Sagafilm rewarded for gender equality

Icelandic production company Sagafilm has been recognised by the country’s government with an award for promoting gender equality.

Hilmar Sigurðsson

The firm, which is behind series such as Case, Stella Blómkvist and The Flatey Enigma, has received the Motivational Award for Gender Equality 2018.

The award is given by the Ministry of Industries and Innovation, SA Confederation of Icelandic Enterprise, Festa: Icelandic Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility and the University of Iceland, with the national committee from UN Women in Iceland as a special partner.

The honour was established in 2014 and aims to bring positive attention to companies that promote gender equality in a targeted way. Previous recipients have included Vodafone and Íslandsbanki, making Sagafilm the first film and TV company to receive the award.

“Sagafilm operates in an industry where men have been more dominant and therefore it is crucial to have the determination to change it. Conscious decisions have been made to promote female directors and scriptwriters. These are decisions which affect the company’s production, where it can be clearly seen that the gender gap has minimised,” noted the jury in a statement.

“We have been working on gender equality in our company, within the content we produce as well as with our choices in directors and scriptwriters,” said Hilmar Sigurdsson, CEO of Sagafilm

The new Equal Pay Certification law took effect in Iceland at the beginning of this year and Sagafilm was granted the equal pay certificate this spring, making it the first company in Iceland’s film and TV industry to implement the equal pay management system.