As the press and the film industry descend on Cannes this week, this gives us an opportunity to remind people one of the biggest problems that plague this festival as well as the industry in general — the lack of opportunities for women directors.
The powers that be in the Cannes Film Festival have done a very good job of shifting the narrative away from the lack of women directors wanting us to believe that this is a banner year for women at the festival. They have appointed some wonderfully talented women like Sofia Coppola and Andrea Arnold to be on the juries across the festival, and three women are presiding over them. Jane Campion will run the main main jury (which is equally divided be gender), and Nicole Garcia and Rebecca Zlotowski are the jury leaders over the Camera d’Or and the Critics Week respectively.
But that still does not take away from the fact that there are only TWO women directors in the main competition and that is just not enough.
Here’s a look at women directors over the last decade at Cannes. Does this look like things are getting better?
FYI- The numbers of women directors include directed and co-directed.