Whenever actress Cate Blanchett starts shooting a new movie or series, she always encounters the same situation. Blanchett, who attended the Kering Women in Motion Talks during the Cannes Film Festival said, “It’s like Groundhog Day, I enter the set, there are 50 people, and only three of them are women. When will this situation really change?”
“It’s like Groundhog Day,” Cate Blanchett remarked during the Kering Women in Motion Talks at the Cannes Film Festival. She finds herself surrounded by familiar faces, mainly men whom she deeply respects and enjoys working with, yet she can’t shake the feeling of imbalance. “I do the head count, and I’m back in the same place, working with men who I love working with and respect, [but] I’m walking on set and there’s 50 people on set and there’s three women. When is this going to deeply, profoundly shift?”
Blanchett is actively challenging the entrenched male-dominated system despite the numerous discussions, protests, and calls for change. Alongside premiering her latest film “Rumours,” which she also executive produced, she’s using her platform at the festival to advocate for Proof of Concept. This accelerator program, co-founded by Blanchett and her Dirty Films partner Coco Francini, aims to empower women, transgender, and nonbinary individuals by funding their short films. This week, Proof of Concept will unveil its first cohort of filmmakers, selected from a pool of 1,200 applicants.
Blanchett emphasizes the importance of diverse perspectives in filmmaking. She believes that the experiences and viewpoints of women, transgender, and nonbinary filmmakers offer fresh angles and unique storytelling approaches. “Their point of view, in whatever story, in whatever genre they tell it, will be different from somebody who has grown up [as a] white middle class male,” she noted. “It’s a different perspective. They’ll put the camera in a different place in the room. And I think that’s really exciting.”
Blanchett is frustrated by the double standards applied to female directors compared to their male counterparts, particularly when it comes to taking creative risks. She criticizes the industry’s tendency to reward male filmmakers for bold choices while subjecting women to harsh scrutiny. “The industry, the more it embraces being risk-averse, the more it’s doomed to being full of banal failures,” she remarked. She advocates for a cultural shift where female filmmakers are supported regardless of their successes or failures, akin to the treatment male directors receive.
Just 6% of the directors of the top-grossing movies were women
The film industry still has a long way to go in providing equal opportunities for women, transgender, and nonbinary individuals both on and off-screen. Recent reports highlight the stark underrepresentation of women and gender-diverse individuals in directing roles and speaking characters in top-grossing movies.
Just 6% of the directors of the 1,700 top-grossing movies were women between 2007 and 2023, and only 2 were transgender, according to a recent report by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. And that impacts the opportunities in front of the camera, as well. Less than one-third of all speaking characters in those same films were girls, women, trans or nonbinary people.
Despite successful films featuring women, such as “Barbie” and “Anatomy of a Fall,” a glass ceiling persists for female-led productions. “Proof of Concept” aims to dismantle this barrier by empowering female filmmakers to create larger-scale movies across various genres traditionally dominated by men.
Source: Variety