The Venice Film Festival signed a pledge for gender parity on Friday, following suit with Cannes, Locarno and Sarajevo film festivals.
The pledge, initiated by French organization 5050×2020, was signed by the festival’s artistic director Alberto Barbera, president of La Biennale Paolo Baratta, and the Italian groups Dissenso Comune and Women in Film, TV & Media Italia.
“The pledge outlines three objectives, similar to those signed by other festivals,” read the official statement. “1) Transparency about film selection details, 2) Transparency about the structure of the selection committees, as well as management and 3) An increase in the presence of women in the organization’s structure.”
#BiennaleCinema2018 Firmato il documento con #DissensoComune e #WomeninFilm #5050by2020 per la trasparenza delle informazioni su film pervenuti e selezionati, nella composizione di organi direttivi e selettivi e per un’alta presenza femminile nelle strutture dell’organizzazione pic.twitter.com/AALpr4AWAd
— La Biennale di Venezia (@la_Biennale) August 31, 2018
The Twitter account of 5050×2020 added that the Venice Film Festival has committed to “releasing statistics on submissions” and “being transparent about selection board gender makeups.”
Congrats to all the Italian women who worked so tirelessly to bring the folks @venicefilmfest to the table to sign #genderparitypledge.@venicefilmfest has committed to:
1- releasing statistics on submissions
2- being transparent about selection board gender makeups— 5050x2020Pledge (@5050x2020P) August 31, 2018
According to Variety, festival organizers insisted that the practices outlined in the pledge are already in effect, although the festival was heavily criticized for only selecting one film by a woman — Jennifer Kent’s “The Nightingale” for the competition — for the second year in a row. Baratta scoffed at the suggestion that the festival was seeing the repercussions of Italy’s “toxic masculinity.”
“If the Venice festival is an example of toxic masculinity because they have just one film by a woman in competition, then I don’t understand why a festival that instead has two should not be considered toxic,” he said. “In that case, all we would have to do is have three women in competition next year and the problem would be solved. This would be ridiculous!”
Additionally, Baratta said the organization would publish internal numbers on gender, and that the festival would hold a seminar every year to analyze the statistics “in order to gain a full, updated picture of the situation of women in film,” according to the press release.