ReFrame & IMDbPro Team To Launch Gender-Balance Stamp For Film And TV

ReFrame, a coalition of Hollywood pros and partner companies founded by Women In Film and Sundance Institute, is taking the wraps off its ReFrame Stamp on IMDbPro. The stamps were first tipped in March when the group introduced a handbook with key proposals to help promulgate meaningful reform and diverse hiring practices in the film and TV businesses.

Culled from IMDbPro data, the stamps will be awarded to narrative features and television programs that hire female-identifying people in 4 out of 8 critical areas of their production including writer, director, producer, lead, co-lead, speaking parts, department heads and crew. Additional points are awarded to content that has women of color in key positions. The full criteria is now available at ReFrameProject.org (here).

The group also revealed the first recipients of the stamp for the top 100 domestic-grossing films of 2017. The list includes Warner Bros’ Everything, Everything and Wonder Woman, Universal’s Girls Trip, A24’s Lady Bird and Fox’s The Post. The top TV show stamp recipients will be announced soon.

The groups said 2017 and 2018 films and TV shows outside of the top 100 can apply for the stamp starting June 15 via ReFrameProject.org. ReFrame and IMDbPro will featured stamped content at festivals and entertainment events.

“Through this collaboration we are committed to cultivating a more inclusive media landscape that illuminates the cultural and economic benefits of diversity in storytelling,” said producer Cathy Schulman, a ReFrame co-founder. “We’re grateful to IMDbPro for enabling us to utilize their data expertise to better and more thoroughly highlight industry-leading projects that reflect diversity in the real world.

“While 2017 saw an uptick in films directed by women, throughout the past decade, the growth curve of female directors in the top 100 list has been flat, with women accounting for just 4.3 percent of the total from 2007 to 2016. It is our hope that the stamp will continue to expand
opportunities for women in all positions, in front of and behind the camera, throughout the screen industries each year.”