The results of the study on gender imbalance in Russian cinema have been published

The Journal of Cultural Analytics has published an article by Xenia Leontyeva, Olessia Koltsova, and Deb Verhoeven, dedicated to the relationship between women on and behind the screen in Russian cinema and the film admissions.

The article analyzes the relationship between the gender composition of film creators and female representation on screen based on film distribution data from 2008 to 2019. It also examines the access of female-led teams to resources for film production and distribution, as well as the audience's reaction to films with strong female characters. The results show that, similar to trends worldwide, women hold significantly fewer key positions in Russian cinema than men. However, Russian audiences do not exhibit bias against films with non-stereotypical female characters at the center of the plot. The study also proposes a modification of the Bechdel-Wallace test based on the calculation of the proportion of dialogue spoken by women.

This research was part of a collaborative project between the Laboratory of Social and Cognitive Informatics at HSE University and the Producers Department of the Saint Petersburg State Institute of Cinema and Television. It involved over 90 students from both institutions.
The article is accompanied by databases and an suppliment providing a detailed description of the factors related to film attendance included in the model.