Maggie Gyllenhaal said there is a “systemic problem” that explains why only two female directors are in the running for the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival this year. Who decides what is valuable?” The artistic directors of the film festival have faced criticism since the original lineup revealed that that only one of the 20 contenders for the top prize was by a female film-maker, Danish-Egyptian director May el-Toukhy’s Woman Unknown. Since then, the festival has boosted the main competition with NAZA, a new documentary film directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor – two of the four directors behind Oscar-winning No Other Land.
The film is produced by the Guardian. At the 83rd edition of the festival, Gyllenhaal heads a seven-member jury that also includes Kaouther Ben Hania, the Tunisian film-maker behind The Voice of Hind Rajab, Hong Kong’s Johnnie To, Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat, French film-maker Xavier Giannoli, British composer Daniel Blumberg and Italian film scholar Francesco Casetti. In the run-up to the festival, there had been some uncertainty whether the jury would speak to the press ahead of the festival opening at all, supposedly due to a “scheduling conflict”.
A lineup unusually packed with films touching politically sensitive issues – from Israel/Palestine and Russia/Ukraine to a feature film about Rupert Murdoch and a documentary about Elon Musk – meant that the jury members may also have felt nervous about facing the media on the opening day. At the jury press conference at this year’s Berlin film festival, jury president Wim Wenders faced a backlash when he said film-makers should “stay out of politics” while fielding questions about Israel and Palestine. Asked whether directors should wade into political debates or not, Gyllenhaal said what made cinema political was its ability to generate empathy, even for “the most corrupt, the most perverse people”.
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