In news that could either be an attempt to rectify its exclusion of women directors or a simple fuck-you, Venice Film Festival is premiering the first four hours of an epic 16-hour doc about women in film — one that is directed by a dude. Screen Daily confirms Mark Cousins’ “Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema” will debut in Venice’s Classics section.
After the announcement that Jennifer Kent’s “The Nightingale” would be the only woman-helmed film to screen in Competition, and the bogus defense about not adopting quotas (“If we start viewing with quotes or percentages in mind, I think the first to be hurt will be women filmmakers.”), the fest decides showing a male director’s history of women in filmmaking is the way to make everyone happy?
Well, that plan failed spectacularly.
It’s nothing against Cousins personally. He has stated his goal is to “change the canon” and described the doc as “a film school, where all the teachers are female.” But the fact of the matter is that “Women Make Film” will be a skewed depiction of women because it was made from a man’s perspective — even if he is one of the good guys.
The conversation about who gets to tell which stories is ongoing. Hopefully, we’ll eventually not have to talk about it at all, but for now, when women are so limited in their opportunities to tell their own stories, it is an affront to have a male director do it instead.
The doc, which will be finished in spring 2019, is set to showcase women filmmakers from all around the world, such as Agnès Varda , Jane Campion, Angelina Jolie, Lynne Ramsay, Sally Potter, Lois Weber, Anne Hui, Safi Faye, Mania Akbari, Binka Zhelyazkova, and Clio Barnard, according to Deadline. It will also be narrated and exec produced by Tilda Swinton. The doc “will show how films are made, shot, and edited; how stories are shaped and how movies depict life, love, politics, humor, and death, all through the lens of some of the world’s greatest women directors.”
All in all, “Women Make Film” sounds like an interesting project, but it’s not enough to make up for Venice’s historical apathy about women directors, parity, and inclusion. Screening a film about a handful of female directors is not the equivalent of screening a handful of films from female directors: it only highlights the persistent gender gap at festivals and in film overall.
Venice Film Fest will run August 29 – September 8. Just 13 percent of the films screening in the major categories (Competition, Out of Competition, and Orizzonti) are directed or co-directed by women.
