On today’s episode, we look back at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival: both its many institutional failings when it comes to encouraging and promoting diversity and a bunch of great films by women that we watched from the programme.
Listen to the whole season on Women at Cannes
Today’s podcast episode recapping the 2022 Cannes Film Festival is the fifth and final episode of this season celebrating achievements of women directors at the Cannes Film Festival in Competition and beyond. Catch up with the entire season.
Episode 5 of the Women at Cannes podcast season:
This episode of the podcast features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney and Executive Editor Orla Smith
Throughout the entire Women at Cannes podcast season, we’ve been hosting a discussion about the many ways that Cannes as an institution fails women. How well or poorly did the 2022 festival do on that front?
The answer is sadly predictable. From shoving films by women to undesirable programme slots at the end of the festival run, to giving women directors awards ONLY IF they can be shared by a man, Cannes 2022 was as disappointing as most previous years. That’s not to mention the fact that an Indigenous producer was turned away from the red carpet for wearing traditional moccasins, or this Deadline report about the many racist microaggressions faced by Black attendees. As usual, it was a bit of a shit show! And we unpack that in great detail on the episode.
It was also a year that, as usual, showcased the work of a lot of incredibly talented women directors, even if they weren’t all programmed in Competition. We watched a lot of films remotely from the Cannes sidebars, and we talk about the best of them on this episode, from the sharp Japanese social commentary of Plan 75 to the unconventional life crisis comedy Everybody Loves Jeanne.
On this episode of the podcast: Cannes 2022
- Intro (0:00)
- How Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up fared at Cannes 2022 (2:40)
- The Cannes Film Festival’s backwards approach to diversity (11:10)
- The award winners (18:17)
- What we thought of Cannes films we saw (27:12)
- Closing thoughts (1:00:25)
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The Naomi Kawase episode is just one of five in our podcast season on Women at Cannes.
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Show Notes
- View the history of women directors at Cannes
- Read Alex’s review of Corsage (Marie Kreutzer)
- Read Alex’s review of Under the Fig Trees (Erige Sehiri)
- Read Alex’s review of Everybody Loves Jeanne (Céline Devaux)
- Read Alex’s review of Plan 75 (Chie Hayakawa)
- Read Alex’s review of Falcon Lake (Charlotte Lebon)
- Read Orla’s review of Aloners (Hong Seong-eun) from TIFF 2021
Related Episodes
- Women at Cannes Ep. 1: A podcast on the history of women directors at Cannes
- Women at Cannes Ep. 2: Kelly Reichardt at Cannes 2022
- Women at Cannes Ep. 3: Céline Sciamma at Cannes
- Women at Cannes Ep. 4: Naomi Kawase at Cannes
- Ep. 126: Run Woman Run: An Indigenous coming of age after 30 film
- Ep. 122: Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World
- Ep. 121: Ninjababy & Obvious Child: Unwanted pregnancies in romantic comedies
- Ep. 119: Mike Leigh’s Naked
- Ep. 118: The Souvenir Part I and II
- Ep. 43: Normal People and On Chesil Beach (Members Only)
- Bonus 23: Sundance 2022: Fiction films (Members Only)
