Pathways to Equity: the Special Edition Seminar Podcast

Industry Insights – The EFM Podcast is presented by the European Film Market of the Berlinale. Hosted by Curator and Impact Producer Nadia Denton, it delves deep into the rapidly evolving film industry.

Funded by Creative Europe MEDIA and taking place yearly at the EFM 2023, 2024 and 2025, the Equity & Inclusion Pathways Seminar is an industry-wide consultation forum that brings together European decision-makers, advocacy groups, stakeholders and change-makers with the aim of shifting the needle regarding equity, inclusion and accessibility in terms of policymaking, strategy, measures and actions. The change and advances that this Seminar aims to bring about for the European film industry are resolutely structural, and involve not only integrating marginalised groups into a European film sector that is free of biases, barriers and exclusions but also valuing the hitherto unrealised potential of the contributions of marginalised film professionals to the industry as well as redistributing resources and decision-making power more equitably. Featuring the Seminar’s 3 moderators (Nadia Denton, Yolanda Rother and Sailesh Naidu), one of the Ambassadors, Tina Trapp (EAVE), the leadership of OMNI Inclusion Data, Helge Albers (MOIN Film Fund) and a speaker and representative of an advocacy group, Julian Carrington (REMC - Racial Equity Media Collective), this episode will explore the mission, vision, objectives and challenges to implementing effective, long-lasting and sustainable DEI and accessibility policies at institutional level across the European screen industries.

OMNI Inclusion Data aims to underpin the diversity of the media and culture sector and the people working in it with factual data. At the same time, OMNI Inclusion Data aims to close the blank spots due to a lack of data. OMNI also intends to collect data that is compliant with data protection legislation from cast and crew on a voluntary basis and provide the industry with the most up-to-date analysis on inclusion statistics. With the OMNI project, the initiator MOIN Film Fund, in co-operation with Australia’s The Everyone Project, is taking on this important task for the European film industry and, more importantly, taking a leadership role in promoting diversity in the industry.

The host Nadia Denton (she/her) has worked in the UK film industry for over a decade as an Impact Producer, Curator and Author. She specialises in Nigerian Cinema and coined the term BEYOND NOLLYWOOD. She has worked with the BFI London Film Festival, Berlinale EFM, British Film Institute, British Council, Doc Society, London Film School, Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival and Comic Relief. Her books include The Nigerian Filmmaker’s Guide to Success: Beyond Nollywood and The Black British Filmmaker’s Guide to Success: Finance, Market and Distribute Your Film. She is an Honorary Research Fellow with the University of Exeter.

Yolanda Rother (she/her) is co-founder of "The Impact Company", a diversity, audience and culture consultancy. She moderates and speaks on topics related to digital society, politics and open government, diversity and sustainability. The Berlin native is a graduate (Master of Public Policy) of the Hertie School and has lived in Brazil, France and the United States.

Sailesh Naidu (they/them) is a writer, researcher, and performance artist working in the sphere of migration, gender, and education. Their work interrogates the queer body as territory, ancestral knowledge, and building of queer personal narratives as archive.

Tina or Kristina Trapp (she/her) has worked in the international film industry for over 20 years, amongst others at the German regional film fund MFG-Filmförderung Baden-Württemberg, with the European culture channel ARTE, heading the Film Commission Strasbourg and with the European training programme “Atelier Ludwigsburg Paris”. She joined EAVE in 2004 as Programme Manager. In 2007, she became Deputy Chief CEO and was appointed CEO in 2009. Kristina has been closely working with several European festivals and production companies in her career. She was part of various selection committees and juries for film funds and co-production markets and is member of the European Film Academy and ARTEF (Anti-Racism Taskforce European Film). She was co-director and board member of the umbrella organisation for European training providers, ATC (audiovisual training coalition), as well as member of the advisory board of the CEE Animation Workshop and board member of EWA (European Women’s Audiovisual Network).

Helge Albers (he/him) Helge ...