HOW TO THINK ABOUT IT

One year later. At the 71st Cannes Film Festival last year, 82 women representing the 82 female directors who’ve had films premiere in the competition (compared to 1,645 male directors) stood on the event’s iconic staircase and called for change. The festival adopted a new charter promising to close or at least narrow the gender gap. In some ways it’s made a difference: Cannes saw a half-female selection committee for the first time in its history. The films in competition, however, are only 27.5 percent female-helmed, a discrepancy festival director Thierry Fremaux says is the industry’s responsibility to correct.

Excuses, excuses. Four films directed by women are competing for the Palme d’Or this year — out of a total of 19 — following a selection process whose details haven’t been disclosed. Three women-directed films were chosen in 2018. But Fremaux is dealing with other controversies: Legendary French actor Alain Delon, 83, is getting an honorary Palme d’Or this year, but an online petition urged the festival to cancel it due to statements made by Delon about having slapped women in the past. Fremaux said Delon is free to say what he likes, adding, “We’re not giving [him] the Nobel Peace Prize.”

For the win? The festival is full of heavy hitters this year, including previous Palme d’Or winners Ken Loach and Terrence Malick, and Bong Joon Ho, the Korean genius behind Snowpiercer. But there are some exciting newcomers too: Mati Diop, a French director who’s the first Black woman selected to compete at Cannes, and Ladj Ly, who’s making his feature debut and Cannes debut with political drama Les Misérables (not the musical).

A legend gone. One of the 82 women who protested last year was French New Wave pioneer Agnès Varda. She died two months ago at 90 years old, but she’s featured on the Cannes poster this year, which shows her filming her 1955 classic La Pointe Courte. Cannes’ embrace of Varda is an inclusive sign — but she might not be pleased about the lack of progress made when it comes to including female creatives like Cate Blanchett and the others who marched with her in 2018 (pictured right).

Back in the fold. Some film buffs have worried in recent weeks that Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood wouldn’t be finished in time for the festival’s deadline. But the film, set in 1969 against the backdrop of the Charles Manson murders, will be presented after all. Absent from the discourse are accusations made last year by longtime Tarantino collaborator Uma Thurman, who told The New York Times that pressure and intimidation from Tarantino to do dangerous stunts left her with permanent injuries. She also claimed that she told Tarantino that Weinstein had tried to assault her — and he agreed to bring Weinstein on board with Thurman’s Kill Bill anyway.

WHAT TO READ

Cannes 50/50 Parity Pledge, One Year Later: Has the Festival Delivered? by Rebecca Keegan in The Hollywood Reporter
"‘Cannes and any festival, we are the last stage of that journey,’ says Frémaux. ‘The journey of having more female directors starts in cinema school and university.’ ”

The Cannes Film Festival — With Roger Ebert As Your Tour Guide, by Rico Gagliano in The Wall Street Journal
“What seemed like a cross section of the world’s population thronged the street outside Le Petit Majestic — a horse-betting bar by day, a designated meeting place for insomniacs by night.”

WHAT TO WATCH