The star-studded Calvin Klein Women in Film soiree could not have come at a more appropriate moment — at a Cannes Film Festival where the death of women directors has been a major theme.
The gilded guest list of top actresses used the glamorous event on the grounds of a private mansion to speak out about equality — and perhaps show off their designer clothes.
Over the past year, numerous high-profile women in film have publicly addressed the gender gap in cinema, urging it to be narrowed and to provide more women with opportunities both on and behind the camera.
Emily Blunt struck a cynical tone on the cinema landscape parity.
“You’ll have a hit movie that women are at the forefront of and people are like ‘Oh, it’s all changing.’ And then I feel like it resorts back to what it was before ... But I do feel that things are changing,” said Blunt, who stars in Sicario, one of the 19 films competing this year for Cannes’ top prize.
Blunt, who turned action hero alongside Tom Cruise in 2014’s Edge of Tomorrow, said her role in the film “made quite an impact” as women aren’t usually seen as equal counterparts to their male stars in action movies.
“It’s always a good thing to push people’s minds that women can be tough and cool and lethal,” she said. “I do feel things are changing. Women are proving themselves time and time again to have an amazing tap of what works in cinema.”
For the first time in decades, the Cannes festival opened with a film directed by a woman — La Tete Haute by France’s Emmanuelle Bercot.
Festival director Thierry Fremaux provoked a debate by pointing out in interviews that “the number of female directors in the world is too low.” He added that the films at Cannes were selected because they suited the festival, not because of the director’s gender.
Isabelle Huppert, who stars in three films premiering in Cannes including Joachim Trier’s family drama Louder Than Bombs, echoed Blunt’s sentiments, adding that women’s roles in film need to keep progressing.
“I think women are already on a good path. It’s good to anchor it, the movies to be better and better, to give better roles to women and to give better opportunities for women to direct movies and to write scripts,” she said.
Rachel Weisz called it “very sad that an event like tonight has to happen.”
“We make up 51 per cent of planet Earth and we’re just very disproportionately represented, in terms of directors and writers — the people in charge of the storytelling. So we just need more films from women’s points of view,” she said.
French actress Melanie Laurent, who’s been cast in Angelina Jolie’s next directorial effort By The Sea, lavished praise on her boss.
“Yes, another great female director. She’s amazing, everything is so simple with her and I still can’t believe she chose me,” said Laurent.
Others, like jury member Sienna Miller, used the evening to express how the experience of the Cannes Film Festival has affected them.
“It’s completely reignited a passion. I don’t watch enough films and I think I’ll be watching a lot more, because I’m absolutely loving it, seeing that much cinema,” said Miller, who shimmered in a pearl silky gown with sporty straps.
Also at the event was Miller’s fellow Cannes jury member, actor Jake Gyllenhaal, as well as models Natalia Vodianova and Doutzen Kroes.
