this is bbc news. the headlines: at least three people have been killed in sudan in heavy fighting between the army and paramilitary forces, in the capital, khartoum. a man is pinned down and arrested by security staff in japan as the prime minister, fumio kishida, is rushed to safety after an explosion. his predecessor, shinzo abe, was assassinated last year, while giving a campaign speech. the start of the world's most famous horse race, the grand national, has been delayed by animal rights activists. the french president has visited notre—dame cathedral,

which was nearly destroyed by fire four years ago. the restoration is expected to be finished on schedule. those are your headlines. you're watching bbc news. now it's women in hollywood: the producers. a warm welcome. i have come to hollywood to the women in film headquarters, where i'm joined by keri putnam and stephanie allain, two women who are working to reshape the industry. they are both part of an initiative founded and led by women in film and the sundance institute called reframe. the aim is to advance gender equity. keri putnam is a film executive and producer

and the founder of putnam pictures, she has served for 11 years as the ceo of the sundance institute, which runs the sundance film festival. prior to that, she worked as a senior executive at miramax and hbo and is also the co—founder. welcome. thank you, it's great to be here. stephanie allain is a film producer and writer and the newly—elected copresident of the producers guild of america — the first woman of colour to hold the position. stefanie served nine years as vice president in women in film and runs her own company, homegrown pictures, which focuses on creating content by and about women and people of colour. keri and stephanie, welcome to you both. happy to be here. keri, you were set in a korean theatre, but there was a plot twist when hollywood came calling. tell us about what happened. that was a very early plot twisted in my career. i was coming out of college

and i was going to go work in a theatre, and i had a a friend who was working at hbo, which at that time was a very start—up network, a long time ago... pretty start—up network. and she said, well, you're going to go work in the theatre, but there is some guy coming who's going to be making plays for television on hbo, you could maybe be his assistant, and so i got thatjob as a secretary at the very bottom, starting out a long time ago. they don't say secretary any more... they did back then! i had to take a typing test! and then i was very lucky to be hitting a company like that at the time where my rate of growth and knowledge, really the company was growing at the same pace, so i was able to move up there and just learn so much about making film and telling stories, still working with a lot of playwrights and being close to the writers and the story, which is what i loved. so that's where i got my start, and from there, i stayed a really long time at hbo and then moved

to miramax and then to sundance. stephanie, you grew up near a cinema and spent a lot of time outside the cinema trying to get in. tell me about that. i also loved stories, i loved reading, i was an avid reader, and the thing that really triggered my interest was two films — the godfather and the exorcist. i had read both books and i was about 12—years—old, i had to sneak into the theatre... i was about to ask — how do you see those! 7 i stood outside and asked an adult to buy me a ticket, and i wasjust blown away by the connection between what was in this book and what was on the screen. and i thought, i didn't even have the tools to understand that there were movies and directors and producers, but i love stories. i went to school for story, for english, and then i got pregnant, right after college, and i had this baby and i was like, what am i going to do? and somebody told me there was a job called reading,

and i was like, reading is a job!? sign me up! so that's what i did, and that just created an opening into the world of cinema for me, and then women — amy pascal and don steele. they recognised my affinity for writing and for analysing material they promoted me, and the first thing i did was find somebody to replace me in the story department because i was the only person of colour there. stephanie says women were instrumental in helping her. what about you 7 what helped you succeed? i would say i didn't have the luck to have a woman boss early on, but the big boss of original programming on hbo in the �*80s was a woman, and she was an incredible force, very rare in that time, and she really set a clarity of what hbo stood for, what kind of stories. who was that?

bridget potter, and she has been written out of the history, actually. but actually, what i found out, i don't know if you found this, but i found a lot of my strongest mentors and supporters in my career have been peers. i think that's true too. one of my peers, and i made more movies with him than anybody was john singleton. and my first movie, boys in the hood, i made with him, he is the one who really set me on a path of protecting the vision which basically taught me how to produce. what an incredible movie to start with! i was like, "this is easy!" i could do this all day long! having worked for the big studios, columbia, hbo, miramax, you both went independent. why was that important for you to do, keri? i'm late coming to independent.

i think stephanie has been a producerfor longer, but i felt it was my time to try something new, and i had never bet on myself and done something entrepreneurial, and i felt i wanted to get closer to storytelling, to be setting my own terms in a way and using the experiences i had, so i was giving it a shot. i just started, really. is it frightening stepping out on your own? it is, it is, but again, you are caught by the community that you have come to know and you can reach out and call and get advice, and yes, it is frightening, but it is also... exciting! ..it�*s a time in my life i think where it's ok to shake it up a little bit. stephanie, i know you went as far as selling your house to start your own company. idid. big move! would not do that again... i started producing because if you're at the studio, it is a slog — i was there for a decade,

but i think it was 20 years ago, yes, 20 years ago this year that i formed homegrown pictures, and just decided to bet on myself. ijust thought, i don't want to support somebody else's vision. it was basically that. after boys in the hood, many years later, i actually went to john with another script, puzzle and flow, and i said, we should do this, this was at the advent of people were switching from film to digital, so the idea of making a movie yourself was really for real, you could do that, and i was thinking, i'll sell my house. ijust woke up one day and i said, i don't care, i don't care about the house. i had teenage boys, i said, "you guys don't care, do you?"

and they were like, "no, ma, do it!" i remember being in the first screening at sundance, that was amazing. it was electrifying for a couple of reasons, firstly, the movie is fantastic, but it took us four years from the time i sold my house to get the movie made, and everybody in town passed on it. and we took it to sundance and after that amazing screening, everybody that passed wanted it, and it was really the time that cemented my understanding of how valuable trusting your gut is. that was electric, and we all did make money. that's great producing right there. we all did make money in the end, so that's what i have been doing for the last 20 years, just riding a wave. and i tell people, it doesn't matter how successful you are, i'm telling you this right now, it's a hustle, and you have to be in that spirit of... you have to believe. you have to believe! i don't do anything unless i am so passionate. i wake up in the middle of the night, write something down, every day, wake up and think, what can i do to push this forward?

let's talk about the obstacles. what are some of the obstacles that women encounter in your industry in your experience, keri? i think it sort of depends on the seat the women are occupying, so if you are talking about women directing, the obstacles, it's interesting, because some of the obstacles are not particular to this industry, it's this perception that leadership and the qualities that make a great director, which are decision—making and leadership and a lot of it is very gendered, it's often talked about in terms of war, they are the general pushing the troops, these are extremely gendered terms and they tend to reinforce the idea that leadership looks a certain way. and so, whether that is around race or it is around gender, i think these things are very intersectional. female directors often have a difficult time assuming that mantle of leadership, being handed that mantle of leadership for that reason, so that's one thing that i think

is hard. i also think, and this is a particularly applicable factor across a lot of different categories of work, but there is a perception and there has been a perception that stories about women or by and about women are somehow less universal and less worthy of spending money on because they're going to be less commercial than stories by and about other people. even though we are 51% of the population. so a story about two men is a universal story of friendship, a story about two women is a niche story, and that has led to the problem of financing, getting access to money, being able to build careers, because it is not perceived that certain stories that are by and about women are as valued. and then there are stories about black women... as i said, it is very

intersectional. people who make the financial decisions are still a very homogenous group of people who look at the business side. there are exceptions, but they look at the business side as — what are we going to make back, what are the international sales going to be, what is the box office going to be? they set their budgets around that. so the money follows stories that look like what has succeeded before. so if things are coming from a different perspective... there is no comp. they can't look it up. we used to call it the fiscal cliff. women could get low—budget movies made, people of colour could get low—budget movies made, but as the budgets got higher and more financial eyes were on what that marketability was, suddenly, those creators fell out of the mix and it ended up being a more homogenous set of people. what would you add to that, stephanie? so, i have been in this

business 35 years, at least. there are big stories to tell, there are really big stories to tell. i will say that in television, it feels like there are more opportunities for women to tell our story. it's a much more even playing field. why do you think that is? well, i would guess that part of it is when something is on television or streams, it already has an international audience, right? but the thing about the streamers is that, i made a movie on netflix called juanita, my mum's favourite movie i ever made, and she was a huge hit in the south. she can go to places in brazil

because of that movie, because you just turn it on and get that. isn't that interesting? for sure. i think that's the bright side of it, the idea that a global conversation is happening and proves some of those old beliefs wrong, i think that is great. i also think there is another factor which is in the last, in this decade where the streamers have come into business, there has been more television made than ever before in history, in these ten years, more than all the years before, so there is actuallyjustjobs, it's a place of abundance. they needed bodies. this isn't to say that there wasn't goodwill about what stories could be told, opportunities like the one stephanie described, but i think a mindset of abundance immediately provides more opportunity for people than one of constriction, and unfortunately, what we're seeing in the side of the business... is scarcity.

because the movie studios that used to make 20 to 25 movies a year are now making eight to nine movies each year. now, the streamers are making films and there are other places, but i think that means that everyone is bigger now, everyone is more expensive, everyone is a franchise now. there has still been progress, i would also say even in the last few years, it was 4% of film directors were women, and i think less than i% were women of colour in the top 100 films, for years and years and years. in 2017, 2016—17 which coincided with the movements, the social movements around the world, that also came to hollywood and included the organisation that we are part of, reframe — these movements led to an opening of things,

and we actually saw 150% growth in females directing those top box office movies, and a small growth in women of colour as well, not proportional unfortunately, but still growth. the numbers in 2019, the numbers went from 4% to 12%. since 2019, it has flatlined, no progress for the last four years. so, when you think about, when you think about constraints, fear, the way the global market is, i worry that there needs to be a conversation about, how do you take a time where maybe the market conditions are more challenging and forget about all the commitments to equity and all the commitments to a wide array of stories we all believe in? which is why reframe is so valuable to our business. the idea of reframe was originally research—based. seeing the research in the cold light of day and saying, nobody can deny that this

is an equity problem, nobody can say this is an accident. we really felt instinctivelyjust by presenting that research to a wide array of people in studio jobs who are producers, agents, at senior levels, they would be shocked, because i think most people don't consider themselves biased and yet, the cumulative effect of their decisions was biased. and indeed, that proved to be true. when we first started, the biggest obstacle to making change was a perception that there wasn't a problem. ah, yes. america is a patriarchal, racist society. it is. that's the world that we live in. and just to say it out loud, "oh, my god, don't say it!" but we have to say it because we have to know it, we have to look at it to make that

change, you know? and even all of us, not just the white folks, but all of us operate under these assumptions and biases. so really exploring that on a human level, really, ithink, changed the way that people think and out of that came the toolkit. i agree. so the culture change toolkit is something that we build for them to have actual tangible tools to be able to make change along the way. like when you submit a script, take the name off. just read the script for the script. don't read betty's script orjohn's script, just read the script and see what you think. and what we discovered was, scripts written by women, especially like action, or perceived genre things, were all of a sudden rising up. because there wasn't this preconception that if a woman wrote it, it wasn't as good as a man. but it was also about involving the audience, so we created something called the reframe stamp that allows films that are gender—balanced in the way they are made and in what is on the screen,

and this doesn't even necessarily have to be a woman director. it could be a woman in other roles. and we started awarding those stamps and really shining a light on things that were made that way, and then it became, "i want the stamp," and audiences are looking for the stamp. when we started, nobody wanted the stamp. we were trudging into the studio saying, "we've got this stamp," and they were like, "we want no part of it, we're not going to be labelled." and now, it's like, "can i get the stamp?" and to get the stamp, you have to hire fairly. so it's exciting that, you know, there are ways to move the needle. keri, what is lost when women are left out of the decision—making process? i think with decision—making, it's a hard question because there are a lot of ways to approach that. i think when any decision—making process doesn't get made by a group

of people that reflects the full world we live in, there will be unconscious bias. there will be a voice missing to be able to say, "i'm interested in that." "i care about that, did you think about this?" and i would say the same if there were no men in the decision—making process. this isn't about an instead, it's about an expansion, and it's about having rooms of decision—makers that reflect the world, and i think what is lost without that is the ability to expand the palate. stephanie, what would you add to that? i totally agree. thank you. yeah, when you think about a movie like everything everywhere all at once, which was made by two men, but with michelle yeo and all these other amazing... jamie lee curtis.

jamie lee curtis, it is really female—based, the movie. it's so good, and the world would be a sadder place, you know? we bring the collective inclusion of all these different voices, is a celebration. it's a celebration of humanity, and that is sometimes what's missing when you don't have that full spectrum. and i also think from the perspective of the audience, you know, we've seen so many examples of, if you see it, you believe you can be it, and i think that feeling of, obviously, equity is important across all industries, but i think when you are talking about culture and you are talking about storytelling and what stories we value and what reflects us, young people either see

themselves or they don't. and i think talking about what we each might have thought were possible for jobs or possible for ourselves, i think it is such an important part of this industry, it is one of the reasons i love it. hollywood, the industry, is one of the least, least... open, inclusive businesses. like, oil is more inclusive in terms of ceos and people of colour, than hollywood. and we're setting the agenda. we're creating the content that goes all over the world. so if you think about that, the power that we have to tell stories, to include people, it is kind of unfathomable, you wouldn't think it's so liberal in hollywood and this and that, but that is not the way it is. so there is still lots of work to do. but i will say there has been some improvement. if you've been in the game as long as we have, some of the young kids don't know. we've come a long way, baby.

and television and streaming is a really good example, i think. i think so too. in 2015, the #oscarssowhite campaign highlighted the lack of diversity in hollywood and you produced one of the most diverse awards ceremonies in 2020, so that's a completely different muscle you're using there. how was that for you? it was the most fun of my career. it was the combination of live theatre and what we do, but there were no take twos, nothing like that. there was one rehearsal. there was one rehearsal for that whole show. it was really important to us that it be diverse and inclusive. there was a lot of pushback, i'll be honest. even for someone as amazing asjanelle monae, who opened the show, it was a struggle. it was a struggle to make that happen, you know what i mean? but we persevered and i'm

super proud of the show. it took me three weeks to come down. the adrenaline. i bet it did. it did. i wasjust operating at... i remember seeing you after that, you did a greatjob. i was buzzing. there is an ongoing debate about having gender—neutral awards at the oscars. where do you stand on this, keri? you know, i was just thinking about this and i don't have the answer because i think, i would say on balance, i'm for it. i actually think acting shouldn't be awarded in a gendered way. the thing that i worry about is fewer. so if you have only one acting category, then it would be five, not ten.

and then, i think you could end up replicating some of the issues we've seen in the directors�* category where, we talked about that earlier but... so in a way, i like that there is a space to be sure that women and women identifying artists will be honoured, but i wish there didn't need to be, so that's kind of where i stand right now. i'm with her. i think that's really smart. one final question. is there a story or a narrative that hasn't been done yet that you would like to see on the big screen? dream project, essentially. i have my dream project, it's not on the big screen, it is on hbo, and it is sula, tony morrison's amazing novel, and it's going to be a limited series. we already have four of the eight scripts, they're beyond amazing.

it's one of these projects that... i read that book in college, it's black women being whatever we want to be and that is what is so great about it, and it's going to frighten the hell out of people because it's wild. i don't have a project like that in my head right now that i feel like... ithink... i don't have a single project that's the one i've been waiting to see or waiting to make, but i think i'll know it when i see it and i'm certainly out there looking. keri and stephanie, thank you both so much. thank you. it's been fun.

hello. we've had some heavy showers developing through the day across parts of east yorkshire, east anglia and south—east england. out to the west, this bank of cloud has been gradually working its way eastwards, turning the skies hazy across western areas and bringing some patchy light rain and drizzle into northern ireland and the western isles. and that will continue to slowly push its way eastwards through this evening and overnight. the light rain and drizzle will become increasingly patchy and, eventually, tend to fizzle out. some clearer skies at first across eastern counties, the showers fading here. but equally, we could also see some mist and some fog under those clear skies, and it will be a chilly night for parts of east anglia and south—east england. temperatures perhaps down to two or three celsius. elsewhere, temperatures generally holding up to between four and eight celsius. on into sunday, and we're underneath this area of high pressure, and we start to pull in more of a southerly wind. so a milderair direction, pushing that milder air across the uk.

but also, a moister direction, so we will see much more cloud through sunday. and actually, a fairly grey start for many on sunday. a lot of cloud out west, with some patchy rain and drizzle. mist and low cloud for the hills too. any early mist and fog for eastern coastal counties will tend to lift and, actually, we'll see some sunshine developing here, and that too will tend to extend north and westwards through the day. so we will see some spells of sunshine coming through the cloud and, where we do, temperatures rising to 16, maybe 17 celsius. so then, through sunday evening, it's a fairly quiet night, but also, once again, a fairly cloudy night, so that will keep the temperatures up a little bit higher. and then, for the week ahead, well, it's looking mainly dry for most of us. very little, if any, rain across the uk. some good spells of sunshine. and actually, for many, away from eastern coasts, with the breeze off the sea, it will be feeling a litle bit warmer. so, this is how monday shapes up. once again, we're under this area of high pressure, keeping the atlantic fronts at bay. still a fair amount of cloud around on monday morning. some mist and some murk,

particularly for western areas, and perhaps even still some drizzle through the day for the western isles and parts of north—west england. but for many, it's a mainly dry day. and actually, once we've got rid of the cloud through the morning, we should see some spells of sunshine, come the afternoon. and again, that will help temperatures quite widely into the low mid—teens, if not, 16 or 17 celsius in the best of sunshine. and actually, as i mentioned earlier, for much of the week ahead, it's looking mostly dry, with some spells of sunshine. and after what's been been a fairly cool and wet week, things are looking a bit warmer too.

live from london. this is bbc news, im frankie mccamley corach rambler wins the grand national — romping home in the world's most famous horse race. the start was delayed by animal rights activists. at least three people have been killed in sudan — in fighting between the army and paramilitary forces, in the capital khartoum. a man is arrested — and the japanese prime minister rushed to safety — following an explosion at a campaign event. the french president visits notre—dame cathedral — nearly destroyed by a fire — four years ago. the restoration is expected to be finished on schedule. doctors and nurses in england consider co—ordinated strike action — after unions turn down the government's latest pay offer.