Variety, in their Cannes preview, seems to be insinuating just, by the title alone ("Will Women Directors Gain Ground?"), that there is some kind of quota that needs to be met for this year's festival. In the article Peter Debruge writes, "Will Cannes delegate general Thierry Frémaux get with the program and include more female directors?"
My response:
Cannes is not a quota festival. It recognizes excellence in cinema. If few female directors fail to produce excellent movies in a given year, that fault is on those directors, not Cannes. Lowering the bar to meet some dumb quota hurts women, not helps them. I'm perplexed, it's a quota system now? I thought festivals were a merit-based system? Based on the quality of the film and not on the gender, or race, of the director.
Why does Cannes need to get with any program? The lack of women directors is a supply problem, not awards and festival problem. They should program the festival and give awards on quality alone. Fewer women are directors due not only to the sexism of studios but fewer women choosing to do it. Also, filmmaking tends to favor people who are well-financed. It’s expensive to make movies or get an education in it, even in the digital age. A lot of voices get shut out of that career path due to that fact, men as well as women.
Debruge and writing partner Keslassy didn’t have the courage to mention that Woody Allen‘s A Rainy Day in New York, could very well premiere at Cannes as the French have not taken the bait when it comes to the Mia Farrow/Dylan Farrow assault on the 82-year-old director.
Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood-Elsewhere, whom I forwarded the article to via e-mail, had this to say:
"Woody’s films have played Cannes three or four times in the recent past, and a booking of his most recent effort, which is said to partly deal with an inappropriate-age-gap relationship between Jude Law and Elle Fanning, would be a way for festival topper Thierry Fremaux to not only honor a relationship with a still-important filmmaker but declare that Cannes is about cinematic art first and nervous-nelly politics second. Because you just know that certain strata of American journalists will freak the fuck out if and when the Woody is chosen. Does Fremaux have the balls? Will Allen have the sand to face the Cannes press corps?"
Wouldn't that be something? If Allen were invited to the festival it would be monumental, a cause for celebration for freedom of speech and letting art speak for itself.
Judging by the article, these seem to be the contenders for Cannes this year:
CANNES BOUND
Terrence Malick‘s Radegund
Asghar Farhadi‘s Everybody Knows
Lars von Trier‘s The House That Jack Built
Laszlo Nemes‘ Sunset
Paolo Sorrentino‘s Loro
Paul Verhoeven‘s Blessed Virgin
Claire Denis‘ High Life
Mike Leigh‘s Peterloo
Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s The Wild Pear Tree
Olivier Assayas‘ NonFiction
James Gray‘s Ad Astra
Jacques Audiard's The Sisters Brothers
Woody Allen‘s A Rainy Day in New York
Stefania Solluima‘s Soldado
Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War
Mia Hansen-Løve's Maya
Terry Gilliam 's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
Luca Guadagnino‘s Suspiria
Harmony Korine's Beach Bum
Alonfo Cuaron's Roma
David Robert Mitchell's Under the Silver Lake
Karyn Kusama's Destroyer
Jennifer Kent's Nightingale
David McKenzie‘s The Outlaw King
Naomi Kawase's Vision
Jeremy Saulnier’s “Hold the Dark”
Ramin Bahrani’s “Fahrenheit 451”
Xavier Dolan's “The Death and Life of John F. Donovan”
Jean-Luc Godard “Le livre d’image”
Matteo Garrone's “Dogman”
Hirokazu Kore-eda's “Shoplifting”
Jia Zhangke’s “Ash Is Purest White”
Carlos Reygadas's “Where Life is Born”
Amos Gitai's “Tramway to Jerusalem"
Gaspar Noé's “Psyché”
Felix van Groeningen’s Beautiful Boy
Alice Rohrwacher's "Lazzaro Felice"
Ciro Guerra “Birds of Passage”
Sergei Loznitsa's “Donbass”Kirill Serebrennikov's “Leto”
Stéphane Brizé's “Un Autre Monde”
Haruki Murakami's “Burning”
Koji Fukada “The Man from the Sea”
Pablo Trapero's “The Quietude”
Gabriel Mascaro’s “Overgod”
Joe Penna’s “Arctic”
Pierre Schoeller's “One Nation, One King,”
Catherine Corsini's “An Impossible Love”
Vanessa Filho's “Gueule d’Ange”
Nadine Labaki’s “Cafarnaúm”