Prime Video released the fifth edition of the O Womaniya! Report 2025, an annual study that tracks how women are represented in Indian films and series. The report is researched and curated by Ormax Media, produced by Film Companion Studios, and supported by Prime Video. It looked at 122 films and series released in 2024 across nine Indian languages (Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali, and Gujarati) covering both theatres and streaming platforms.The findings show that there is progress in areas like corporate leadership and streaming content. But behind the camera, the numbers have slipped. Let’s take a deeper look.The O Womaniya! ToolkitThe O Womaniya! Toolkit checks how women are shown on screen and whether they have real decision-making power in the story.In simple terms, a film or series passes the test if:It has at least one named female character with dialogue who is not defined only by a romantic or family link to a male lead.A female character makes important economic, domestic or community decisions, pivotal to the story.A female protagonist voices a clear disagreement that matters to the plot with the viewpoint of a male character.The story does not treat sexualisation or violence against women as normal. This year, only 37 films and web series passed the Toolkit.While theatrical films continue to lag, OTT films showed a strong jump, a 16 percentage point increase from the previous report. Telugu content, which has traditionally scored lower on female representation, showed one of the biggest improvements.While more projects commissioned by women passed the test, a larger number of projects commissioned by men also met the benchmark this year. The report describes this as a positive surprise and emphasises on the role male allies can play in change.A noticeable dipWhile on-screen numbers show some improvement, the picture behind the camera is less encouraging. Only 13% of Head of Department (HOD) roles, across direction, cinematography, editing, writing and production design, were held by women in 2024. That is down from 15% in the previous report.Editing and cinematography saw the biggest drops, falling by 4 and 5 percentage points. Direction remained unchanged, with just 8% of analysed films and web series featuring a female director.Hindi films and web series performed better than others in this area. Nearly a quarter of the films and series analysed in Hindi had at least one female HOD. Most other language industries recorded less than 5% representation in these key roles.This means that better stories on screen do not automatically mean better representation in the crew.Marketing still skews male The way films and series are marketed also shows an imbalance. According to the report’s Trailer Talk Time metric, which measures how much dialogue female characters get in a film or series’ main trailer, women accounted for only 29% of trailer dialogue across the 122 analysed films and web series. This marks a small increase from 27% in 2022. But it still means that 71% of trailer dialogue is spoken by male characters.OTT platforms performed better here too, with women getting 36% of trailer talk time. Some of the films and web series that ranked high in this category include Follow Kar Lo Yaar, Big Girls Don’t Cry, Do Patti, Crew, Heart Beat, The Tribe, Naach Ga Ghuma, Call Me Bae and Heeramandi. One of the strongest signals of progress this year comes from corporate leadership.Across 110 Director and CXO positions analysed at 25 leading media and entertainment firms, female representation rose from 12% in the previous report to 18% in the current one.Streaming as a catalystThe report was accompanied by a roundtable discussion hosted by Anupama Chopra, where filmmakers and actors reflected on the findings and shared their own experiences from the industry.Bhumi Pednekkar, ActorI remember this one day when I was an assistant, and Neha Parti, who’s an incredible DOP and has done such brilliant work, I had the opportunity of working with her. She was eight months pregnant on that film set. I can never erase that visual of Neha, fully ready to deliver another human being, and still being there. She was present till the very last day.Stories like these show both the challenges women still face and the strength with which they keep moving forward.For more such interesting insights and industry perspectives, watch the full roundtable discussion here:The road aheadThe report makes one thing clear that representation is not just about who appears on screen but also about who writes the script, who holds the camera, who edits the film, who markets it, and who decides what gets made.If the progress seen in streaming and boardrooms continues and spreads more evenly across crews and theatrical releases, the industry can move from small steps to real, lasting change.The full O Womaniya! 2025 Report, including detailed analysis, is available at www.owomaniya.org.