The Cannes Film Festival is sticking to its word. Last year the fest signed the Gender Parity Pledge, promising to make its film selection process more transparent to the public — and inspired many others to follow suit. Well, the pledge is working: Cannes has announced the members of its 2019 selection committee, marking the first time it has done so.
“Cannes officials respect the commitment they made when signing the Gender Parity Pledge by revealing publicly the full composition of its selection committee,” Delphyne Besse told Women and Hollywood. The co-founder of 5050×2020, the offshoot of Le Deuxième Regard that’s behind the pledge, continued, “It is a first, and it’s a crucial step towards parity and inclusion, as we believe transparency and accountability are essential.”
The 2019 committee has a gender split of 50/50: four women and four men. The female members are journalist and documentarian Virginie Apiou, Radio Festival programmer Stéphanie Lamome, critic and head of Télérama’s cinema department Guillemette Odicino, and columnist and director Marie Sauvion.
Lamome has also been brought on as a festival organizer. She was appointed the Artistic Advisor of the Film Department by General Delegate Thierry Frémaux and Director of the Film Department and Deputy General Delegate Christian Jeune.
Frémaux signed the Gender Parity Pledge after 82 women protested on the Cannes red carpet, in commemoration of the 82 women who have walked the Palais de Festival steps as directors with films in Competition, as compared to the 1,688 men. Women and Hollywood Founder and Publisher Melissa Silverstein was among the protesters.
Hopefully Cannes’ commitment to the pledge will also translate to the number of women-made films that make it into Competition this year. Since the fest kicked off in 1946, women have directed just five percent of Competition films.
The 2019 Cannes Film Festival will run May 14-25. Bios for the women on the selection committee are below, courtesy of Cannes.
Virginie Apiou
After studying Modern Literature at la Sorbonne, Virginie Apiou became a journalist for the written press. She also directs TV documentaries about cinema (Canal +, Warner, TCM for: Hitchcock – La Mort aux trousses ou Hitchcock – Le Crime était presque parfait, Les acteurs-réalisateurs, etc.) as well as reports for Arte (Max Ophuls, Gabin-Renoir, Abel Gance, David Cronenberg, Abbas Kiarostami, Lars von Trier).
Stéphanie Lamome
After completing a literature foundation course (also known as Khâgne), Stéphanie Lamome, from 1997 to 2015, worked as a journalist, reporter, critic, head of department and then deputy editor-in-chief of Première magazine. She is an on-air programmer for Radio Festival, the official radio of Festival de Cannes, since 2017.
Guillemette Odicino
Journalist, critic and head of the cinema department at Télérama. Since 2016, Guillemette Odicino has been the producer of the summer show «On s’fait des films» at France Inter, where she is also a culture and cinema columnist. She also appears on the program «Le Cercle» on Canal + and Canal + Cinéma.
Marie Sauvion
As a journalist, Marie Sauvion worked for a long time in the culture department of Le Parisien-Aujourd’hui en France, before taking over as editor-in-chief of the magazine Marie France until 2016. Now freelance, she is a columnist for «Le Cercle» on Canal +, producer on France Inter («Une bonne tasse d’été») and co-author of the documentary Cinéma par… Toledano et Nakache (Canal+, 2018).
