Short answers, pulled from the story.
A film director controls the artistic and dramatic aspects of a film and guides both cast and crew toward a unified vision. On set, they oversee shot framing, give feedback to actors, and manage the creative decisions of the production. The role requires group leadership, conflict resolution, and an artistic eye, and it spans every stage of filmmaking from pre-production through the final edit.
Final cut privilege is earned by well-established directors with sufficient industry standing. It gives the director the final say over which edit of the film is released. Directors without this status can have their films further edited by the studio without their permission.
Pay varies enormously by experience and market. The average salary for film directors and producers in the United States was $89,840 in 2018, while a first-time Hollywood studio director typically earns around $400,000. A handful of top earners made between $133.3 million and $257.95 million in 2011.
Women are significantly underrepresented in directing across every major film market. In Hollywood, a UCLA study of the 200 top films of 2017 found women made up 12.6% of directors. In Europe, only 20% of films are directed by women, and in Nollywood the figure drops to 2%, according to a 2018 UNESCO report.
Auteur theory is a film criticism concept holding that a director's films reflect their personal creative vision as the primary author of the work. Under European Union law, this theory has shaped the legal recognition of the film director as the author, or one of the authors, of a film.
In recent decades, American directors have primarily come out of USC, UCLA, AFI, Columbia University, and NYU, each known for cultivating a distinct filmmaking style. Outside the United States, notable programs include the Beijing Film Academy, La Femis in Paris, FAMU in Prague, and the Film and Television Institute of India.