It’s the story of women’s fight for equality, brought alive by a group of female film makers. But despite it being in 21st century and nearly 100 years after women got the votes, such an all-star female line-up is depressingly rare. “A story of women, in the past and present is absolutely vital and it reflects our life. And so we don’t see films reflecting our life, then how to…can we expect women to go to vote maybes? Working on this film has helped me to re-engage my own feminism, my own activism, and I think when you start to look at the figures across the board, not only in the film industry, but industry in general, in the world of business, in the world of law, we know stats don’t add up.”

The industry is more X ever being according to Eva Thompson. Patricia Arquette talked about pay and equality when she picked up her Oscar. And stats show that in the top 100 highest grossing films distributed in America in recent years, only 1.9 % of them were directed by women.

One of the themes of this year’s London Film Festival is “Strong Women”. Suffragette is the opening movie, and throughout there’s a selection of film showcasing female talent. But organizers wish they can go even further.

“We have 46 films directed by women, which sounds really impressive and makes you get every excited by how vibrant the opportunities are for women directing now. But that’s still only 20% to our program of 240 films.”

Emily Blunt takes experience film makers’ preference for leading man first hand in her latest film. “The writer, when he was shopping it around to one finance X and the financer said: ‘If you make her a guy, I’ll make it tomorrow. And I’ll up your budget.’”

Actors like Anne Heathway are turning to producing to maximize their choices and believe the tide is turning. “I think the whole industry is being embarrassed by the state of things when you look at the numbers. And I think everybody, or at least enough people are trying to make it better. The needle’s moving is gonna take time of course, but I think there are lot of positive indicators.”

Suffragette will undoubtedly remind audiences how far women have come, but the focus on gender equality will also draw our attentions to how far they are still least(?) to go.

Lucy Cotter, Sky News.