# Shahrbanoo Sadat and Jelena Maksimović Hit Back at Discrimination in Film Funding at Tokyo Festival Talk

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/shahrbanoo-sadat-and-jelena-maksimovic-hit-back-at-discrimination-in-film-funding-at-tokyo-festival-talk/
- Published: 2026-11-02T01:35:45+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-02T02:10:49+00:00
- Original publisher: Variety
- Original article: https://variety.com/2026/film/festivals/shahrbanoo-sadat-hits-back-film-funding-discrimination-1236937057/
- Topics: Art, Celebrity, Culture, Entertainment, Film

## Key points

- Funding barriers can exclude women before their films reach festivals.
- Serbia’s film fund lost government funding after protests.
- Sadat sought opportunities in European filmmaking.

## Summary

Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat and Serbian director Jelena Maksimović said unequal access to film funding holds women back, during a Tokyo International Film Festival discussion. They argued that discrimination starts before films reach festivals, when funding decisions shape which projects can be made and whose work is seen.

Maksimović said Serbia’s film fund had its funding cut by the outgoing government after filmmakers backed student anti-corruption protests, while Serbian filmmakers already faced limited budgets and difficulty finding co-production partners. She welcomed the student movement’s election victory but said repairing the damage would take time. Sadat described barriers in Afghanistan as controlled by a male-dominated network and said she turned to European filmmaking, which also has inequalities.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.