Once again, Greta Gerwig is out there proving herself a champion for women in film (and, specifically, on film). In her acceptance speech for an Auteur Award at the Kodak Film Awards, she’s spoken out about the difficulties of convincing figures in the film industry – “mainly dudes”, ofc – to let her shoot Little Women on celluloid.

“It was a fight every step of the way,” she said at the awards show earlier this week (January 29). “I knew if I didn’t say I had to shoot a movie on film, I knew it wouldn’t happen.”

The fact she did eventually get to shoot on film might have something to do with the fact she shared a studio – Sony – with Quentin Tarantino, who was working on Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood around the same time and has often been outspoken against shooting digitally.

Tarantino, who also spoke at the ceremony upon receiving a lifetime achievement award, recalled her saying to Sony: “How many 35 prints did you make for Quentin? How many theatres are they playing in? I want the same amount of prints.”

While this comparison between how the directors are treated ultimately worked in Gerwig’s favour, it also highlights the continuing gender bias of studios, even despite the fact she’s achieved auteur status for many with her writing and directing (she also wrote the screenplay for Little Women, adapted from the Louisa May Alcott novel).

Gerwig has previously pointed out this bias across the industry as a whole, saying at the recent Oscars luncheon that the number of female directors is “still not where it needs to be”. 

She also discussed the lack of representation in the 2020 Golden Globes Best Director category (which was all men for the second year in a row, despite plenty of acclaimed films helmed by women releasing in the last year).

Noah Baumbach, Gerwig’s husband and director of Marriage Story, was also honoured at the Kodak Film Awards, along with Tyler, the Creator and the HBO series Succession, among others.