Women in Film and Television International (WIFTI)

Overview

Women in Film and Television International (WIFTI) is the international network connecting Women in Film and Television organizations across more than 40 countries. Founded in 1986, WIFTI facilitates the exchange of resources, research, advocacy strategies, and professional development programs between its national member organizations, amplifying the impact of gender equity work in the screen industries beyond what individual national organizations can achieve alone.

WIFTI member organizations span the full range of screen industry development contexts: established organizations like Women in Film Los Angeles (now Women in Film) with decades of history and substantial resources, alongside newer organizations in countries where formal women's professional screen organizations are still developing. This diversity of organizational maturity within the WIFTI network creates opportunities for knowledge transfer -- more established organizations sharing program models, advocacy strategies, and research frameworks with organizations building their capacity.

Global Screen Industry Gender Data

One of WIFTI's primary functions is facilitating the collection and comparison of gender representation data across national screen industries. Individual national organizations collect data on women's employment in their domestic industries, and WIFTI aggregates and compares this data to identify global patterns, benchmark progress, and identify where targeted advocacy has produced measurable change.

This comparative data serves multiple purposes. For policy advocates, comparative evidence showing that countries with strong gender equity policies outperform those without on industry diversity metrics provides the empirical foundation for policy arguments. For industry decision-makers, comparative data on the creative and commercial performance of productions led by women challenges assumptions about risk that perpetuate gender-based hiring disparities.

Professional Development Exchange

WIFTI facilitates professional development exchanges between member organizations, including international mentoring programs that connect emerging women professionals in one country with established practitioners in another. These international exchanges provide professional development value beyond what any single national organization can offer -- exposure to different production cultures, international professional networks, and the perspective that comes from understanding how the screen industry operates differently in different cultural contexts.

WIFTI Awards

WIFTI presents the WIFTI Awards at its biennial summit, recognizing women who have made significant contributions to the advancement of women in the screen industry through professional achievement, advocacy, or organizational leadership. The awards recognize contributors across all professional levels and all national contexts, celebrating progress toward gender equity as a global achievement.

What Filmmakers Should Know

For women professionals working in national screen industries, understanding that their national Women in Film organization is part of an international network provides perspective on how gender equity challenges in their country compare to other markets and what approaches have worked elsewhere. The WIFTI network's research and advocacy resources are accessible through national member organizations.

For producers and studios making public gender equity commitments, WIFTI's comparative international data provides benchmarks against which genuine progress can be measured, distinguishing between statistical improvement and structural change.

See Also

For the US Women in Film organization, see Women in Film (WIF) in this directory. For gender equity research on screen content, see Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in this directory.