Legacy media is dead: TIFF and Sundance’s press initiatives are what Hollywood needs
After a year in which women of Hollywood have stood up against gender disparity in the industry and announced that Time’s Up on the boy’s club of cinema, the effect appears to be trickling down to less visible parts of the industry. As revealed by Brie Larson at the Women in Film Los Angeles Crystal + Lucy Awards, both the Toronto International Film Festival and Sundance film festival plan to provide 20% of press credentials to “underrepresented journalists” – defined by both festivals as being women and people of color. Speaking to IndieWire, TIFF’s vice president of public relations Andréa Grau commented that as Toronto “is really multicultural … it’s important to have the people who cover the films be that way, too” and explained that despite not knowing about Sundance’s own initiative, she’s happy “they’re doing the same thing. This a really important time not be competitors, to join hands. It’s important for us to increase our media core, but it’s also important for press outlets to hire more underrepresented journalists and for marketing teams to hire them. We’re one part of a larger equation and happy to do our part to move the dial.” Meanwhile Sundance’s director of outreach and inclusion Karim Ahmad highlighted to the website that the initiative is part of a long term goal and will take some work, “We’re just gathering metrics about the demographics. Knowing that’s the area where there’s the greatest opportunity for improvement, this is the beginning of what we hope will be incremental change … This is, very much, the beginning of a multi-year project. Our goal isn’t to throw another 20% at the problem and say we’re done.” The announcement arrived days after a USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative report suggested that women and people of color are both underrepresented in film journalism based on 19,559 reviews of the 100 top-grossing films posted to Rotten Tomatoes. There’s been some debate regarding the legitimacy of that study based on Rotten Tomatoes being “an extremely imperfect index” as one critic put it, however it’s interesting that both TIFF and Sundance appear to be acknowledging the issue and taking direct action on it.
Ongoing Implementation of Press Inclusion Initiatives
Sundance opened applications for its 2026 Press Inclusion Initiative in 2025, offering stipends and credential support for eligible journalists. The program now runs as an annual cohort with clear eligibility for BIPOC, women, LGBTQ+, and disabled writers who cover the festival. TIFF operates its Media Inclusion Initiative with similar continuity, granting accreditation priority, travel support, and mentorship to equity-seeking applicants who have limited prior experience. Both festivals maintain directories that place supported journalists with outlets, creating a direct pipeline that did not exist before 2018. The original 20 percent credential target has become a baseline rather than a ceiling, with each festival publishing yearly demographic reports that track retention and repeat participation.
Longitudinal Data on Film Industry Representation
The USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative has since released reports covering 1,700 films from 2007 through 2023. Those updates show persistent gaps, including a historic low for women leads in 2023. UCLA’s Hollywood Diversity Report 2026, which examined 2025 theatrical releases, found that films with casts between 41 and 50 percent BIPOC often posted the highest median box office. The same report recorded uneven progress for women and people of color in director and producer roles. Together the datasets provide a clearer picture of where on-screen gains have outpaced behind-the-camera and critical access improvements since the original 2018 study.
Industry-Wide Diversity Reports and Metrics
The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative now publishes an annual report plus The Inclusion List, which ranks individual films, series, and distributors on multiple inclusion metrics. UCLA continues to release its Hollywood Diversity Report each year, focusing on employment data across theatrical releases. These tools allow press organizations and studios to measure change against fixed benchmarks rather than anecdotal impressions. Festival accreditation offices reference the same reports when setting eligibility criteria, creating a feedback loop between data collection and credential allocation.
Challenges and Evolution of Inclusion Programs
Organizers continue to gather metrics and set incremental goals, exactly as Karim Ahmad described in 2018. Participant reflections note improved access to badges and interview rooms, yet logistical barriers remain around travel funding and last-minute schedule changes. Gatekeeping at some legacy outlets still limits the number of assignments given to supported journalists. Both TIFF and Sundance have adjusted their programs in response, adding mentorship pairings and post-festival debriefs to help participants convert credentials into sustained work. The adjustments keep the original collaborative spirit while addressing practical constraints that surfaced after the first cohorts.
The two festivals no longer frame their programs as dramatic breaks with the past. They treat them as sustained infrastructure that requires yearly refinement and fresh data. Hollywood institutions that once treated press access as fixed have begun to treat it as adjustable. The result is a slower, steadier recalibration of who gets to cover the industry rather than an overnight replacement of legacy systems.
