{"id":4995,"date":"2026-07-27T15:37:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T15:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=4995"},"modified":"2026-07-27T15:37:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T15:37:50","slug":"venice-chief-alberto-barbera-under-fire-for-lack-of-female-directors-in-competition-it-is-a-one-dimensional-selection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=4995","title":{"rendered":"Venice Chief Alberto Barbera Under Fire for Lack of Female Directors in Competition: \u2018It Is a One-Dimensional Selection\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<!-- do not apply CSS styles to this element! --><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\nVenice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera has sparked criticism from several Italian film organizations \u2014 including Women in Film Television and Media Italia \u2014 for this year\u2019s sharp drop in female directors, with only one woman-helmed film in the 20-title competition.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=4993\">\u2018Heated Rivalry\u2019 Success Sparks New Publishing House From Gay Adult Entertainment Giant Falcon | NakedSword (EXCLUSIVE)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\tRegarding the Italian selection, they pointed out that: \u201cSeven male directors represent Italian cinema in competition and out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, on the festival\u2019s main stage. It is a one-dimensional selection: entirely male.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tMore broadly, \u201cQuality is not a divine, neutral, objective category suspended above history,\u201d the orgs said in an impassioned appeal published on Monday in Italian newspaper La Repubblica and posted on social media. \u201cWe know full well that it is a concept that moves and evolves, and that art is a battlefield made of bodies, tears, blood and power. It is not a pure heavenly sphere where the angels of quality flutter asexually.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe statement continued: \u201cEach selection is the result of a gaze, a culture, an imagination. Preferences, sensitivities, limitations, mistakes and a precise editorial line. To think that quality can be separated from all this is to ignore how the cultural canon is constructed and where art originates,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u201cPrecisely for this reason, the criteria by which we judge quality must themselves be continually questioned,\u201d the appeal went on to note. \u201cWhen, year after year, the outcome is such a heavily unbalanced representation, we cannot simply conclude that women directors \u2018are not good enough.\u2019 We must ask whether the tools through which we view cinema are still fit for the present day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe appeal\u2019s signatories also comprise Italian film directors\u2019 associations ANAC and 100autori, which are behind the event\u2019s Giornate Degli Autori (Venice Days) sidebar; Italian directors\u2019 guild Air3; the European Women\u2019s Audiovisual network; and Italian documentary directors\u2019 org Doc\/it.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tBeyond the glaring fact that there is just one film directed by a woman \u2014 the aptly titled drama \u201cWoman Unknown\u201d by Danish-Egyptian director May El-Toukhy \u2014 competing for the Golden Lion in Venice\u2019s competition, it represents a steep drop from the roughly 29% (6 out of 21 films) female-directed films in last year\u2019s competition. <\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe Venice Horizons section\u2014 dedicated to emerging voices and cutting edge works \u2014 features eight out of 19 films directed by women, repping roughly 42% of the section.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t think we can be accused of bias against women directors because, since 2000, Venice has awarded top prizes to more female directors than Cannes, Berlin or other festivals,\u201d Barbera told <em>Variety<\/em> in an interview last week after this year\u2019s lineup was announced.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tIndeed, over the past five years, three female filmmakers have scooped the Golden Lion: Chlo\u00e9 Zhao for the film \u201cNomadland\u201d in 2020, Audrey Diwan for \u201cHappening\u201d and Laura Poitras for the documentary \u201cAll the Beauty and the Bloodshed\u201d in 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=4991\">Diego Luna to Be Feted at Sarajevo Film Festival as \u2018Ashes\u2019 Screens<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\tLast year, Italian director Maura Delpero won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize for \u201cVermiglio.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tBarbera further pointed out to <em>Variety<\/em> that \u201cthe three presidents of this year\u2019s main juries are women,\u201d starting with Maggie Gyllenhaal who will preside over the competition jury, while French director, actor and screenwriter Val\u00e9rie Donzelli will chair the Horizons jury, and Italian screenwriter and director Carolina Cavalli will chair the jury for the Luigi De Laurentiis Venice Award for a debut film.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u201cWe were hoping to find more female-directed films for competition, but fewer were submitted,\u201d Barbera said, noting that \u201cwomen-directed fiction films accounted for 24% of submissions this year, compared with 30% last year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tBarbera added: \u201cUnfortunately, we also found them to be of lower quality, so we weren\u2019t able to include more in competition. That\u2019s a great disappointment, but there should be no suspicion of any bias on our part. The only rigid criterion we follow is the quality of the films.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tHe continued, \u201cWe are absolutely opposed to selecting films based on gender because we don\u2019t believe it\u2019s beneficial. It\u2019s humiliating for women if they\u2019re thought to have been chosen because they\u2019re women rather than because they made a good film. If we\u2019ve made a mistake by not selecting a film directed by a woman, people can judge that once they\u2019ve seen the films.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe independently-run Venice Days sidebar, curated by Gaia Furrer, boast a lineup dominated by female directors with 14 films directed by women out of 25 titles in its main selection. That lineup opens with Hungarian filmmaker Lili Horv\u00e1t\u2019s English-language debut \u201cMy Notes on Mars,\u201d starring Mackenzie Davis and Rupert Friend.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe Critics\u2019 Week section, dedicated to first works from around the world, comprises two female directors out of seven selected features in competition.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tGet ready for Barbera\u2019s male-dominated competition selection to be a big talking point at Venice, which will run Sept. 2-12. <\/p>\n<p>\n<em>Pictured above (from left to right): Venice Days artistic director Gaia Furrer, Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera, Venice Critics\u2019 Week general delegate Beatrice Fiorentino. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=4989\">Carly Simon Reveals Parkinson\u2019s Disease Diagnosis: \u2018I Have Not Stopped Living and I Have Not Stopped Working\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alberto Barbera is under fire over lack of female directors at Venice: &#8216;Quality is not a divine, neutral, objective category suspended above history.&#8217;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3986,2648],"class_list":["post-4995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-alberto-barbera","tag-venice-film-festival"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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