True inclusion isn’t just about programming—it’s about holding space, redistributing power, and creating the infrastructure for others to thrive. Our advocacy for gender inclusivity across the industry is rooted in care, reciprocity, and practical support, using institutional power to open doors for others rather than speaking over those already doing the work.
Overview
In response to growing calls for gender inclusivity, we partnered with Reclaim the Frame and Women in Hollywood to support their desire to shift beyond the binary gender frameworks their organisations were built on. For over a decade, these organisations have advocated for gender parity, but now they seek to understand and include gender-expansive identities and gender-fluid individuals in their work.
Challenge
The film industry has long been shaped by binary gender frameworks, with limited representation and support for gender-expansive identities. Women’s organisations, traditionally focused on achieving 50/50 gender representation, struggled to understand how to meaningfully include trans and non-binary people in their advocacy. The challenge was not only to educate these organisations but also to create safe, open spaces for conversations that respected and addressed the unique experiences of gender-expansive individuals, without reducing them to tokenism or discomfort.
Intervention
To address this, we facilitated closed roundtable discussions at the 2023 London Film Festival and 2024 Berlinale Film Festival, creating a safe environment for open dialogue between women’s organisations and trans and non-binary individuals. We prepared participants in advance by sharing codes of conduct, ensuring the conversation remained focused on actionable support, not debate. A professional facilitator was brought in to guide these discussions, ensuring the exchange was respectful and productive. The results of these conversations culminated in a groundbreaking public panel at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where the experiences of gender-expansive filmmakers were highlighted and celebrated, pushing the industry to rethink its approach to gender representation.
Practical steps we took
Preparing attendees in advance
We shared a code of conduct to ensure all participants understood the guidelines and expectations for respectful, focused dialogue and set the tone for the space.
Closed roundtables
We invited representatives from women’s organisations and trans and non-binary individuals to a closed roundtable to foster meaningful and safe dialogue on how to better serve gender-expansive filmmakers.
Facilitator support
A professional facilitator was brought in to guide the conversation, ensuring it remained safe, productive, and aligned with the session’s objectives.
Gender-expansive representation
This conversation was featured publicly at the Cannes Film Festival in the Marche Du Film’s panel events programme for the first time, creating a significant moment for gender identity discourse within the industry.
Panel on stage
We highlighted the experiences of a non-binary filmmaker and a trans woman filmmaker, amplifying their voices and contributions to the industry.
Results and impact
Public visibility
The panel at Cannes brought a vital conversation about gender-expansive identities to the main stage, showing these discussions can no longer be ignored.
Community building
The roundtables and screenings fostered a community of women and gender-expansive individuals committed to advancing inclusivity in the film industry.
Elevating grassroots work
By providing space and brand legitimacy, the initiative helped strengthen grassroots organisations and supported their connection with larger industry players.
Thought leadership
The BFI is seen to be at the heart of emerging and difficult conversations, holding them with care and sensitivity.
It was truly exciting to be part of the Beyond the Binary panel. The audience was deeply engaged, actively participated, and I felt genuinely welcomed by all of you. I’m very happy to see this essential conversation being brought to the forefront, especially at such a meaningful time.”Quote from participant
Deep dive
In trying not to burden trans and non-binary people with the weight of these conversations and hold a safe space for them, the first couple of workshops we held were focused on the women’s organisations we were trying to advocate to. The overwhelming feedback is that we should have more representation from the trans and non-binary community so for the public panel in Cannes, we ensured the representation on the panel sought to celebrate trans and non-binary talent and plan to do this more in future iterations of this series. In the spirit of celebration, we also invited Trans OnScreen to distribute tickets to their members for a screening of I’m Your Venus at LFF last year and held a reception with the filmmakers afterwards.
Continued advocacy and next steps
We aim to continue these discussions and create more spaces where gender-expansive identities are recognised and celebrated.
We continue to offer resources, screening rooms, and letters of support to grassroots organisations, helping amplify their work without significant financial costs.
Feedback
The feedback for these conversations has been widely positive and participants at the workshops and the panel appreciated the safety we created for this conversation to happen. There is a feeling that it would be good to move the conversations and awareness into action so we are looking at how we might partner with grassroots organisations to do this in a useful way.