At the Lumière Summit, senior figures from StudioCanal, Canal+, the BFI, the Berlinale and the Toronto International Film Festival used a panel titled "Safer Sets, Different Stories: Why Gender Balance Matters" to call for structural, accountability-driven measures to close the film industry's persistent gender gap. Speakers framed the underrepresentation of women behind the camera not merely as a moral failing but as a creative and commercial loss, pointing to decades of only marginal progress despite half of film school graduates being women.

Panellists cited stark figures: women held 17% of key behind-camera roles in 1998, rising to just 23% last year, while only one in six directors reach a third feature and women directors' budgets average 44% of men's. Concrete initiatives were highlighted, including Canal+'s extra €1 million development fund for female writers and directors, the BFI's Inclusion Standards, Berlinale's rise from 0% women directors in competition in 2005 to 40% in 2025, TIFF's growth to 35% women-directed films in 2026, Senegal's Mousso Institute training women in technical crew roles for free, and France's CNC, which has mandated gender-based violence training since 2021 and will introduce funding penalties tied to gender targets from 2027.