Venice Film Festival, Aug. 31-Sept. 10, 2022

[oscar jubis]

So the best two films were directed by females, and the directors who won the Golden Lion in the previous two years are also women. Is this a sign that the industry is truly becoming more accessible to women filmmakers?

[Chris Knipp]

I didn't even notice. I don't pay attention to these things.
IN answer to your question: No. Not necessarily. It's most of all a sign that these women are making good films, and jurors are trying to reward them.

I've been writing about Claire Denis, certainly one of my all-time fovorite directors, who is definitely a woman.

Also one of my all time favorite writers is a woman, Jane Austen, and one of the greatest novels in English of all time is Middlemarch, by George Eliot, a woman.

But n the plastic arts, in painting, women don't matter very much to me. And in classical music or jazz, not so many women stand out. Exceptions: Martha Argerich (big one) and Marin Alsop (pioneer woman director: I've reviewed the documentary about her. And she was the BSO conductor - Baltimore, my home town!)

[Chris Knipp]

P.s. IN the new documentary My Imaginary Country/Mi país imaginario by Patricio Guzmán coming out Sept. 23 I will have a review) I was struck that all of the people in it are women and the people who created a new government and a new constitution of Chile were for the first time equally represented of both sexes, the film says. This is how it has to be now, patriarchy must end or there can be no real equality and hence no justice.

[Chris Knipp]

Notice Toronto is on. I've not been attempting to cover it remotely. It's the biggest one around. That's why. But Bradshaw has been doing his usual quick, accessible coverage so I may report from it, if time allows.