EAVE Diversity & Inclusion

.

EAVE has a stated focus on diversity and inclusion as part of its corporate values related to the training of the European screen industry.

We believe that EAVE can support significant and lasting changes to the screen ecosystem in Europe to ensure that the pipeline of producers diversifies, and thus authentic stories from a broader cross-section of communities and perspectives emerge and are shared globally.

Through this work EAVE also provides an example of inclusive operation and programming frameworks for other industry organizations.

Diversity is considered a key focus at EAVE, not only in terms of nationality, geographic spread, race, age and gender, but also in terms of project type, experience, background, involvement in shaping local, regional and national industries and policies and other aspects.

In selecting participants, we attempt to group people with a lot of professional experience and solid audio-visual industry structures together with less experienced individuals with a distinct ability to think out of the box due to weak national industry structures. We have found that this approach allows for better group dynamics at our workshops and mutual learning exchange and inspiration.

EAVE has been successful in levelling the playing field for Low Capacity Countries (LCC) and in integrating the Global South, and will now focus on the integration of marginalised communities within Europe (Black, Indigenous, or People of Colour - BIPOC) while also increasing accessibility for disabled communities.

Examples of workshops that focus on marginalised / underrepresented communities:

• EAVE on Demand Workshop for Sami indigenous producers in Kautokeino in 2019
• ACCESS Program for BiPOC producers in Canada in 2022 and in 2023
• CHANGE Co-production Training Course for documentary projects from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine in 2022 and in 2023

In 2022, EAVE has partnered up with EAVE graduate and diversity, equity and inclusion expert Tamara Dawit of the Canada Media Fund to develop a long-term diversity strategy with the goal of implementing concrete and meaningful actions, removing barriers and increasing access to participation for new and specific target groups.

The newly developed strategy will focus both on EAVE`s internal (staff, experts, board of directors and internal policies), as well as external operations (communication, selection of participants, industry partnerships and working groups) and the European audio-visual industry at large.

Moreover, specific scholarships for European residents and citizens who identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Colour have been created for the EAVE Producers Workshop, EAVE+ and EAVE Marketing Workshop.

“EAVE Producers Workshop program is all I needed to launch a life-time career as an independent producer for non-represented voices” - Alyaa Musa, Black Balance Artistic Production, Sudan

Gender Equality

 EAVE is committed to gender equality and opportunities at every level of our organisation and activities: women are very strongly represented (50% or more) among the EAVE staff and pedagogical team and board. Over the past 10 years 44% of EAVE training applicants and 56% of training participants are women. Women make up for 52% of the film industry professionals of the EAVE network.

We are proud that:

• 92% of female graduates report experiencing a career boost after the training 
• 89% report an acceleration in strategic company development 
• 97% report a high impact on their self-confidence and personal development
• 96% report positive synergies from their integration into the active professional network
• 98% acknowledge the positive impact the on-going privileged access to industry contacts from the entire value chain