age, they are only 3 years apart).
Yes, certainly, the number of all-male duos is slowly getting less, but apart from Charlotte Lindholm (played by Maria Furtwängler) who solves crimes in the Hannover region and who paused in 2013, there a no teams without men.
Source of my investigations: the TATORT listings on the webpage of the ARD (first tv channel)Tatorte11b13_Teams_enIn 2011 and 2013 there were 36 TATORT premieres, in 2012 it were 35. Teams that went on air more than once in a year are also calculated into the statistics more than once.
The next figure shows the share of women and men for the cop teams and the main casts (chequered). By main cast I mean all the actresses and actors listed on the ARD webpage for a TATORT, minus the cops from the teams. For the teams, the share of women has risen in the last three years from 26 to just under 34 %, for the main casts there is practically no change (38, 36, 39 %). The share of women for the population in Germany is just under 51 %.Tatorte11b13_Cast_enFrancois Werner, in his blog Tatort Fundus, has been counting murderers and murdered in all TATORTs of 2013 (36 films with 73 people killed). I have been using his numbers and the official statistics for Germany (from the BKA / German Federal Office for Criminal Investigations) for my own evaluations, in blueish-green it’s the actual figures, in orange the fictionals from the TATORTs:Mordstat_enOn TV, in the TATORTs, far less women are murdered than in reality, on the other hand, on TV, in the TATORTs, women murder far more often than in reality.
Once again: the TATORT is fiction, but at the same time we can ask what sort of fictional world in being created. And in this context it is also quite telling to look at the age distribution of the casts.Tatort13_AlterTeams_enIn this figure all investigative teams are only listed once, no matter how often they were on screen in 2013, so we are looking at 14 actresses and 28 actors. The actresses are quite evenly distributed over the age groups. In the columns for the actors we see the senior cops on the right and the newcomers on the left. Next let’s look at the age distribution for all 36 main casts, as already stated without the leading teams. Also, 3 actors and 1 actress are missing on whom I could not find any information. The peak for these 341 actresses and actors is in the group of the 41 to 45-year olds.Tatort13_AlterCast_enWe get a very different and also very fictional picture, when we seperate the women from the men (with the actual numbers, the ratio of female to male roles is 1 to 1,6).Tatort13_AlterCastFM_enThe peak for the actresses is in the 36 to 40-years group, that for the actors is 10 years later, in the 46 to 50-years group.
For the actresses we get – even more distinctly than in the group of the TV Movies of the Week 2013 – two slumps in the urve: for the 26 to 35-year olds, and for those older than 45.
The age curve for the actors on the other hand looks quite normal, the slumps start at age 60, where at the same time actors are nearing their retirement age.
Earlier on I wrote it would be interesting to hear the TV channels talking about the lack of female directors and female script writers. When they do, they should also say something about the casting lists.

And finally, yet another sad information on TATORTs: Sebastian Kempkens wrote in the taz on December 22, 2013 about the intro to the films Ein Trinkgeld für die Regisseurin / a mere tip for the female director. Many may know the famous intro to all TATORTs (have a look and a listen here: Tatort intro). But only the composer Klaus Doldinger earns money for the many many repeats of it over the last decades, the female director Kristina Böttrich-Merdjanowa does not.
Indeed, the TATORT is not very nice to female filmmakers.

26. February 2014
by SchspIN
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Kein Jahr für Regisseurinnen – 2013 – A Bad Year for Female Directors

English Version follows German.

Kein Jahr für Regisseurinnen – die Top 100 deutschen Kinofilme 2013, die Top 20-Listen von 2001 bis 2013 und die Filmförderung 2013 (FFA)

Heute – in fünf bunten Bildern – geht es um die Top 100 deutschen Kinofilme 2013: die Genres, die Frauenanteile in den Bereichen Regie, Drehbuch und Produktion, das Alter und Geschlecht der erstgenannten Rollen. Dazu eine Untersuchung der  Top 20 deutschen Kinofilme 2001 bis 2013 in den genannten Positionen, und schließlich ein kurzer Blick auf von der FFA im Jahr 2013 geförderte Filmprojekte.

Die Liste der 100 an den Kinokassen erfolgreichsten deutsche Kinofilme stammt von der Filmförderungsanstalt FFA. Auf Platz 1  FACK JU GÖHTE, Regie und Drehbuch Bora Dagtekin, erstgenannte Rolle: Zeki Müller (Elyas M’Barek). Der Film ist übrigens auch die Nummer 1 der internationalen Liste, d.h. aller Filme in deutschen Kinos 2013, mit gut 5,6 Mio. verkauften Eintrittskarten. Auf Platz 100 der deutschen Produktionen steht STAUB AUF [Weiterlesen – Read On]

20. February 2014
by SchspIN
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Berlin Int. Film Festival 2014 and the Celluloid Ceiling

Berlin International Film Festival 2014 and the Celluloid Ceiling

Today let’s have a look at the films in competition at the 64th International Film Festival Berlin and at an intervention by Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić on gender imbalance in the film business.

Last sunday was the final day of this year’s – snowfree – Berlinale. Two events especially stuck out for me in those 11 exciting and inspring days and nights: I was lucky to get a ticket for the premiere of the Japanese competition entry 小さいおうち/ CHIISAI O UCHI (The little House) by Yôji Yamada. A wonderful film! One of the leading actresses, Haru Kuroki, was awarded a Silver Bear.

And secondly, I met Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić, whose very impressive and touching film ESMA’S SECRET: GRBAVICA I saw 8 years ago, when it won the Golden Bear at the 2006 Berlinale.

Žbanić participated in this year’s panel discussion „Get yourself connected – a discussion on the status of women in film and gender equity“ organized by the International Women’s Film Festival Dortmund Köln, and she started the event with an intervention which I may use in this blog. Hvala puno!

But bevore we get to that here are some statistics on this year’s Berlinale competition: 20 films were in it, among them BA RI YAN HUO (Black Coal, Thin Ice), which won the Golden Bear for director Yinan Diao. Continue Reading →

12. February 2014
by SchspIN
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Komödie statt Krimi: Die Top 100 dt. Kinofilme 2012 – Top 100 German Films 2012: Comedy over Crime

English Version follows German.

Komödie statt Krimi: Die Top 100 deutschen Kinofilme 2012

Morgen, am 13. Februar, gibt die Filmförderungsanstalt FFA die Statistiken für 2013 bekannt, darunter die Jahresliste der an den Kinokassen 100 erfolgreichsten deutschen Filme des vergangenen Jahres, die Top 100. Diese werde ich demnächst näher betrachten, zuvor soll  es aber heute um die 100 erfolgreichsten deutschen Filme 2012 gehen: die Genres, die Frauen- und Männeranteile in den Gewerken Gewerke Regie, Drehbuch und Produzent/in, und die erstgenannten Rollen in den Besetzungslisten.

Letzten März hatte ich die Top 12 Filme im 6-Gewerke-Check ausgewertet  (Deutsche Top Kinofilme 2012) und im Juni dann 11 Gewerke von u.a. den Top 17 Filmen  (Kunst oder Kommerz, wo arbeiten die Filmfrauen? Teil 1 Die Gewerke).
Als ich mich auf die Suche nach den deutschen Kinofilmen von 2013 machte, landete ich bei der FFA und ihren umfassenden – wenn auch etwas versteckten – Listen, (die sich leider auch nicht direkt verlinken lassen. FFA-Webseite -> Marktdaten -> Filmhitlisten -> Jahresliste (deutsch) -> Jahr wählen), und erfuhr, dass sie während der Berlinale veröffentlicht werden. 100 Filme sind ja mal eine größere Datenmenge für eine Auswertung, und warum dann nicht zuvor noch die 100 Filme des Vorjahrs betrachten? Darum soll es heute gehen: [Weiterlesen – Read On]

31. January 2014
by SchspIN
Comments Off on Grimmepreisnominierungen – Check – Nominations for German TV Awards

Grimmepreisnominierungen – Check – Nominations for German TV Awards

English Version follows German.

Kurz und knapp: ein Check der 17 fiktionalen Grimmepreisnominierungen 2014 

Zum Wochenende gibt es ein paar bunte Bildchen: es geht los mit dem erweiterten 6-Gewerke-Check der Nominierungen zum Grimmepreis 2014 im Wettbewerb Fiktion / Einzelsendungen, die diese Woche bekannt gegeben wurden, und zwei Größen zur Besetzung.
Die Auswertung ging diesmal recht schnell, da die Seite vom Grimmeinstitut die meisten Zahlen aufführt. Interessanterweise wird an erster Stelle das Drehbuch genannt, danach erst die Regie. Die Produzent/innen werden nicht genannt (die habe ich aus der Crew United Datenbank), dafür gab es Angaben zu den Redakteur/innen, die ich erstmals in einer SchspIN-Auswertung einbeziehe. Der schnelle Besetzungscheck untersucht die erstgenannten Rollen und die Geschlechterverteilung im auf der Grimmepreisseite genannten Hauptcast.Grimme_2014_dGestern las ich die schwedische Schlagzeile „Männen dominerar filmbranschen i  Norden“, ähnliches  gilt auch hier, das viele Pink sticht schon ziemlich in die Augen – was aber auch an der Einstellung meines Monitors liegen kann. [Weiterlesen – Read On]

27. January 2014
by SchspIN
Comments Off on ZDF Fernsehfilme der Woche 2013 – TV Movies of the Week on ZDF 2013

ZDF Fernsehfilme der Woche 2013 – TV Movies of the Week on ZDF 2013

English Version follows German.

ZDF Fernsehfilme der Woche 2013

Kurzfassung: eine Analyse der Rollen- und Altersverteilung nach Geschlechtern von den 46 Filmen der ZDF-Reihe „Fernsehfilm der Woche“ 2012. Wieder einmal gibt es deutlich mehr und ältere Männer- als Frauenrollen. Ein Hoffnungsschimmer: mehr als 50 % der Besetzungslisten werden von Schauspielerinnen angeführt.

Montags um 20.15 Uhr läuft im Zweiten Programm regelmäßig der Fernsehfilm der Woche. Allerdings, wer denkt, in dieser Reihe werden keine Krimi gesendet, täuscht sich, denn tatsächlich gab es 2013 bei den 46 Filmen dieser Rubrik einen 3/4 Anteil von Krimis und Thrillern. Die Filme wurden – mal wieder – sehr mehrheitlich von Männern inszeniert, der Frauenanteil in der Regie lag bei 9 % (im Regieverband ist der Anteil 24 %, in der Abbildung links mit der kleinen grünen Raute dargestellt) und bei den Drehbüchern sind die entsprechenden Frauenanteile 35 % (Fernsehfilme) und 40 % (VDD).

FFilm13_RegBu_Gen_dDas bedeutet, dass nur jede 3. Geschichte von einer Frau geschrieben wurde und weniger als jede 10. von einer Frau filmisch umgesetzt wurde.
Ist das schlimm? Erzählen alle Männer Geschichten komplett anders als es alle Frauen tun würden? Natürlich nicht. Aber natürlich ist so ein Ungleichgewicht natürlich auch nicht. Es wäre [Weiterlesen – Read On]

24. January 2014
by SchspIN
Comments Off on Women’s Patience…

Women’s Patience…

Women’s Patience is Men’s Power

Last Wednesday evening a panel discussion took place in the Green Salon of the Volksbühne Berlin, hosted by WIFT Germany with the topic “Who plays a part on German TV? Female image between TV reality and real life”. Moderated by Dr. Sylvia Nagel (director / producer, ProQuote), the film ladies Dr. Christine Otto (author, VDD), Käthe Niemeyer (director), Winka Wulff (Film- and TV producer, Polyphon) und Anja Dihrberg (Casting Director, BVC) gave a brilliant performance with engaging, competent and entertaining discussions. I was also there presenting some facts and figures from my blog and will wirte a bit more about the discussion at a later date.
Tomorrow, Saturday 25th, journalist Jörg Wagner will broadcast extracts from the discussion and interviews with parts of the audience on Radioeins RBB, a German radio station, in his programme MEDIENMAGAZIN between 6 and 7 p.m.
Shortly after the discussion I read a tweet on Twitter that criticized the composition of the panel: @VeraLi asked why there were no men on the panel, adding that men also shape TV, and that in situations of all-male panels there is criticism as well.

VeraLi_Maenner2I am all in favour of men (from the world of TV or else) discussing the issue openly, of men sitting on panels and taking a stand. Definitely.
For Wednesday there were no arguments against a man on the podium – there just happened to be no man present. The professional organizations for example (like the script writers’ and the casting directors’ guilds) where asked to name a representative and they sent a woman. And actually without men the discussion reached an unusual level of personal closeness to the issue.
Why is that?
Because there were five women on the podium deeply and multiply affected by the issue, in ways unexperienced by men. They are affected, because they work in the German television business, which is tougher for women than for their male colleagues. They are affected as part of the female TV audience that are regularly confronted with fossil female images. And they are affected because they are older than 40.
In German fictional television there is a distinct male majority of screen characters, women over 40 appear far more seldom than men of the same age, far far more male than female directors stage the scripts that are written by a majority of men, for TV channels headed by men.

Of course male filmmakers can talk about this issue, about stereotypied role clichés and about how difficult it is to fight this situation and enforce alternative, pathbreaking new stories and formats against the tv channels.
But to adopt the qualfied demand for the inclusion of women in discussions, panels, talkshows, leadership positions and more (in other words: the discussion of quota and better representation) and simply turn it around in favour of men is well-meant, friendly and understanding, but unfortunately a long way off the crux of the matter, and maybe easier said than thought about. This is a general thought on this, and not directed at @VeraLi and her tweets specifically.

This reflex, if we want to call it that, to simply turn around political demands, this sort of sense of justice, comes to nothing. It does not make sense to call for a quota for men, because they are not discriminated against as a group in society. Women on the other hand are.
It does not make much sense to side the phrase fom many job advertisments – “applications by women will be preferentially favoured if they are comparably qualified” and “we would like to encourage women’s applications” with an inverted “applications by men will be preferentially favoured if they are comparably qualified”. Both is not possible at the same time, and these types of job advertisments have been developed to fight the underrepresentation of women in the public and private sector on many levels.

Since I started blogging a year ago I have hoped for a public discussion in Germany on film, television and gender injustice, and for more than half a year I have advocated an event like this week’s, and therefore I am very happy that it took place as the – long overdue – first act of this discussion. (This may be untrue of course, because naturally I don’t know of all events and discussion in this town or country, maybe some have taken place already which would be great!). In any case to me and many others, that were present that evening in the Green Salon, it appeared to have been a premiere, finally finally a discussion on a wider scale, supported by strong data, of a topic that has been causing great pains to many of us for years, women as well as men.

“Wer spielt im deutschen Fernsehen eine Rolle? / Who plays a part on German TV?”
January 22, 2014, Grüner Salon der Volksbühne Berlin. Photo: WIFT Germany

By the way, in addition to tomorrow’s radio programme MEDIENMAGAZIN another radio channel will be reporting on the panel discussion, but probably not until March or April: the show ZEITPUNKTE on the RBB-channel KULTURRADIO. ZEITPUNKTE (points in time) is a programme dealing with female political issues, at least that is how the programme was introduced on Wednesday night. (I could not fight an English expression for Frauenpolitik, politics for women? so I used “female political issues”.)
Yes of course, reports on the panel discussion and even more importantly on the problems discussed therein is a good thing, whether on the radio, in newspapers, on television, on the interhet or whereever. But: this is not a women’s issue.
It is not a women’s issue when the television programmes are bad. It is not a women’s issue when actresses don’t have work. It is not a women’s issue when women from a certain age onwards disappear from German TV screens. It is not a men’s issue when 5 men and 1 woman are guests in a talk show. It is not a men’s issue when 94 % of the TATORTE (Crime Scene. Germany’s most popular crime investigation TV series) are directed by men. These a society’s issues. Media issues. Political issues. Economical issues.
I am looking forward to the report on KULTURRADIO, but at the same time I am hoping for articles in the feuilleton and media pages or the economic section of major daily or weekly newspapers.

“Who plays a part on German TV?” is a social and media political question, that concerns and affects both men and women – and in many cases is a burning issue for both.

————————————–

It’s Friday today, and also the birthday of Klaus Nomi, who unfortunately died much too early. Nomi was a brilliant singer and an impressive personality and never complied with conventions and role clicés. Today he would have been 70. With a recording of his song Simple Man from 1982 I wish all readers of SchspIN a happy weekend.

Yes I’m a simple man
Come now and take my hand
Now Together, Never to be lonely
Yes I’m a simple man
I do the best I can
Now Together, just remember only
It’s so simple

14. January 2014
by SchspIN
Comments Off on 25 Spielfilme in der Lola-Vorauswahl – 25 Films preselected for the German Film Awards

25 Spielfilme in der Lola-Vorauswahl – 25 Films preselected for the German Film Awards

English Version follows German.

Vor ein paar Tagen wurde von der Deutschen Filmakademie die Vorauswahl für die diesjährigen Deutschen Filmpreise bekannt gegeben, eine Jury hatte aus allen angemeldeten deutschen Kinofilmen des letzten Jahres eine Reihe programmfüllender Spielfilme, Kinderfilme und Dokumentarfilme ausgewählt, dazu wurde noch eine kleine Anzahl von Einzelleistungen nachbenannt (d.h. diese Filme sind nicht für eine Nominierung in allen Kategorien angemeldet).
Aus dieser Vorauswahl wird nun per grob gewerkeweiser Abstimmung unter den Mitgliedern der Filmakademie die Nominiertenliste ermittelt, und daraus dann die Preisträger/innen gewählt.

Ich habe für heute die 25 vorausgewählten programmfüllenden Spielfilme im 6-Gewerke-Check ausgewertet, d.h. jeweils für Regie, Drehbuch, Produzent/in, Kamera, Ton und Schnitt den prozentualen Frauenanteil ausgerechnet. Nein, in 7 Gewerken, Szenenbild kam noch dazu. In der Datenbank von crew united sind gut die Hälfte aller in den aufgenommenen Filmproduktionen tätigen Szenenbildleute Frauen (53,4 %). Im Berufsverband beträgt der Frauenanteil 32,5 %. Der Berufsverband hieß seit der Gründung 1983 SFK Verband der Szenenbildner, Filmarchitekten und Kostümbildner, er wurde im August 2013 umbenannt in  VSK Verband der Berufsgruppen Szenenbild und Kostümbild – eine gute Entscheidung!

Die Filme: Gewerke ohne Frauen / ohne Männer?

Abbildung 1 zeigt Klassen, von links nach rechts [Weiterlesen – Read On]