Cannes Film Festival 2023 for Female Directors: Six women — including established names, festival returnees, and one debut filmmaker — will compete for the Palme d’Or. In 2022, the Cannes Film Festival — which has faced growing pressure over the years for a lack of female representation among the filmmakers in its line-up — smashed its record for women directors in competition. However, the news of five names from 21 films vying for the Palme d’Or didn’t quite make for something to be overly enthusiastic about.
2023 looks to change the paradigm. According to Thursday’s official announcement by Thierry Frémaux, a record six female directors are set to compete for the top prize, and this time from a tight selection of 19 films (for a record 32% of the overall competition line-up). This gives a long rope of hope to aspiring female filmmakers that may command tables with the power and strength necessary to break this record.
In this line-up, we see established names and Cannes returnees, including Alice Rohrwacher with La Chimera (her fourth film to bow at the festival), Jessica Hausner with Club Zero (her fifth Cannes premiere), docu-drama Olfa’s Daughters from Kaouther Ben Hania (making her main competition debut after previously screening in Un Certain Regard), Catherine Breillat with Last Summer (her return to filmmaking after a lengthy sabbatical of 10 years and her first Cannes film since 2007) and Justine Triet, another festival regular, with Anatomy of a Fall. In Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s Banel Et Adama, the main competition includes a rare debut feature.
While it does not seem like anything was promised about this matter in 2018 when prominent industry feminists marched on the Palais and Frémaux vowed to work toward gender parity, let us count our blessings with this step towards progress. This new record is a major step up from 2015 when just two female directors were in competition. It comes following the festival’s appointment last year of its first female president in Iris Knobloch and, in 2021, Julia Ducournau becoming the second female filmmaker to win the Palme d’Or.
In 2019, when asked about the gender parity pledge he had signed in 2018, Frémaux said he never intended to program a list with 50 percent of films directed by women. (And why not!)
“People ask Cannes to do things they don’t ask other festivals to do. The Cannes Film Festival is asked to be impeccable and perfect. No one has asked me to have 50 percent of films made by women. That would show a lack of respect.”
– Thierry Fremaux.
