CANNES, France (AP) – Women are the talk of the Cannes Film Festival, where debate rages about why they are so plentiful in front of the camera and so scarce behind it.
Long criticized for its dearth of female directors, Cannes opened this year with a film by a woman for the first time since the 1980s. The selection coincides with a spate of industry soul-searching that has seen high-profile women talk publicly about the challenges they face in a male-dominated industry.
“One thing that was difficult for me was integrating my family with my career,” actress Isabella Rossellini said Thursday at the first of a series of talks on women in cinema sponsored by French luxury firm Kering.
“I think a lot of women cannot be directors because they have children and they have to take care of them,” said the “Blue Velvet” star, who has directed an acclaimed series of short films on the sex lives of animals.
She said long Hollywood hours are “unbelievably difficult for family,” and in the U.S. “you can tax deduct lunch with your business partner but not a baby-sitter.”