Netflix pledges $5 million to train and mentor female filmmakers

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Shalanda Young could end up as Neera Tanden’s replacement nominee, 32-year-old twin sisters make an IPO splash, and Netflix has a new initiative to support female directors. Have a fabulous Thursday!

– Stream on. The Broadsheet is on the record as skeptical of corporate marketing around International Women’s Day. We are not here for your silly PR stunts. But initiatives that put real money behind efforts to support women? That’s a different story.

So it was with great interest that I read Emma’s exclusive reporting this morning on a new effort by Netflix. In connection with IWD, the $25 billion- streaming giant is committing $5 million to training and mentorship programs for female filmmakers, part of a broader five-year, $100 million commitment to diversity in entertainment.

In the film industry, women continue to be underrepresented behind the camera. Over 13 years ending in 2019, women directed 4.8% of 1,300 popular movies. A study by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative that Netflix commissioned found that the company hired female directors for 23% of its films in 2018 and 2019—significantly better than the industry as a whole, but still far from equal.

The new initiative is not necessarily meant to groom future Netflix directors, but Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s head of global TV, told Emma that she hopes more support for women industry-wide will benefit several studios and streamers, Netflix included.

“This isn’t uniquely for us,” Bajaria says. “It’s for the industry as a whole to have much more dynamic, interesting, multi-dimensional representation of women. … We hope that maybe they’d be employed on Netflix shows, but also that they just have careers and tell their stories wherever this takes them.”

You can read more about the initiative—including some of the first programs to receive Netflix’s funding—here.

Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman

The Broadsheet, Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women, is coauthored by Kristen Bellstrom, Emma Hinchliffe, and Claire Zillman. Today’s edition was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.

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