Cannes 2021: Julia Ducournau To Tang Yi, 5 Women Who Made History At The Film Festival

In Spike Lee's main International Feature Films Competition Jury, women constituted the majority - five out of nine - for the first time in the festival's history

The Cannes Film Festival has for long, and not without reason, faced flak for the gender skew in its official selection and jury composition. The festival's 74th edition, held in the shadow of a pandemic and returning after a gap year, made a concerted effort to address the issue. When the curtains fell on the 12-day event, women made history, winning five of the major prizes handed out across the festival's sections. In Spike Lee's main International Feature Films Competition Jury, women constituted the majority - five out of nine - for the first time in the festival's history. Apart from the three other men on the panel - Kleber Mendonca Filho, Tahar Rahim and Song Kang-ho - the jury had Mati Diop, Mylene Farmer, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jessica Hausner and Melanie Laurent. There is no way of knowing if the five women on the jury tilted the scales in favour of Julia Ducournau. If they did, more power to them! The five-member Un Certain Regard Jury, too, had three women: president Andrea Arnold, director-screenwriter Mounia Meddour and actress Elsa Zylberstein. The other two members were filmmaker Daniel Burman and director-producer-actor Michael Covino. Two other festival juries - one for the Camera d'or award, the other for Cinefondation and Short Films - were also headed by women, the former by actress Melanie Thierry, the latter by filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania.