The Gimli Film Festival (GFF) is doing its part to celebrate and promote women in film.

The annual lakeside festival announced recently that 40-60 per cent of this year’s programming will be women-directed or women-written films, many of which will be highlighted in The Future is Female Film Series.

“I’m a member of the jury and I’m seeing so many of these great films from around the world and it’s really not challenging to include that number of films from female filmmakers,” GFF Board Member and filmmaker Rebecca Gibson said. “There’s a louder and growing conversation about gender parity in the film industry and I believe there should be parity across the board.”

“Everyone should feel there is a place where their voice is being shared through the medium of film,” Gibson continued. “The world is half women and so to should be the film industry. Audiences love to see content that represents them and to me, I believe if we want to represent our society authentically, we need to make space for women in the film industry.”

Gibson says in addition to The Future if Female Film series, GFF will also host an outreach project called Future is Female Mentorship Program.

“We are going to take a busload of female filmmakers, directors, producers, writers, director’s of photography, camera operators, technicians and anyone else who identifies as someone who creates content within the film industry,” Gibson said. “We are going to pile on a bus from Winnipeg to the Gimli Film Festival and spend an incredible day of programming together.”

Gibson says the 50 women who take part in the mentorship program will attend acting workshops, attend screenings of female-directed content, attend a panel discussion hosted by Women in View, and go to a reception where they can network with other female filmmakers.

A number of Manitoba-based film production companies are 100 per cent behind the initiative, according to Gibson.

Gibson feels in the film industry as a whole, the space women occupy is growing rapidly as more people respond to a calls to action to have more diversity in the film industry. She says representatives with Women in View came to her to do an event in Manitoba a few months ago and she felt it was important to include the Gimli Film Festival, which is one of the province’s largest gathering spots for the film industry and audiences.

“People sometimes go ‘why don’t women just make movies?’ but it hasn’t always been that simple,” Gibson said. “As we’ve seen with the powerful women marching at Cannes to Frances McDormand’s Oscar speech, there is a call to action and the Gimli Film Festival felt the need to answer that call.”

“Everything is coming together to make that happen.”

The Gimli Film Festival takes place from July 25-29, 2018. Anyone who wants to apply for The Future is Female Mentorship Program can do so at gimlifilm.com.

Gibson says if this year’s program goes well, they will likely expand it in the future.