It’s day six at the Cannes Film Festival and all three of the Competition films directed by women have premiered. Both Andrea Arnold’s “American Honey” and Maren Ade’s “Toni Erdmann” (still one of my favorites of the festival) played very well, and the good news is that both are original pieces. There are many films to go, but the lineup in general feels quite strong. The first boos did erupt yesterday after a press screening of “Personal Shopper” starring Kristen Stewart in her second film here at the festival, the first being Woody Allen’s controversial “Cafe Society.” “Personal Shopper” is far from universally panned, though: it’s been getting some good reviews, and Stewart’s performance has received positive attention. (Also bear in mind that some films to receive boos at their premiere later took home the Palme d’Or, such as 2011’s “Tree of Life.” So being booed at Cannes is by no means a death sentence to a film post-Cannes, or even at the fest itself.)
“Toni Erdmann” and Maren Ede are hopefully going to continue to be in the conversation for the Palme d’Or as the festival continues. An interesting thing to note is that Ade completed her final edit and five months of post-production while taking care of her one-year-old son. So much for moms not being able to perform at the top of the business.
There’s so much going on here; you could spend the whole week just attending meetings and events and never even setting foot in the theater. For those who don’t get into the Grand Theatre Lumiere, it is a missed opportunity. The 8:30 am press screenings make even the jaded writers excited. There is always a big clap each morning when the signature Cannes song plays following by the Cannes logo.
Don’t get me wrong — this place is a walking contradiction. While there are still not enough women in the lineup (see our infographic) there is an abundance of talking about the status of and opportunities for women. There have been many star-studded talks, including one with Jodie Foster (which I couldn’t attend, because her film was playing opposite it). Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon were here to get awards from Kering and have a conversation. Sarandon made news by bashing Woody Allen and saying that in today’s film climate “Thelma and Louise” would never get made, or if it was made, it would be a cartoon.
Other panels have included the launch of We Do It Together, the star-studded non-profit that announced they are financing short films to be directed by women who have made features, and which each will star a Hollywood actress.
Directors UK took the festival by storm and had a panel on their recently released research on the systemic problems in the UK film business. They are the same types of systemic issues that the U.S. and other countries have: women fall out all across the pipeline, and have fewer opportunities to work. When money enters the conversation, women disappear. They got the head of the BFI Amanda Nevill to agree to fund films equally by 2020, as Germany has done. (We’ll be watching.)
The Swedes, who have led the world on equal funding, had a massive showing at their big event on the beach. They were able to get the French Minister of Culture to show up and speak about women directors. The French government supports Cannes and has to know how under-represented they are. Unfortunately, none of the Minister’s remarks mentioned that. The Swedish Minister of Culture and Democracy stood up and made a solid commitment to push her European counterparts towards equal funding and said that they have received support from Romania, Finland, Spain, and Latvia, countries that have woefully few women directors.
Eurimages, which includes the 37 countries in the EU, has helped increase funding for women 10 percent in the last three years. They will also be giving out an award each year at a major European festival, and will highlight a female director. Anna Serner, the head of the Swedish Film Institute, through this event again showed that she is one of the best thinkers and strongest advocates on this issue.
Back to the contradictions — there are two notable headlines from today, one from the NY Times that says “At Cannes, Women Turn Out in Force,” and another from USA Today that reads, “Cannes Struggles with Representation of Women Directors.” Well, which is it? To me, it is both, and that’s part of my struggle. There is so much talk. We are all excited at the initiatives and the interest from the guys, and the push for funding. Now we need movement in the numbers. I’m not going to pretend that this won’t take a number of years. It will. Until we see the numbers tick up in meaningful ways, the campaign will not be over.
One final point I want to raise attention to is the fact that, while there many numerous entities looking to give women opportunities, none of them feature large budgets. This is where we are still not making progress. While I am happy for movies directed by women to be made at any price, I don’t want there to become a girl ghetto where women are given low budgets and that‘s it. Women need access to the same financial opportunities as men.
