Niki Caro, a New Zealand filmmaker, is stepping into a new spotlight as she leads the main jury at the Camerimage Film Festival in Poland, an event dedicated to cinematography. This appointment comes with a unique challenge: addressing the gender imbalance in the industry, particularly in the festival's official lineup. Despite efforts to improve, the competition lineup remains disproportionately male, with only three female cinematographers among the 13 titles up for the 2025 Golden Frog for best film.
Caro, known for her diverse career, from indie success to studio filmmaking, is blunt about the trend she sees across the industry. She notes that fewer female cinematographers and directors are working on films, which is statistically evident and quite depressing. To combat this, Caro has long run female-heavy departments, including on her Disney live-action Mulan, where all head of department roles, except for the production designer, were female.
The problem, she stresses, is not the absence of talent but the lack of opportunities. She encourages the industry to recognize the brilliance and tenacity of female artists, who are breaking through despite the system's regression. Caro's jury, which includes cinematographers, actors, and producers, will judge films based on cinematography, focusing on how it helps tell the story and moves the audience.
Caro's career has spanned various scales of production, and Mulan was a significant leap, requiring meticulous planning and collaboration with cinematographer Mandy Walker. The film faced public scrutiny due to cultural pressures and the pandemic's impact on Disney's theatrical plans. However, her Netflix thriller The Mother reached a large global audience, showcasing the streaming era's unique challenges and opportunities.
Between jury duties, Caro is developing personal projects, including a New Zealand-set adaptation of a novel, A Beautiful Family, which she describes as a spiritual companion to her breakthrough feature, Whale Rider. Set in 1985 on New Zealand's Kāpiti Coast, the story follows a ten-year-old girl's search for a presumed drowned girl, with a Māori boy and a Pākehā girl as central characters.
Caro's return to building something small and personal from the ground up has been energizing, allowing her to develop and nurture these smaller films from seeds. The 33rd Camerimage Film Festival, where Caro will be jury president, runs from November 15 to 23 in Toruń, Poland.
