Female directors close to parity at Venice Film Festival

A spot in competition at Venice Film Festival can launch careers and Oscar winners, but in recent years, films directed by women have been mostly excluded from vying for coveted Golden Lion. Among 62 films that competed between 2017 and 2019, only four were me by women.

Things have improved at just-started 77th edition of festival, where 44% of films in competition are directed by women.

y include Chloé Zhao’s Great Recession drama “mland,” with Frances McDormand, Mona Fastvold’s period romance “ World to Come,” with Vanessa Kirby and Karine Waterston, Julia von Heinz’s contemporary political film “And Tomorrow Entire World” and Susanna Nicchiarelli’s “Miss Marx,” about Karl’s youngest daughter.

Festival director Alberto Barbera ted past “embarrassing percentiles” and said that films this year were selected “exclusively on basis of ir quality and t as a result of protocols.

“This is an unprecedented percentile which we hope augurs well for a future cinema that is free of any sort of prejudice and discrimination,” he said.

films this year are timely and global. German filmmaker von Heinz started to develop her script for “And Tomorrow Entire World” 20 years ago, but her story about neo-Nazis and anti-fascists in contemporary Germany has only become more relevant.

“ right-wing movement in Germany became stronger and stronger like everywhere in Western world,” she said. “2020 seems to be perfect year for this film to give birth.”

She applied to Venice specifically because of ar female-directed film, Margare von Trotta’s “Marianne and Julianne,” from 1981, which h a massive influence on her. film, based on true stories of sisters Christiane and Gudrun Ensslin, a founder of Red Faction Army, won festival’s top award that year.

“It’s sometimes very hard to make a political film which keeps its meaning over years and is t just for time it’s me,” she said. “Venice has this trition to show se kinds of films so we applied. And I was very happy that (Barbera) even compared our films at press conference.”

Applying was a -brainer for rwegian director Fastvold, who h a long history with Venice Film Festival with “Vox Lux” and “Childhood of a Leer," films she co-wrote with her partner Bry Corbet. But this is her first time being invited to be part of competition with one she directed.

Based on a Jim Shepard story, Fastvold’s “ World to Come” is about two women, married to farmers, who fall in love in 1850s New York.

“It’s about this very intense intellectual and emotional and physical connection between two women (played by Kirby and Waterston),” Fastvold said. “People would ask me, why do you want to tell story about rmal women falling in love with one ar. And I said, well, I do think that re should be a place in history for quiet ones as well. t just great icons. t just Napoleons.”

Four women have won Golden Lion in festival’s history: Sofia Coppola, for “Somewhere” in 2010, Mira Nair, for “Monsoon Wedding” in 2001, Agnes Varda for “Vagabond” in 1985 and von Trotta in 1981.

Von Heinz is particularly happy to be in company of so many women this year. She worried a little about ir track record, but is heartened by numbers, Cate Blanchett-led jury and Tilda Swinton’s lifetime achievement hor.

“I feel very comfortable and proud to be in that environment,” von Heinz said.

Fastvold said that it’s always an hor to be part of Venice but that this year feels particularly special.

“re are some really, very smart programmers in Venice who work very hard and see so many films and this year has been a very challenging year, but I think y’ve done a very great job,” Fastvold said. “You have to seek out smaller films. That’s key, right?”

Or female-directed films in main competition are Nicole Garcia's French thriller “Lovers,” with Stacy Martin, Italian filmmaker Emma Dante's “ Macaluso Sisters,” Malgorzata Szumowska's Polish drama “Never Gonna Sw Again,” and Jasmila Zbanic's "Quo Vis, Aida?” from Bosnia.

importance of platform of a major festival like Venice cant be understated, according to Women and Hollywood founder and publisher Melissa Silverstein.

“It’s become clearer as time has moved on that festivals have an even more important role to play in industry as curators of our culture,” Silverstein said. “It signals to buyers and nts and producers that this is a person who has me something that is worthy of global attention.”

But, she’s also waiting to make sure this will be a consistent activity.

“To do great once, that’s fine, but that’s just a fluke,” she ded. “It needs to be a trend.”