Cannes Film Festival and Women's Rights
The 71. Festival de Cannes takes place from 8 May until 19 May 2018.
How can the movie industry spread women's voices? How can women tell their stories through the Cinema? 82 of the most influential women in the film industry walked the red carpet of Cannes Film Festival 2018 to call for “a world that allows all of us, in front and behind the camera, to thrive shoulder to shoulder with our male colleagues.”
Cate Blanchett, Jury President of the 71. Cannes Film Festival, and Oscar-winning film director Agnès Varda made a statement together for gender parity in the film industry. "As women, we all face our own unique challenges, but we stand together on these steps today as a symbol of our determination and our commitment to progress. We are writers, we are producers, we are directors, actresses, cinematographers, talent agents, editors, distributors, sales agents, and all of us are involved in the cinematic arts. And we stand today in solidarity with women of all industries", said Cate Blanchett in a statement co-written with Agnès Varda.
“We expect our institutions to actively provide parity and transparency in their executive bodies and provide safe environments in which to work,” Blanchett continued - “We expect our governments to make sure that the laws of equal pay for equal work are upheld. We demand that our workplaces are diverse and equitable so that they can best reflect the world in which we actually live. A world that allows all of us in front and behind the camera, all of us, to thrive shoulder to shoulder with our male colleagues.”
The march, which was organised by Time’s Up and the new French movement known as 5020×2020, preceded the premiere for Eva Husson’s movie Girls of the Sun a drama about Kurdish female freedom fighters.
Marlene Schiappa, French Junior Minister in charge of Equality between Men and Women, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the movie industry must use this week's Cannes Film Festival to "liberate and listen to women's voices". She launched a campaign together with the festival organisers to tackle sexual harassment, "The fact that the festival's presidents decided to fight with us against sexual harassment for not just actresses but also workers and spectators at the festival ... is unprecedented and a great step forward," Schiappa said.
A hotline set up to report claims of sexual harassment at this year's Cannes Film Festival, is one of several measures introduced by the festival with the French ministry, and it has been receiving several calls a day since its launch. As The Guardian stated, "Cannes’ move comes as wider French culture begins to reckon with issues of sexual misconduct. Last October, in the wake of allegations against Weinstein and the rise of the #MeToo movement, women in France began sharing their own stories of harassment and assault on social media, accompanied with the hashtag #BalanceTonPorc, or “squeal on your pig”."
Kering, that with its Foundation fights violence against women in three main regions, Americas, Western Europe and Asia, awarded the Women in Motion prize to the amazing and inspiring filmmakers Patty Jenks, who directed Wonder Woman and Monster, and Carla Simón, director of Estiu 1993 and Lipstick - Equality is still ahead of us, let’s change the mindsets! - (more information on Women In Motion).
As European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation (EIUC) / Global Campus of Human Rights we are organising the 13. edition of the Summer School Cinema Human Rights and Advocacy in partnership with CHRA. Moreover, our #EIUCpressoffice / #GCHumanRightsPress is attending the Cannes Film Festival to promote Quality Education, as the #SDG 4, and create new partnerships for the goals, as the Global Goal for Sustainable Development number 17.
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