Stars call for gender equality at Cannes as debate on quotas continues

'It all exists — we just have to pay attention to it and bring it up'
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Lucy Pavia16 May 2019

A-list stars are calling for greater female representation at the Cannes Film Festival.

Tilda Swinton, who appeared at Cannes to promote Jim Jarmusch movie The Dead Don’t Die, told a press conference that more needed to be done to support female filmmakers.

“Women have been making films for 11 decades now,” she said. “There are countless films out there. Why don’t we necessarily know about them? We have women filmmakers. Some are working bars, some are still in school, some can’t get into school. But that’s where we need to start. We need to look at the canon, appreciate it, stream it. Then it will exist amongst us. It’s not some ‘other’ thing that we have to somehow find. It all exists — we just have to pay attention to it and bring it up.”

Last year, 82 female actors and filmmakers came together on the steps of Cannes' red carpet to protest the gender equality shortcomings of the industry and Cannes. Kristen Stewart, Ava Duvernay, Patty Jenkins and more stood in solidarity as jury member Cate Blanchett said, "We are 82 women, representing the number of female directors who have climbed these stairs since the first edition of the Cannes film festival in 1946."

She continued, "In the same period, 1,688 male directors have climbed these very same stairs. The prestigious Palme d'Or has been bestowed upon 71 male directors, too numerous to mention by name, but only two female directors."

This year, 47 films will be screened at Cannes this year and just twelve of them have come from female directors. Only four of the twelve will compete for the Palm d'Or.

Meeting press on Monday, Cannes chief Thierry Fremaux - who in 2018 signed a 5050x2020 gender pledge to improve parity at the festival - defended the Cannes record on female filmmakers. "No one has asked me to have 50% films made by men and women apart from the press. It would show a lack of respect to select a film just because it's made by a woman," he said.

Fremaux also responded to criticism over the decision to award French actor Alain Delon, who has been accused by activists of sexism and homophobia, with an honorary Palme d’Or on Sunday. “We are not going to give Alain Delon the Nobel Peace Prize. We’re giving him a Palme d’Or for his career as an actor,” he said.

Julianne Moore weighed in the gender quota debate, saying at a Cannes talk on Wednesday that she believed they were necessary to “level the playing field.”

She continued, "I do believe in quotas, I really do. I believe in trying to level the playing field for everybody regardless of their gender, their culture or their ethnicity. You have to open doors, we've been in a culture that's been one way for a very long time."

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