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Flemish film awards under fire after men win most prestigious gender-neutral categories

Actors say non-specific categories benefit men as industry still offers them more interesting roles

Last year the Brit awards, which went gender neutral in 2021 after realising that the categories excluded non-binary people, faced a backlash after the nominees for best artists were all male. In the run-up to the awards, women had accounted for half of the nominees for the top acting categories, said Wim Vanseveren, the chair of the academy that represents professionals from the Flemish audiovisual sector. Last year the actor Veerle Baetens of the Oscar-nominated The Broken Circle Breakdown, laid bare what she saw as the shortcomings of the decision in an interview with the film magazine Fade to Her.

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