MONTREAL — Some of Quebec’s best-known female directors — among them Léa Pool and Manon Barbeau — say women aren’t getting their fair share of public filmmaking cash and are calling on the likes of Telefilm Canada and SODEC to set things right.

In an open letter published Thursday, International Women’s Day, in Montreal newspapers including Le Devoir and La Presse, the filmmakers blame indifferent public funding bodies, broadcasters and producers for shutting women out of the Quebec film industry.

‘We are alarmed by these figures,’ it reads. ‘We have been waiting for the balance to shift in our favour… but this is something that hasn’t happened.’

‘Shouldn’t a healthy film and television industry reflect a diversity of points of view?’

The filmmakers — working together as ‘Réalisatrices Équitables’ or ‘Female directors for Equity’ — maintain that female-directed projects backed by funders such as Telefilm and SODEC tend to be small-budget. Although women helmed almost a quarter of the films funded by SODEC in 2005/06, those projects received only 14% of the provincial agency’s total allotment, they say.

The group also says women appear to be working less, noting that in 1985/86 they directed 16% of the projects funded by SODEC’s production envelope (for both documentary and fiction). Today, that proportion has dropped to 14%. This despite evidence that more women are working in the industry than 20 years ago.

‘We are sounding the alarm bell. Something is wrong,’ said Pool (The Blue Butterfly, Set Me Free) in a telephone interview with Playback Daily from her home in Montreal. ‘I don’t understand it. I teach film and the classes are half women, half men. I see lots of talent, but for some reason they don’t make it to the shooting stage.’ Pool has been an instructor at the Université du Québec à Montréal and at the Institut national de l’image et du son.

A recent study by the B.C. Institute of Film Professionals also found that women in that province have made few gains as directors, writers and cinematographers since the 1980s.

Pool believes women get discouraged before they apply for funding because female stories might not fit the standard industry criteria for what makes a good film.

‘The female imagination is different. Perhaps the writing is different. And our ideas about what movies are supposed to be like have largely been developed by men,’ she says. ‘Broadcasters and distributors are concerned with how they can market the film, and if they don’t like your idea and get onside, you can’t get money.’

Pool, who considers herself privileged because she is constantly working, believes a comprehensive study is needed to get to the bottom of why there aren’t more successful women filmmakers in Quebec.

SODEC did not return calls to Playback Daily, but a spokeswoman for Telefilm points out that producers, not directors, apply for funding. ‘We fund production houses. It’s not Telefilm Canada who decides who a producer picks to direct his project,’ says Janine Basile.

But director Nicole Giguère (Entretien avec Anne Claire Poirier) maintains that Telefilm must be held accountable because the funding agencies know who will direct a project when a film is submitted for funding.

‘From the beginning there is always a director associated with a project, and often they are the writer. It’s rarely a question of the producer choosing the director after the project is funded,’ she says.

Filmmakers Philippe Falardeau, Serge Giguère, Jean-Pierre Lefevbre and Arnaud Bouquet also signed the letter.