Who Controls Public Funding? Gender and Racial Inequalities in Brazilian Cinema

Public investment plays a crucial role in the Brazilian film industry, one of the most profitable in the world. The majority of films produced in the country receive some form of funding from the federal government. This article aims to assess the distribution of these public resources within the film industry, focusing on race and gender dimensions. To do so, we base our analysis on data from the National Cinema Agency (Ancine), an official body of the federal government of Brazil. By examining the profiles of 5,254 directors involved in 2,269 films released between 1995 and 2022, we developed indicators to measure inequalities between social groups. The results show that the allocation of financial resources has historically favored white men, with variations in the degree of asymmetry concerning other social segments. On the one hand, men, both white and black, received, on average, larger sums of money per project compared to women overall. On the other hand, nearly half of the films directed by black men did not receive any public funding. Although Black women are the most underrepresented group among filmmakers, they recorded higher success rates in securing funding, with 82% of their individual proposals receiving some form of public investment. In the final section, we discuss the implications of our findings and the need for affirmative action to promote diversity in Brazilian cinema.