‘NEVER THE SAME AGAIN’
Festivals eye gender parity in post-Weinstein world
Asia Argento said he raped her during the Cannes Film Festival. Mira Sorvino said he chased her around a hotel room at the Toronto International Film Festival. Rose McGowan’s alleged encounter happened at the Sundance Film Festival.
Just as Harvey Weinstein did at the Oscars, the disgraced movie mogul lorded over the festival world, which provided the glitzy, champagne-flowing setting for many of his alleged crimes. And in the aftermath of Hollywood’s sexual harassment scandals, film festivals have done some soul searching.
Codes of conduct have been rewritten, selection processes have been re-examined and, in many cases, gender equality efforts have been redoubled.
The 17th annual Tribeca Film Festival, which opened Wednesday, boasts more female filmmakers than ever. After last year accounting for a third of the slate, films directed by women make up 46 per cent at this year’s festival.
Jane Rosenthal, co-founder of the festival and chief executive of Tribeca Enterprises, particularly wanted to launch this year’s festival with the première of a film directed by a woman, about a woman. Lisa Dapolito’s Love Gilda, about the comedienne Gilda Radner, kicked things off at New York’s Beacon Theatre. The first episode of Liz Garbus’ Showtime docuseries The Fourth Estate, about the New York Times covering the first year of the Trump administration, will debut April 28. Also on that Saturday, the festival will hold a day ’s worth of conversations with #TimesUp activists, including Ashley Judd and Julianne Moore, to benefit the legal-defence fund and gender-equality initiative.
“For us it was, on one hand, business as usual,” said Rosenthal, pointing to how Tribeca has previously promoted female filmmakers, like its Nora Ephron Award. “But we tasked ourselves early on with: Can you get to 50-50? Can we have 50 per cent women filmmakers at the festival? We got to 46. I would say it was fairly easy for us. Those pictures would probably have been in the festival without that kind of mandate.”
Efforts to improve the film industry’s gender-equality record have been ongoing at many major festivals in recent years. Pursuing parity has seemed like an arms race with various festivals touting their male-to-female ratios. The festival world is far ahead of the industry (only eight of last year’s top 100 grossing films were directed by women) and the Academy Awards (Greta Gerwig this year became just the fifth woman nominated for best director).
Thirty-seven per cent of the 122 features at this year’s Sundance were directed by women, including Seeing Allred, about women’s rights lawyer Gloria Allred. For the first time, all four of the festival’s directing prizes went to women. The Grand Jury Prize went to Desiree Akhavan’s The Miseducation of Cameron Post.
At SXSW in March, eight of the 10 films in the narrative competition were female directed. At last fall’s Toronto festival, one third of entries were made by women and a five-year, $3-million campaign was launched to support female filmmakers.
Toronto’s Hot Docs Festival reached gender parity for the first time this year. A year after a program featured 48 per cent femaledirected projects, this year’s 246 films and 16 interdisciplinary projects are 50/50 on gender.
Shane Smith, director of programming at Hot Docs, which begins April 26, said reflecting the diversity and demands of the audience is imperative for “cultural gatekeepers” like film festivals.
“We were hoping we could get to gender parity,” said Smith. “Once we started screening the work … and the quality of the films and the stories were being told by female filmmakers, we saw it was a goal that was achievable this year.
“We weren’t going to force this to happen if the work wasn’t there. But given the strides that have happened in the last few years, it was easy, actually.”
The Cannes Film Festival, which opens May 8, has a different strategy. Artistic director Thierry Fremaux has responded to complaints about the number of women selected for its Palme d’Or by saying a festival should only consider a submission’s merit, that progress can only come from studios and production companies.
“The question of a quota in no case concerns the artistic selection of a festival,” Fremaux said. “Films are chosen for their quality.”
Weinstein, who has denied allegations of sexual assault, had for years dominated Cannes. His fall was felt acutely.
“The Cannes Film Festival will never be the same again,” said Fremaux, who vowed to re-examine the festival’s own gender parity in salaries and jury selections.
Weinstein had less of a connection with Tribeca, but the scandal still hit close to home: The Weinstein Co. is based in the same building as the Tribeca Enterprises headquarters.
But as a #TimesUp member herself, Rosenthal hopes the industry is ready for overdue change.
“I’ve had a women’s lunch for 15 years at the festival,” said Rosenthal. “Now, it’s going to be very crowded.”