Yesterday, my Twitter timeline exploded with the following tweet from French producer Charles Gillibert:

While infuriating, sexist, and unjust, this sentiment really does not surprise me. Here’s why: Women are not given the opportunities to direct the big-budget movies that generate large fees for agents. And agents’ jobs are to make deals happen. They are putting together packages with material and talent, and the reality is that women hardly ever make the list for films that can generate the big bucks.

This is a problem. There are plenty of women out there who are willing and able to direct the kind of big-budget flicks that will break the bank that the agencies are looking for. We even put a list of them together for a recent piece on who should direct the Wonder Woman movie.

What does happily surprise me is that a producer has gone on the record (albeit without divulging the name of the sexist bastard) and verified what we all know. And this is a man with recent experience working with women directors. This year, Mr. Gillibert has produced two movies directed by women, Mia Hansen Love’s Eden and Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon’s Lost in Paris.

I reached out to Mr. Gillibert to try and get some more information. He responded that the tweet was just to “communicate kinds of thoughts that are in the air.” “It seems to me,” he said, “that it meant that they are less driven by money and that at the end of the day it is less interesting for an agent.” And also less lucrative.

So this is just another piece of the sexism puzzle that women directors should keep in mind.