To raise awareness of the discrimination and gender bias that women are facing in the the workplace in Australia, a short film called Beside Not Behind has been produced by a crew made of mostly women.
Olivia Cheung, an integrated producer at The Royals and Cassie De Colling, a director with The Otto Empire produced the film after studies found that in the Australian film industry, women make up 32% of producers, 16% of directors and 23% of writers.
The film follows three women talking about the times in which they face gender bias, presumption and misconception. It hopes to promote the message that support can, and should, go both ways, based on the old saying of “behind every great man is a great woman”.
The film was written, shot and edited in two weeks, and released in conjunction with International Women’s Day.
“It was an ambitious goal to begin with; typically a social campaign of this size would be planned for at least six months, and we managed to get this together from concept to delivery in three weeks, with the support of so many people willing to donate their time and skills,” Cheung said.
“It just goes to show how many people connected with the #BesideNotBehind message – to make things truly equal and not about gender, it’s about supporting each other. There’s a lot of mixed feelings around the gender equality and feminist movement that can divide men and women, and that’s why we felt it was important to share a message that it’s about supporting each other, which I think is the unique thing about our campaign.”
