For the ninth year running, CJ’s Top Women in Global Cinema is back for its 2025 edition. We’re excited and encouraged that in recent months we’ve been approached on numerous occasions about when the nominations process will begin for this year’s list – and the good news is that we can declare we are now officially accepting nominations. But for the first time in Top Women history, we have made an important change to the submission process.

Last year, we received a record number of nominations, which is brilliant. But that also meant selecting the list of final names was incredibly difficult. So, this year we are introducing some simple criteria to streamline the process and to ensure there are guidelines to assist with submitting nominations and, ultimately, our ability to produce the most deserving list possible.

For those of you looking to nominate candidates (and we hope that’s everyone reading this), we would ask that nominees meet the criteria below: 

1. Candidate should have been in the cinema exhibition industry for a minimum of two years.
2. Candidate should hold at least a management level position. 
3. Candidate should be able to demonstrate extracurricular activities / achievements / recognition / initiatives. These don’t necessarily have to be directly related to the exhibition industry but can be outlined in the submission form below.

In order to be recognised on this year’s list, nominees should demonstrate how they have made a positive difference in their business beyond their daily work, and contributed to the broader exhibition industry. Along with any career highlights and background information, please be sure to update any nomination with new, relevant accomplishments from the last 12-18 months. This will help the selection committee evaluate nominees.

If you’re unsure or have any questions, please do get in touch with us on women@celluloidjunkie.com. This is the first time in nine years that we’ve needed to introduce such guidelines – which we recognise is an incredibly positive thing, showing how widely recognised the list has become. Ultimately, our goal is to make sure that the list is truly deserving and that candidates are included because they’re truly impressive (i.e. not just good at their job, which we would assume is a given). 

And finally, as we say every year – and we can’t stress enough – we can’t compile the list without support from the industry, i.e. all of you. Please GET YOUR NOMINATIONS IN. Send them via this form. And if you’re interested in partnering with us on this project, drop us a line via email, sponsorship@celluloidjunkie.com.

The deadline for submissions is May 26 2025. The list will be published live on the CJ Cinema Summit on June 10, just prior to this year’s CineEurope (16-19th June 2025) in sunny Barcelona, Spain.