90-60-90

A number of reasons have made me dedicate the video-essay 90-60-90 to the woman and her body. The very beginning of this issue goes way back in the past, when I was a young woman protesting against how the mainstream media distorted the notion of the woman’s body, objectifying and scorning it. I felt quite lonely and excluded because I couldn’t accept the social standards and stereotypes imposed by my family and community. I perceived myself as a human being, having equal rights as men in all areas of life, and not as an object having or striving to have the ideal 90-60-90 size. Over 25 years later, little has changed. Even worse, with the introduction of new media and technologies, the presentation of the woman and her body has become increasingly brutal and subtle. Likewise, the discrimination and negative behaviour patterns of the past have remained and accepted as social standards. For instance, I can quote a few headlines from the news websites that I have been visiting lately:
– Everyone was flabbergasted when they saw her in the shortest hot pants ever!
– One of the world’s most beautiful actresses is breath-taking in her red dress with a dangerous cleavage.
– At the curves market the shares of her attributes are going up!
– She posted a photo of her crotch.
– Everybody is talking about a transparent dress on which only little flowers covered her intimate parts.
– The singer’s heiress is brutally sexy, on social networks she kills with luscious breasts and long legs.
As I like walking, I started to pay attention and photograph the billboards along my route. Beautiful female bodies were advertising literally everything, from apparel to air conditioning equipment! So I thought how sick it is, in this 21st century, to keep perceiving women as bodies – perfect, young, naked, sexy, and ultimately photoshopped. Presenting the woman in such a scornful and insulting way is the promotion of gender inequality. Moreover, the media heavily impact our sub-consciousness – we tend to accept unreal, photoshopped and fake patterns, and then try to transfer them in real life. Of course they don’t work that way. Societies tolerating discrimination and media ignoring responsibility and ethical limits encourage hate speech, sexism and violence, and cause huge damage to real individuals.
It is high time to give the woman’s body the dignity, respect and freedom it deserves. I would like to see women perceived as real, capable, valuable, ambitious, intelligent and sensitive persons who are beautiful in their own peculiar ways, and who, in addition to the external beauty, have their dreams, visions, and voice. As a woman, I need to be safe, free and recognised, and have equal rights because, after all, I am just a human being.

An afterthought:
Considering the social and business environment in which female film makers create, I would like to thank my family and all the participants who supported this project and did their best to help me complete the film and enable my voice to be heard.
As for the environment, here are some figures that speak for themselves: In 72 years of the Cannes Film Festival, out of 87 women and 1881 men who have had their feature films competing for a Palme d’Or, only one woman has won the prestigious top prize (Jane Campion for The Piano in 1993). Throughout the 91-year history of the Academy Awards, only five women have ever been nominated for the Best Director Oscar. In 2010, Kathryn Bigelow was the first female filmmaker to win the prize (for directing The Hurt Locker, which also ended up winning Best Picture). BBC gathered data from ten most relevant film festivals worldwide from 1990 to 2018, finding out that 74% of the award-winning films featured male key roles. USA TODAY surveyed 843 women who work in the entertainment industry in a variety of roles (producers, actors, writers, directors, editors and others). Nearly all of the women who responded to the survey (94%) say they have experienced some form of harassment or assault, while more than one-fifth of the respondents (21%) say they have been forced to do something sexual at least once. In Croatia, the country where I come from, the figures are sobering as well: at Pula Film Festival, established in 1954, only 2.7% of female directors have been nominated for Zlatna Arena (the best film award) and no woman has ever won the prize. A total of 209 feature films made in Croatia from 1990 to 2019 had 7% female directors, 12% screenwriters and 2.6% directors of photography.