Venice Film Festival gender gap criticised by director

Danish director May el-Toukhy has criticised the lack of women in the Venice Film Festival's top competition, saying progress made after the #MeToo movement appeared to be slipping back.

El-Toukhy was selected in July as the only female filmmaker in a 20-film competition field. Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, she noted the irony that her film, “Woman Unknown”, is about women being unseen and without a voice.

“After #MeToo, I think all of us were really aware of this gender imbalance,” she told reporters. “And something has happened over the course of the last couple of years where we're kind of returning to, you know, what it used to be -- and so we have to be better.”

The Venice lineup later added another competition film co-directed by a woman, the documentary “NAZA”, about the Israeli killing of civilians in Gaza.

Festival chief Alberto Barbera angered critics in July when he said submissions from women “were not enough to put them into the competition”.

El-Toukhy, a Danish-Egyptian director, said she had faced gender bias while trying to finance films. She said it took six or seven years to get her first film financed, while male peers moved faster.

American actor and director Maggie Gyllenhaal, who heads this year's Venice competition jury, also said during the festival that it was harder for women to get films financed. Italian actress Jasmine Trinca told AFP she was “alarmed” and “angry” at seeing only one woman in competition.

A USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative study described 2025 as a “Great Recession” for women directors in the United States, saying women were attached to just nine of the 100 top-grossing films at the box office.