Cannes Film Festival just announced their full competition jury and we’re celebrating the female-majority! For the first time since 2014, they are adding more women to the mix like actress Kristen Stewart and A Wrinkle in Time director Ava DuVernay. This comes after the previous announcement that Cate Blanchett will be the jury president!
The three women will also be joined by Burundian singer Khadja Nin and actress Lèa Seydoux. The rest of the jury will be French director Robert Guédiguian, Wong Kar-Wai, Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villenueve, Andrey Zvyagintsev, and Chinese actor Chang Chen.
“For the last four years, I’ve become much more concerned about the presence of women at the festival,” said Cannes artistic director Theirry Fremaux to Variety. “I’ve been having discussions with intelligent women like Jessica Chastain and have listened to their advice about ways to improve certain things. We’ve started paying more attention to the gender ratio on our selection committees, for instance. Right now, two out of the three committees have as many women as men.”
This also comes after the issue that there were only a few female directors who are part of the official competition. The Guardian reports that only three out of 17 films competing for the Palm d’Ore were made by women even if the festival’s Un Certain Regard section features more female directors.
We’ve got a long way to go, but this is definitely a change in the international movie scene.
Watch this space as we update you on the film festival happening on May 8 to May 19.
[Variety and The Guardian]
Photo courtesy of Marie Claire and Fortune
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