Vimeo is trying to fill the gender gap in filmmaking now. The video-making website has announced a new initiative called “Share the Screen” at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. With this three-pronged program, Vimeo will fund the female filmmakers financially to bring in more women into the industry. Vimeo is the first-ever to launch such an initiative for gender equality on a larger scenario.

“When we see all of the information from the past couple years about just how wide the gender equality gap is in the entertainment industry, lending our support identifying and celebrating female voices made all the sense in the world,” expressed Vimeo CEO Kerry Trainor to Wired.

Also Read: Arabic women filmmakers making a mark in cinema

Though, Hollywood has a few female filmmakers, but the number is awfully low. Only 13% female filmmakers are there in the world’s one of the biggest film industry- Hollywood, according to a year 2014 survey. “When we look at the figures and we see just how imbalanced the scales are in terms of the content that we’re seeing from male versus female voices, we think it’s important because we can just imagine how much great content and great storytelling isn’t making it to audiences and isn’t making it to viewers and we want to be a part of helping close that gender equality gap,” Trainor told TechCrunch.

Vimeo will financially support at least five films made by women this year. Their first project is going to be Darby Forever, which is scripted and starred by the famous TV show, Saturday Night Live’s actor Aidy Bryant. The movie is about a shop girl in a weird little town and her quest for love. Another empowering aspect of this initiative is that Vimeo will add a new feature in its website and blog with the same name as the initiative to bring more attention to its female directors. It will list all the films directed by women that vimeo has approved by the name Female-Directed, Vimeo-Approved.

Only 19% filmmakers are women in Hollywood

This initiative by Vimeo is a smaller version of the Sundance Institute’s program that encourages at least 25% of female directors to make it to the Sundance Film Festival. This percentage may not be quite equal, but it is definitely better that the earlier 4% that used to be showcased at the prestigious film festival.

This may be about America in particular; the situation in the Indian film industry, majorly Bollywood is no better.  The number of women filmmakers is regressively minimal. However, more women are coming up, but there is yet opportunity for a drastic change. It is especially harder for women to encroach the space that men are so comfortable in dominating.

Picture Credit- FStoppers