TV (and Capitalism) for Q3 Women
By, for and about us
Katja Meier is the creator and producer of $HARE, a new TV series airing in January featuring a 59-year-old female protagonist called Lena. It’s going to have a whole bunch of us Q3 ladies banging on our screens in joy and exultation. It’s smart, fun and totally seditious.
The Wealth Transfer Towards Women
In case you haven’t heard this, or aren’t feeling it in your own pocket, women are on the verge of a massive transfer of wealth, some $34 trillion by 2030. “A spike in female fortunes thanks to inheritance and career gains,” predicts Bloomberg, “is set to transform investing and philanthropy around the world.”
Katja Meier’s $HARE may serve as a blueprint for what women may do with this new power. Inspired by the likes of women who have made or inherited fortunes and decided to spend them… differently, like:
Marlene Engelhorn: the Co-founder of taxmenow, who refused to accept millions without questioning the system and let others vote on how she distributed her inherited millions.
MacKenzie Scott: Who disrupted philanthropy (and probably her ex-husband Jeff Bezos) with her trust-based, no-strings-attached approach;
Growing Movement: Part of a rising wave of women challenging traditional wealth structures.
The Story
Three women live a simple life on a winter campsite in the Swiss Alps. When one of them, Lena Corbyn (59), inherits a third of a British-Swiss mining empire, the friends join forces to revolutionise Corbyn Commodities by closing a harmful coal mine in South Africa and granting employees shares of the family business.
But their ambitious plan provokes existential angst in Lena's sister and niece, who will stop at nothing to preserve their privilege and the status quo.
Family, sisters, lineage, legacy, business, money and women. A kind of Succession for Sisters. And a stirring cocktail with which to start your year.
The Values
Katja’s Manifesto is a great summary of the values underpinning both the story and the venture. It’s also fun, innovative and sustainable:
Equal pay and transparent salaries for the entire team (no above and below the line - everybody counts).
Green film production: a lot of (glorious) train rides and electric car sharing for cast & crew (no VIP drivers on this film set).
Set design: inspired by our background in theatre, we keep set design to a minimum and only use what’s on location and thrift our props. Less is more: as on stage, one single prop can be enough to open the doors to an entire universe.
Casting: we don’t do auditions. We send the actors we love the script and ask whether they’d like to be part of $HARE. It works and saves time, nerves, and money. And what about chemistry? Don’t worry. Creating it is what actors do for a job.
Costumes: we borrow, reuse, and recycle (okay, we’re not perfect - we bought that orange coat and got a fab pair of Italian artisan jeans and a cool onesie from our sponsors ;-).
Female-driven: we make sure women 50+ are lighting up our TV screens in compelling leading roles. Women mostly appear as protagonists when they’re younger than 30. Several interested producers asked us to lower our protagonist’s age to max. 39 years so the series could be sold more easily. No way! We rather do it ourselves! More about this here.
We aim high but we won’t be worn out by neverending striving for perfection. Creativity needs to breathe. Done is better than perfect.
The journey and everybody’s well-being are just as important as the final destination.
We share the ups and downs of the process (both, the fun times and the failures) just as much as the shiny outcome.
And since things do go wrong: lots of conversations with cast & crew: what went well? what didn’t? What can we do better?
The Backstory
Caroline Criado-Perez outlined the gendered ageism that met Katja Meier’s efforts to get her award-winning script turned into an actual film in a recent blog:
Lena’s age [59] is important, because after the script for $HARE was accepted onto last year’s Writers Lab programme, Katja found her film the subject of a lot of industry interest — but the producers all had one caveat: the protagonist simply could not be a 59 year-old woman. She needed to be at least twenty years younger.
In fact, the producers interested in Katja’s script would prefer if the protagonist were younger even than that, but if Katja inexplicably insisted on foregrounding the life of an old crone, they could stretch to 39 — they weren’t monsters — but that was the absolute MAXIMUM. Forty, of course, as this just-turned-forty-year-old has-been can attest, being the year that your scales come in and nobody wants to see THAT mess in high-def. What makes all this even more egregious than it already is, is that the Writers Lab programme that generated all this interest in Katja’s script was LITERALLY set up to amplify the voices of women over 40.
As so many of us have done, Katja refused to play by the rules and instead decided to invent her own. She set up her own production company, ZenkaFilms and started making the film herself. WIth the help of director Delia Mayer (Unorthodox, Tatort), actors Victoria Trauttmansdorff and Dulcie Smart, and camerawoman Isabelle Simmen. I got a sneak peak at the first episode and it’s terrific. Smart, sober and chock-a-block full of real, actual Q3 women.
As you watch, you realise how rare it is to see us. And feel seen.
Support Katja?
Katja is still raising funds to complete the series. Anybody who backs the crowdfunder with at least 15 CHF (around €16 / £14 / $17) gets an exclusive link to watch the pilot episode online. I guarantee you’ll be hooked.
Here’s the crowdfunding trailer where you can hear from Katja, explaining her vision:
Want to help? You can donate right here. I just did.
This holiday season, give a little… to our future selves, wealth and potential impact.
