This is the new reality - it's virtual, man, get with it. Cinema is dead, long live cinema.

Film is very important to our culture - it is the main story-telling medium. If it's not representational both of either the gender or race of the culture in which we live, it is an incomplete picture. So it's crucial that women are reflected in the statistics of how many directors there are. What do women bring to film-making? They bring a female perspective and, in a way, that's enough. To argue what a female perspective is not really my place, but I know it when I see it!

I could write a short thesis on why there were so many men in the film industry and I'd say it was to do with the weight of the equipment. One can understand how a hierarchy of men, a film crew, has built up. In order for us to handle 100 to 150 large men who are carrying equipment almost like an army unit, then it makes sense to put a man in charge of all of that because there are gender issues about control and authority. Just like in the armed forces. The fact is that in the modern film industry those physical conditions no longer prevail; therefore there is no crude, physical reason why it should be so male-dominated.

Now there is no reason to prevent anybody from making a film. The technology exists, the equipment is much cheaper than it was, the post-production facilities are on a laptop computer, the entire equipment to make a film can go in a couple of cases and be carried as hand luggage on a plane. There is nothing to stop people making films.