By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
CANNES, France (AP) --Eighty-two women climbed the steps of the Palais des Festivals at the Cannes Film Festival in an unprecedented red carpet protest to press for improved gender equality in the film industry.
The number of stars, filmmakers and film industry professionals ascending the steps represented the number of female filmmakers who have been selected to compete at Cannes during the festival's seven-decade history.
In contrast to their 82, 1,866 films directed by men have been picked for the prestigious festival lineup.
Organizers said the event was orchestrated by the Time's Up movement and the French movement known as 5020×2020 to show "how hard it is still to climb the social and professional ladder" for women.
It brought an array of film industry professionals to the Cannes red carpet, including actresses Salma Hayek and Jane Fonda, "Wonder Woman" filmmaker Patty Jenkins and French director Agnes Varda, a recipient of an honorary Palme d'Or at Cannes.
Also joining were the five female members of this year's Cannes jury: Cate Blanchett, Kristen Stewart, Ava DuVernay, Lea Seydoux and Burundian singer Khadja Nin. Blanchett read a statement atop the Palais steps in English; Varda read it in French.
"Women are not a minority in the world, yet the current state of the industry says otherwise," Blanchett said. "We stand together on these steps today as a symbol of our determination to change and progress."
"The stairs of our industry must be accessible to all," she concluded. "Let's climb."
The protest was held ahead of the premiere of French filmmaker Eva Husson's "Girls of the Sun," which is about a Kurdish battalion of women soldiers. Husson is one of three female filmmakers out of the 21 movies in competition for the Palme d'Or this year.
The other two — Nadine Labaki's "Capernaum," and Alice Rohrwacher's "Happy as Lazzaro" — are to premiere next week.
Cannes has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years over the number of female directors selected into its main slate, considered one of the most esteemed achievements in cinema. Jane Campion is the only female filmmaker to ever win the Palme.
The festival supported Saturday's protest. Festival director Thierry Fremaux earlier this week hailed Saturday's event as a way for women "to affirm their presence."
Fremaux has repeatedly insisted that the festival chooses its films purely based on quality. But he's also signaled that the festival is reanalyzing its procedures and making its selection committees gender-balanced.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More