After some back and forth over whether the Venice Film Festival would even have an opening press conference, jury chair Maggie Gyllenhaal took questions from reporters on Wednesday as the fest kicked off, and she was directly asked to address the lack of female directors represented in the lineup.
Venice took flak this year for programming only two competition films from female directors for the 2026 festival, and in answering a question about the issue, Gyllenhaal joked, “I guess it’s just finally become clear that men make better movies than women do.”
After a chuckle, she continued: “There’s a systemic problem, obviously. I think it’s much harder for women to get their films financed. Also, could it be possible that the things that women, having had a different experience of being alive in the world, want to make movies about are not always deemed ‘high art?’ Who decides what’s good? Who decides what’s valuable?”
Gyllenhaal did shout out the fact that her jury, which includes Kaouther Ben Hania and Shahrbanoo Sadat, has “incredible female filmmakers,” but added, “I will also say that’s also a question I have, and it’s a legitimate one.”
As film festivals have become a lightning rod for political and cultural issues over the last few years, Gyllenhaal was also asked if she felt that cinema should be political. The room erupted with laughter as the “The Bride!” filmmaker said, “Alright, let’s get into it.”
“We could say, ‘How are we possibly here talking about movies right now when the world is in a state of emergency?’ To me, the answer has something to do with empathy,” she answered. “I think that film allows an opening into an opportunity to find an empathy inside of ourselves. Personally, I don’t believe that there’s any subject or any filmmaker that shouldn’t be heard. I think we can challenge ourselves to hear stories about the most corrupt, the most perverse people because it opens up the opportunity to find empathy for those people. And even to look at the ways in which we might have a little bad guy inside us. A little perversity inside us. A little corruption inside us, fight it as we might.”
And to answer the question directly, Gyllenhaal concluded: “I think if movies really are an honest look into other people’s experience, that they are fundamentally, unavoidably political.”
Gyllenhaal made her feature directorial debut with 2021’s Oscar-nominated “The Lost Daughter,” and followed that up with her Frankenstein riff “The Bride!” earlier this year. Next, she’s reteaming with Warner Bros. to direct an adaptation of Rachel Kushner’s book “Creation Lake.”
The jury president’s comments came as George Clooney defended Mark Ruffalo’s freedom of speech and declined to endorse Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery in a different Venice press conference.
Ah yes, film festival season is back.