“One of the biggest problems is that women’s films aren’t being seen, so we want to showcase them,” explains Brian Carver. His solution? The
Breakthroughs Film Festival, which he helped found four years ago. Breakthroughs focuses on emerging female directors, ages 18 to 35, and their short films. Carver and his wife, who co-founded the festival, credit their interest in feminism, gender disparity and film for the push to create the festival.
As their website explains, “Breakthroughs refers to the struggles women artists face in an industry where they make up only 6 percent of directors and must, in many cases, work even harder than their male counterparts to make their voices heard.” This year’s festival, held on June 5 and 6 at Innis Town Hall on the University of Toronto Campus, showcased seventeen films by Canadian and international directors. We give an opportunity for local filmmakers from Toronto and Ontario to have their work shown along international directors and in an international context. For the public, we give them a chance to see films that they otherwise wouldn’t see. We’re also helping raise awareness of that gender disparity in the arts,” Carver says
“We look for original stories and innovative production work. There seems to be this thought that women only make a certain type of film, and that’s not the case. We show action films, thrillers, romantic comedies, and the thing they have in common is that they’re directed by women.” This year’s winner, a meditation on memory called Somewhere Exactly, was directed by Quebec filmmaker Kristina Wagenbauer and shot in Paris.
This year’s festival included more chances for interactivity, such as Q & As with a growing number of film directors. “We’ve had more directors than we’ve ever had before come out to the festival. When you’re a short film director, there’s not a lot of opportunity to see your films with a large audience.” Breakthroughs is trying to change that.