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Middle-aged White Men

Piers Beckley

That's who write British films, according to

They took a random sample of 40 films certified as British in 2004 and 2005 and theatrically released in the UK, and talked to the 63 credited screenwriters to find out a bit about who they were.

So, sure, I was kind of expecting that the majority of them would be older white men. It's unfortunately a fact that people who aren't white men are under-represented in a lot of places.

But, come on: 98% of these writers were white? 82.5% male? That's more than a little bit rubbish.

I mean, these figures would be all right if 98 out of every hundred people in the UK were white. And only 2 in 5 of us were female. But I'm pretty sure that isn't the case.

No-one can tell from a script what colour your skin is or whether you happen to wear your genitals on the inside.

So, please: Write. Rewrite. Make sure it's as good as it can be. And then .

The only thing we care about is the quality of your writing.

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