Maggie Gyllenhaal, serving as jury president for the 83rd Venice Film Festival, delivered a compelling call for empathy during the opening press conference on Wednesday. The event set the tone for an edition unfolding amid politically charged global circumstances.
When asked whether cinema should engage with politics, Gyllenhaal emphasized the importance of remaining open to diverse filmmakers and stories from all backgrounds.
“To me, the answer has something to do with empathy. I think that film allows an opening, an opportunity to find empathy inside ourselves. Personally, I don’t believe there is any subject or any filmmaker that shouldn’t be heard,” she explained.
“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.”
“I think that if movies really are an honest look into other people’s experience, then they are fundamentally, unavoidably political, as well as a lot of other things.”
Gyllenhaal presides over an accomplished jury that includes Tunisian director and screenwriter Kaouther Ben Hania, English composer and artist Daniel Blumberg, Italian professor Francesco Casetti, French director and screenwriter Xavier Giannoli, Afghan director and screenwriter Shahrbanoo Sadat, and Hong Kong director and producer Johnnie To. These jury members did not join Gyllenhaal on stage, as she was accompanied by the jury heads for the festival’s other competitive sections.
Dearth of women
A significant portion of the press conference centered on the underrepresentation of women, with only two female directors featured in the main competition. Gyllenhaal initially addressed the disparity with a lighthearted quip suggesting it proved male directors were superior, before engaging more seriously with the issue.
“There’s a systemic problem,” she stated.
Gyllenhaal acknowledged that securing financing remains more challenging for women filmmakers, but pointed to deeper structural issues that hinder their progress.
“Could it be possible that the things 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?”